Iraqi Elections: Cable News Covers Poll Opening

Some early coverage notes, as submitted by e-mailers:

> 2:12am: “Jim Maceda just reported on MSNBC with a flak jacket and a helmet from Ramadi, looking like there’s a pending apocalypse. Now I’m not saying he’s overreacting, I’m just saying maybe there’s a better way to portray the situation.”

> 1:38am: “Is Fox reporting any ‘news’ during its coverage? So far all you see are commentators and Geraldo’s wild hair. Surely there’s some news to warrant RARE overnight live programming.”

> 1:33am: “Where are the exit polls? Where are the predictions? So the cable nets are covering the Iraqi elections LIVE all night. What are we waiting to see, a suicide bomber blow himself up live on TV?”

> 10pm: “There is a building sense of both excitement and dread,” Geraldo Rivera reported from a “secret location…west of Baghdad.”

> 9:40pm: FNC producer David Macdougall told Greta Van Susteren that “the Iraqi Elections Commission tells us almost 2,000 journalists have been accredited here.”

> Two comments from liveblogger Roger L. Simon: “Fox is not as good as CNN at location coverage. Murdoch doesn’t seem to care. Too bad. This leaves a real hole in American television journalism. Maybe the blogosphere will fill it some day.”

And: “There is an appalling Baghdad correspondernt on CNN who seems almost desperate for things to go wrong, but they’re not. He keeps going on and on about the danger.”