Memo to CBC election-night coverage

A. You stank, stink, and have continued to stink. Stop it, please.

B. In particular, elections are about results. Give more of them. Rotate them. Lots. Especially two hours after a province's polls have closed and the counting has started.

C. (1). When Elizabeth May (or any leader) starts rhyming off a long, long, long, loooooonnnnnng list of people she'd like to thank, you can move on to something more informative.

C. (2). This is especially true on radio.

D. Ridings have these things called names. So when you come on and say something stupid like "the Conservatives are picking up four Liberal seats in New Brunswick", especially AFTER the broadcast blackout has lifted in your time zone, but BEFORE the internet one has, it's a good idea to use the names of the ridings. Cf. B, above, re results.

E. (1). Don't speculate about the ultimate outcome of a riding or fate of an MP based on the one reported poll that's come in. Yes, this is a reference to Ruby Dhalla.

E. (2). Certainly, don't flag a riding as worthy of a "close race" visual based on one poll, where the "close race" in question is a one-poll tie between two ultimately losing parties, and where any informed political analyst would have already told you who was going to win and lose that riding. Yes, this is a reference to Ottawa Centre.

F. Ridings also have these crazy things called boundaries, so that your maps for TV don't have to consist of little square dots located somewhere in the general vicinity of the portion of a province where that riding more or less is.