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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: November 7, 2000
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: The 2000 Presidential Election, as experienced on network television.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: The 2000 election was important on any number of fronts, obviously. It changed the course of this country for the next eight years, for good, ill, or indifferent; it underlined stark differences between right and left wing, entrenchments that gave rise to Red America vs. Blue America tensions; it gave us some of the best Saturday Night Live political material of all time, specifically the debate sketches …
… of course, that’s not a political accomplishment; that’s a TV accomplishment. Which is why we’re talking about the anniversary of 2000 Election here in this space. Because as crucial as Bush/Gore 2000 was for the future of America, it was an inarguable milestone for television. And while comedy may have been king before and after, Election Night itself was a showcase for the network news desks that hung on every exit poll.
The indecision surrounding the outcome of the election — the recounts and rescinded concessions and Supreme Court intervention, all dramatized in the highly watchable HBO film Recount [watch on HBO GO] — was a spectacle the likes of which American politics had never seen.
The calling, and mis-calling, of Florida, first for Gore, then for Bush, then for no one, was a three-ring-circus right there for everybody to see on NBC or ABC or CBS. NBC’s coverage was perhaps the most compelling, because it featured the late Tim Russert as lion-tamer, beating back the chaos of uncertainty with his handy whiteboard. At some point, haggling over electoral math was ditched in favor of a less concrete mandate” FLORIDA / FLORIDA / FLORIDA” Russert’s board read.
Meanwhile, you had Tom Brokaw, as authoritative a voice as we’ve ever had on network news, plainly and repeatedly admitting that the networks screwed up by calling the Florida result too soon, not only once but twice. I’m not sure that willingness to mea culpa on the spot and disinterest in covering one’s own ass exists anymore, merely 15 years later. Or maybe nobody has the kind of job security Brokaw had back then.
More than anything, looking back at the 2000 fracas there was a sense of … if not necessarily fun, then at least a heedlessness that said that no matter how life-or-death the campaigns themselves behaved about the outcome, the rest of us could just sit back and enjoy the chaos of the electoral process. I’m not sure we have it in us to be that cavalier about it anymore. Who knows if we’ll ever get the chance to test that theory.
[You can watch HBO’s Recount on HBO GO.]
Joe Reid (@joereid) is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. You can find him leaving flowers for Mrs. Landingham at the corner of 18th and Potomac.
