After a Night of Illusions, Television Records Reality

Gibson gets the grumps when the technology fails him; plus, he had come off a slightly accident-prone edition of ABC's "World News."

NBC had boasted that Rockefeller Center's famous ice-skating rink, eight stories below the studio where "Saturday Night Live" originates, would play a major role in reporting returns, but that turned out to be a fairly low-tech operation. An outline had been drawn in the ice, and then workers spray-painted in the red and blue states when the network would finally, sometimes hesitantly, call a state for Barack Obama or John McCain.

Anchor Brian Williams and anchor emeritus Tom Brokaw stopped early in the proceedings to remember the late Tim Russert, NBC's house pundit and "Meet the Press" moderator who had played such a lively and substantial role in election-night marathons. His absence was a handicap, but political ace Chuck Todd (also appearing on MSNBC) proved an able successor.

Todd, reporter Ann Curry and others took turns appearing in a virtual room that, thanks to computer trickery, looked like a miniature version of the Jefferson Memorial, with Curry assuming Jefferson's place. The reporters were actually standing on an all-green studio set.

And at CBS News, the decision was made to forgo the fancy high-tech trappings and emphasize the human element, with Couric anchoring and commentators Bob Schieffer (vigorous and helpful) and Jeff Greenfield (the proverbial fuddy-duddy) helping. The 2008 campaign, especially in recent months, marked a genuine comeback for Couric, who has been much maligned since moving to the evening news; she did the best of all network interviews with vice presidential candidate Palin.

Couric also distinguished herself in her interviews with Obama and McCain, the latter giving one of his last interviews of the campaign to her. It aired on last night's "CBS Evening News," and at one point, McCain was unexpectedly and perhaps unintentionally poignant when he said of the long campaign, "I'll never forget it as long as I live."

Among the most ominously absent voices: that of Dan Rather, the anchor who was ignominiously excommunicated from CBS after more than a quarter-century. Yet Rather was still a presence in election-night coverage, heading up the reporting on the under-funded HDNet channel, which is available in a limited number of American homes. Those who missed such phrases as "we have a hitch in our giddyup" could tune over to hear it on HDNet -- Rather in exile, the Bill Clinton of anchordom.

Fearful to an almost pathological point of calling states too soon (and being criticized for it later), networks took turns being wildly cautious, perhaps none more so than CNN. When it could have been calling Ohio for Obama, CNN instead cut to an election-night performance by Hank Williams Jr., a quixotic editorial decision and a ridiculous waste of time. The network might have bent too far backward in holding back results.

CNN's arsenal of glitz machines included a long vertical touch-screen at which Soledad O'Brien and veteran Bill Schneider called up states and demographic groups and analyzed their swings and sways. Standing together, they looked a bit like Nanny and the Professor. Once, when Schneider tapped the screen and no data appeared ("Whoops, it's not working"), plucky O'Brien told him "a little harder" and, following her cue, Schneider got the material to appear.

So it was that months and months of political warfare turned into another kind of battle: humans against machines. At last look, the humans were winning, but the race is too close to call.