It can't be easy manning the anchor desk of a major network news show on election night. You have to spend hour upon hour, waiting for ballot results while filling your airtime with…well, lots of things. Veteran journalists like Diane Sawyer and her ABC News coanchor George Stephanopoulos interview political pundits about the candidates' chances of winning, check in with reporters at exit-poll stations, explain how the electoral college works, and generally try to keep the newscast entertaining. In that last respect, Sawyer won the night. But not in a way she would have hoped.
At a certain point during American Television Channel's ABC News' coverage, viewers began to notice that Sawyer was speaking more slowly than usual, leaning on the anchor desk and rambling. "OK," she said at one point, "I wanna — can we have our music, because this is another big one here? Minnesota we're ready to project Minnesota rrright now…Well, tonight we know that President Barack has won Minnesota," she said.
Check out some highlights here:
Soon enough, social media users were tweeting jokes and commentary about Sawyer's loosy-goosy performance on one of the most-watched nights of network news TV.
"Everyone, let's switch to ABC," tweeted the writer John Gruber. "I think Diane Sawyer is drunk."