Is it something along the lines of “America’s having an election today” or something more indepth. In the US foreign elections rarely get any kind of mention in mainsteam media. Iraq has been the only exception of late.
This website, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s, will give you an idea of the Canadian coverage. There are several stories included today on the election, including from earlier in the day on the issues with the actual voting process that was occurring in some places.
Also, many, if not most, Canadians also get American television channels as part of cable t.v. packages. For example: I get ABC and NBC out of Detroit and CBS from Minneapolis, Fox from Boston, TBS out of Atlanta, CNN, CNBC, etc. This means that many of us have seen a lot of coverage directly, including the huge concentration of negative ads.
Ninemsn’s biggest story at this moment is “NSW minister sacked, charged with sex offences”, and the other headlines are
[ul][li]Howard doubts Stern Report[/li][*"Fugitive Foster granted bail
[li]Harbour terror drill on ferry[/li][li]Australia hotter, drier: Turnbull[/li][li]Body in water near Coogee[/li][li]Ties with Asia ‘hampered’[/ul][/li]There’s a photograph of Britney and her soon-to-be ex under the headline “K-Fed Up”, and there are some other news stories regarding interest rates rising a quarter of a percent, a fire at a power station, epileptic jailed over fatal smash, Saddam urges peace in Iraq, U2 pleads for Hicks’ freedom… no election stuff is jumping out at me.
ABC reports on
[ul]
[li]Higher interest rates starting to bite: Reserve Bank[/li][li]NSW Minister sacked amid child sex allegations[/li][/ul]The “Top Stories” on the site are
[ul]
[li]Aust-Indonesia security pact ‘undemocratic’[/li][li]Valuable information received in Brimble inquest[/li][li]High Court clears way for man’s deportation[/li][li]Early US poll results favour Democrats[/li][li]Japanese signal start of Cup dynasty[/ul][/li]Under “Just In”, the third article is “Early US poll results favour Democrats”.
The website of my state’s newspaper, the Herald Sun has the US election as one of it’s main stories. In order, they are covering
[ul]
[li]It’s going to hurt - Costello (regarding interest rate rise)[/li][li]Blues brothers steal our Cup (regarding the Melbourne Cup horserace yesterday)[/li][li]Bush awaits judgement[/li][/ul]
There’s even a picture of Bush. However, there’s a bigger picture of Britney and Kevin in the next column
ABC radio was doing some analysis this morning of whether control of the congress would change hands and how the results would affect Bush’s presidency.
This article is on the Australian’s website.
Otherwise, not a lot. Local politics are more important: MP granted bail over sex charges
The opinion pages in the English-language newspapers in Japan have mentioned it, but generally mid-term election aren’t big news here (presidential ones are, though). The results won’t be in until Thursday’s edition anyway, so right now there’s no mention of anything. If there’s a big change it will probably get some time on the TV tonight.
Now that I check the Japanese-language news (which gets updated throughout the day), the Mainichi News has an article about the overall trends, but little information about individual races. The Yomiuri, on the other hand, has several articles about the election as a whole and several of the key races.
I avoid news media, in general, but it was the first item on my radio station today. Skimming newspaper covers show that many have dedicated the big photo to this; the other choice is several city councillors being arrested in Canarias for having too many cousins in the construction business… the kind of cousin who gives you a chalet in Andorra in exchange for letting him build three rows of apartment buildings next door to a national park.
Sorry, forgot to mention: I’m from Spain.
The newspapers will be more in depth compared to the news on TV. But even the papers will probably give it just a couple of pages in the Foreign News section.
I’m Malaysian, by the way.
BBC Radio 4, the national current affairs talk channel, completely rearranged its schedule (although, thankfully, didn’t move the 15,000th episode of The Archers, the world’s longest-running soap) last night and this morning to cover it. There’s been a lot of in-depth reporting, and many interviews with key players in the various regions.
The results are top billing on ITV (Britney is story #2), BBC terrestrial TV news, and all over Sky News. Will watch BBC News 24 at the half-hour to see what they’re doing.
On TV: Euronews had it as the top story, the Russian channels’ morning newscasts had it second or third, after unrest in Kyrgyzstan, fighting in Chechnya, or the latest bombing in Baghdad. All mentioned the significance of the switch to a Democratic House.
Newspapers came out too early to have any results in, so not much coverage other than a mention that the election was on. Tomorrow’s papers will no doubt have it on the front page.
Russian-language news sites mostly have it as the top story at the moment, although some front the Britney Spears divorce :rolleyes:
I turned on the (commercial) telly at 6.00pm tonight just to get the update on the US election results, but to little avail. It rated about 6th on the radar, and only a cursory reporting at that. :rolleyes:
Now I’m watching the ABC (gummint station) current affairs program (7.30 Report) and it is coming up second after the interest rate hikes. I s’pose that’s a fair deal, but I am really interested in how the senate seats look now in the US.
Eagerly awaiting…
BBC News World edition page headlines in order:
Democrats seize control of house (Map: latest state-by-state results; Reporters’ blog: Democratic platform; Hilary Clinton speech)
Israeli shelling kills 18 in Gaza
Pakistan suicide blast kills 35
Election in Quotes (A sequel for some but all change for others in the US mid-terms)
Afghan diary (The BBC’s Alastair Leithead on a night of danger for UK troops)
Here’s what happened on BBC News 24
8.31
Headlines:
Dems control house of reps
Senate on knife edge
Lawyers to Virginia
Palestinian officials say 18 killed by shells
Bone marrow to be injected into hearts of cardiac patients
Britney to get divorced
8.32
Outside broadcast from US election:
- Explanation of number of seats required to control each house
- Washington corresponent’s report about Nancy Pelosi
- CLip from ABC News announcing Democratic win of HoR
- Menendez winning - correspondent cites dissatisfaction with Iraq
- Vox pop with happy dems
- Rick Santorum’s defeat and clip of speech
- Voting problems at some polling booths
8.35
A technical hitch in the OB and breaking news that members of the UK cabinet are to be questioned by police over corruption allegations.
8.36
Back to Washington correspondent explaning numbers and surprise defeats. Voting machine problems and hordes of lawyers (Dems have 7,000!) all heading to Virginia and Montana.
8.38
Gordon Brown (the probable future Prime Minister) to be questioned by police.
8.40
Heart treatments with bone marrow and stem cells.
Other stuff, sport, etc.
Cannot say what TV showed here in Germany (as I don’t watch TV).
The US congressional election has been a frequent page-two/page-three, occasionally page-one topic in the German press these last few weeks (on a par with other world news that’s acutely happening at the time), usually background articles, articles of races that look emblematic (Tammy Duckworth was featured in quite a few ones), articles on continuing election machine woes (always interesting for Germans as it’s a pretty exotic problem to us), articles about peculiarities of US campaigns (the importance of money, TV ads, negative campaigning), etc.
The amount of coverage is about as much as in 2002 in my estimation, and more than for previous half-term elections which were generally considered more of a US domestic affair.
Last night Sky News had permanent coverage with talking heads and analysts from midnight covering the results. BBC News 24 only started their coverage at 3am. Same kind of deal there.
During the presidential election BBC1 does a all night broadcast with all the usual bells and whistles.
The Irish broadcaster RTE had no TV coverage but did have a decent bit of coverage on the radio most of the night.
I stayed up till about four flicking between all the above, CNN and CNBC which I get on cable.
RTE news has the story 2nd on their website though. With a story about our gobshite politicans arguing over the results and our connection with Iraq as the first story.