It was a presidential election year, and as a member of a consortium of Ivy League radio stations, we participated in 'network' coverage of election night.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I came to MSNBC, its identity as the place for politics was growing.
The networks initiated the discussion of live coverage.
Presidential coverage used to be a very serious endeavor.
In 1928, radio networks like the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) extended nationwide - any major political address could expect to reach forty million listeners.
We had a big party that night and everybody went around gathering results from various precincts and each person would get four or five precincts and then come to the house. There were no cell phones or anything to get results phoned in early.
I was a reporter for Gannett and the 'N.Y. Daily News' covering Gov. Mario Cuomo's dance with presidential races in both 1988 and 1991.
I got to know every format of every station and who was on and what time.
Presidential election results in 2008 and 2012 clarified that talk radio was not, in fact, running the country.
I only got interested in radio once I talked my way into an internship at NPR's headquarters in Washington, D.C. in 1978, never having heard the network on the air.
I'm so unhappy with electoral politics that I switched to sports radio.