A Day Best Captured by Image, Not Narrative

[groovedaddy]

For many a historic event, being there is the next best thing to watching it on television. The inauguration of Barack Obama was the exception: nearly impossible to witness fully in person, but even more difficult to experience thoroughly on the screen.

And that may be why CNN rented a satellite to take pictures from space of the multitudes around the Capitol and on the Mall. It’s also why NBC showcased a man from New Jersey who couldn’t get through a mobbed security checkpoint in time to view Mr. Obama’s speech on a Jumbotron. The man ended up calling a friend who held up the receiver to the television, allowing him to be a first-hand witness to history via cellphone.

It was a day of paradox as well as precedents. An awed nation stood on tiptoe to see the first African-American being sworn in as president of the United States after an election in which race turned out to be a minor factor.

A unique, uncanny moment was framed by the most familiar and predictable kind of coverage and commentary: Anchors, compelled to say something, reached for trite metaphors and hyperbolic expressions of wonder (“Our secular version of a miracle,” according to one CNN commentator) that didn’t begin to match the reality unfolding live behind them. The best narration was wordless: the deafening squeals and screams that greeted Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, on the parade route when they got out of their limousine and walked, hand in hand, waving to the crowds. The first couple’s first dance at the Neighborhood Ball, swaying as Beyoncé sang an Etta James standard, “At Last.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/us/politics/21watch.html?th&emc=th