Alas, the passing of Ronald Reagan meant that a lot of what would have been covered from Normandy this morning was preempted. I WAS able to catch quite a bit of the Arromanches ceremony on MSNBC.
Observations:
(a) THe *&^%$#@ “we-gotta-be-talking” rule, aka the “Ruin the Olympics” rule. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!! What COMPELS network anchors to feel that through a ceremony, they must fill the airtime with inane chatter on various and sundry subjects, even while there is obviously something potentially interesting going on on the field? Do they get paid by the number of words they get on the air?
(b) The various allied current leaders were almost talking and behaving like allies. Which has been no small feat ever since the 60s, to tell the truth.
© The pass in review was cool, with all the various allied forces in apparent order of participation (US, Brit, Canadian, Poles, Dutch, Aussie, Belgian, Norwegian, Kiwi, Czech, Slovak and French as the closers) and air units in flyover. Again, MSNBC was kinda lost as to who was who
(d) The memorial performance (a music composed in a Concentration Camp, while MM displays went through the war years) was quite compelling. When they got to the point of D-Day, then they had a flyover from the RAF Memorial Flight (a C47, a Hurricane, a Spitfire and a Lancaster), which is always a stirring display.
(e) Apparent glitches kept popping up, with ocassional stretches of the camera just pointing at an anchorwoman just sitting there rather than to the intervieweee or to the scene
(f) Sadly, before everything was over it seems they overran their broadcast window.
What coverage did you get where you are located? Or did you get any?