Inside the war room

Let's not cling to some form of objectivity that's obviously not there ..."\nIt was a war room in more ways than one. People fought over candidates. They fought over snacks. They fought over whether they should be fighting at all.\nThe staff of the Indiana Daily Student watched the election returns on four different televisions, for both business and pleasure. They needed to see the returns to possibly publish them in the Daily Student the next day. And of course, no red-blooded American can keep quiet about their political and moral leanings on the eve of what has been called the most important election in a generation.\n"Swing state my ass!"\nThe war room, was loud, hot and openly partisan. Democratic supporters talked about disaster scenarios and lambasted conservative Illinois senate candidate Alan Keyes. The republicans, both obvious and closeted, silently clenched their fists in support every time a state flashed in red on the national maps.\nAcross the hall in the actual newsroom, objectivity was supposed to be the order of the evening. The actual job of publishing the newspaper was supposed to go on as normal, all doing their part to ensure the timely delivery of the publication.\nIt is thus ironic that in the war room the channels flipped between NBC, ABC and Fox while the newsroom TV was locked on "The Daily Show." Sign of partisanship? Maybe, maybe not. The staff did, however, partake in the bipartisan tradition of late-night pizza. Four giant pies were completely devoured. \n"I'm gonna use my free speech to say that this shouldn't be a free speech zone ..."\nBut no matter their political leanings, the IDS staff members are just doing a job, right?\nThe entire night floated the line between taking care of business and partying for your party. As the door to the war room opened and closed, opinions caught on the breeze and slipped out the opening, spilling into the hallway. There is no separation of job from bias. There is only careful consideration of the consequences of displaying a bias, like whether to wear a campaign button while recording the story. \nAll in all, the IDS' coverage, the major networks' coverage and the movement of the electorate all seemed to be motivated by one thing -- fear. The fear of being labeled biased in coverage. The fear of being wrong. Fear of fear itself. \n"I said so, you got a problem with it?"\nThe newsroom, like the country, threatened to be torn apart by this national election. For the masses, the issue boils down to one thing -- fear. The electorate has either been scared into voting for Bush to keep terrorists away, or scared into voting for Kerry to keep Bush from running the country into the ground. For the IDS staff, not only does the election divide them politically, but the late-night production pressure frays nerves and puts people on edge. Tongues cut like razor blades into one another's hearts and egos. Otherwise simple decisions like headlines turned into wars of words; attitudes clashed and bolts of lightning flew from their eyes.\nIt was 2:30 Wednesday morning, and instead of Florida holding up the victory parties it was Ohio. At this hour, the country still didn't have a president, and the IDS finally sent their last pages to the printer. As the war room emptied out and the staffers went home, this columnist realized something very important: people, when put under extreme circumstances, will resort to extreme measures. \nI pray that the American people drop their extremes and return to the middle. The IDS staff did it when they locked the doors and went home at 3 a.m. after seven hours of turmoil.\nFor the American people, it might take a lot longer.