Behind New Hampshire Primary Coverage

Michel AND Lee, here...

We're slowly recovering from last night's adventure. If you stayed up for NPR's special election coverage of the New Hampshire presidential primaries -- and we don't blame you if you didn't (actually, we do because it was exciting) -- then you know we went an extra HOUR last night. We stayed on the air until midnight, which was good because I don't think we got to hear Sen. Hillary Clinton's speech until about 11:15 p.m. And, I think Robert Siegel's interview with John Edwards didn't come until after 11, so that was fun.

It was a physical challenge, if you get my meaning, for those of us who had to stay in one place for four hours, with only 60-second breaks between segments, if that -- a big difference from commercial television. All I'll say is ... if I'd KNOWN we were going until midnight, I think I'd have cut down on the Deer Park.

How was your evening Lee?

Things from where I sat were very active. If you've ever wondered what presidential election nights mean in this business, I can tell you: lots of running, lots of shouting and lots of fast digging for information (confirming sources, etc.). But the thing is, at the beginning of the night, we all know what we're getting into. Some might say we're crazy. (OK, maybe more than just "some".) But when the clock struck 8 p.m. ET, we were ready to roll with national LIVE radio coverage and LIVE blogging -- a first for us. It's an amazing experience. ... I'll give the keyboard back to Michel. She can explain more about making election calls and how she managed, amazingly, to juggle information in the studio, along with her co-host Robert Siegel.

Oooohh. Shouting? There was shouting, really? Who was shouting? (Never mind, we'll talk about that later.) No shouting in the studio. In fact, I think people might have taken off their shoes to come in and bring us stuff. It was a very serene scene in there. Everybody was VERY focused. We had two hosts -- Robert Siegel and me -- and then they'd rotate so-called "anchor buddies" in and out, like Andy Kohut, president of Pew Research, Michael Continentti, a writer for National Review (his Democratic counterpart, E.J. Dionne, was in New Hampshire), Ron Elving, our Supervising Senior Washington Editor (in other words, the big cheese honcho). They'd take the chairs opposite us when they had something new to bring in.

Frustrating for me, I'm used to being the one who gets to read the exit polls and decipher them and figure out what's interesting to talk about. No time for that. I asked for them and I looked, but I couldn't focus on them long enough to come up with a real analysis. Oh, right, I guess that's why I have my own show.

What was fun? Talking to people all over the state of New Hamshire and all over the country. We talked to folks in FL, MI, CA. Awesome, the wonders of radio. Also I got to read my man Lee's blog postings. His musings on what was going on. ... And, our woman was on the scene, Beneva Schulte. She's our crack futures editor who also doubles as our in-house politico. Beneva is a former high-level congressional staffer and campaign person, and she knows what's up. She was e-mailing me real-time

(My only problem was she was making me laugh. No, we did not speculate on which celebrities we wanted to see show up on the trail. OK, well maybe just for a minute.)

Lee, got anything else?

Just coffee, thanks. It was a long night. But the great thing is this was a wonderful learning experience. We're definitely thinking about how we can step up our blog coverage for the primaries ahead and, of course, the BIG one in November. Live blogging is no joke. But here's the routine: think, type, post (repeat). And, if I hadn't thought it before now, Michel is definitely our resident WONDER WOMAN. Thanks to her, Marie Nelson, Teshima Walker, Beneva Schulte, Tom Bullock, Michael Olson, George Lyle and all that made themselves available. Until the next primary...

Michel Martin

5:55 PM ET | 01- 9-2008 | permalink

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5:55 PM ET | 01- 9-2008 | permalink