Wonderfully controlled chaos
From Judy Woodruff
CNN
Editor's note: In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN analysts, anchors, correspondents share their experiences in covering news around the world.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- After 30 years of covering elections, I still find it amazing to witness a change in leadership without blood in the streets.
People get angry in elections. They fight with everything they've got, sometimes they fight really dirty, but in this country we manage to do it without drawing swords or guns.
Behind the scenes at CNN, election night is always a wonderfully controlled chaos. Viewers see us on-air, but I don't think they have any idea of the magnitude of what we do and the number of details that need to be coordinated. At home, you see the anchors and the correspondents on your television set, but there are literally hundreds of people involved in bringing you our broadcast. To me it's such a privilege to work with this group of really terrific professionals.
Still, despite months of planning millions of details, there are always unexpected last minute curves. The lack of exit polls threw off part of our plan early on, but CNN was still able to accurately project races since we had reporters in key precincts across the country to gather Real Vote results and phone them to our computer center. It all pulled together perfectly.
And of course, there are the unexpected events I hope our viewers don't ever know about. This year my biggest problem was hunger! I didn't eat dinner before we went on the air, so at about 9:30 p.m. ET, I was pretty hungry. Paula Zahn had brought a package of Swiss cheese with her onto the set and shared some with me when we were off camera. That pulled me through.
A healthy dose of adrenaline can also pull you through on election night. At around 1 a.m. ET, our C.E.O. Walter Isaacson reminded Aaron Brown and me that we'd been up all day and needed to be back on the set for our morning coverage. He wanted to know if we needed to get a couple hours of sleep. Aaron and I looked at each other and we knew we wanted to be in these chairs when the balance of power in the Senate was decided. So, we stayed until the Missouri race was projected about an hour later -- and witnessed an incredible moment in election history.
All in all, I only have one complaint. CNN normally has chocolate chip cookies in the newsroom on election night, but this year there weren't any. On nights like this, I need my little bit of chocolate. Tomorrow, I'll add that to the planning document for the 2004 elections.
