Ed Board realizes the goal of the news media is to keep thepublic informed, however, there are times when the media,especially television news overdoes it.

With all the major networks giving up-to-the-minute reports onelection results, a viewer hears the same information repeatedscores of times.

Political pundits of every stripe contribute their two cents onthe minds of the voting public and what the (unofficial) resultsfrom each state mean for the rest of the election.

It seems as though the only political consultant not consultedwas Miss Cleo.

However it all gets very tiring.

By the time election night rolls around, most states havealready been called. The few that remain are vigilantlywatched.

Keep in mind that all the votes aren’t all going to becounted until Wednesday, or even early Thursday. Remember Florida?Florida went on for over a month.

In between calling states, everyone loves to point out theup-to-the-minute lack of information from the remaining undecidedstates.

In fact, there appears to be over 100 different ways to say,”The results aren’t in yet.”

Thankfully it costs money to produce the news. This means thatviewers are still forced to sit through commercials. Commercialsthat are introduced with clever phrases like, “We’ll beback in a minute with more numbers to count.”

It’s very interesting. On one hand the election seems soimportant that play by play (non)information needs to be repeatedad infinitum. On the other hand it doesn’t seem importantenough to get rid of the commercials.

Television producers need to understand that not everythingshould be made into a media frenzy.

If there’s nothing to report at the moment, cover worldnews. Don’t stammer on and on about what Kerry had forbreakfast, explain the “what ifs” one more time or makeyet another comparison between Iraq and Vietnam.

We are voters. We don’t need to hear an explanation ofwhat’s important to us in each individual state 10 times.

The job of the news is to inform the populace. These televisionproducers should stick to presenting facts instead of wastingpeople’s time with repeated conjecture and opinion.