From our Whiskey Tango Foxtrot desk
This is classic: Instead of just letting its audience listen to Richard Blanco read the Inaugural Poem, ABC News had to keep peppering viewers with factoids, as if the poem itself wasn’t worthy of our full attention.
Representative samples:
Even worse, ABC also posted tweets – half of them not even about the poem – from its reporters.
WTF.
Just to be clear: It’s likely every broadcast outlet did the same as ABC – that’s just the one I saw (via BuzzFeed).
But that doesn’t make it any better.
Campaign Outsider 
Pretty sure CNN let the poem run interrupted. I can’t be sure, because I became comatose about 20 seconds in.
Oh c’mon, Dan – it wasn’t that bad.
Could have been worse; could have been interpretive dance.
Always looking on the bright side, eh, Mick?
We’re a hopeful people.
The news networks are the reason I watched the inaugural on C-Span.
“It’s likely every broadcast outlet did the same as ABC”
Not WBZ radio! 🙂
You got me there, Stephen.
Glad I watched in on CBS instead. None of that garbage.
Obama’s speech was more poetic. Blanco was far too prosaic for my tastes. My old HS poetry teacher probably would’ve given him a lousy grade, too.