The election is over. The votes have been counted. In some places they’re even checked them twice. So, with the election over and the cash cow fully milked, you’d think the media would cease its sad and disheartening whoring of the political process. Of course, if you thought that, you’d be wrong.

In this election, perhaps more than in any other, the media was the story. The absolute span of the problem is almost difficult to comprehend. From stories of electoral fraud to 501(c)(4) organizations like MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, the role of the media this time around is staggering. Not just the ads or the “documentaries,” but the constant barrage of stories about the ads and “documentaries” and the pundits talking about the stories about the ads and “documentaries.”

Attentive viewers could have seen it coming. It started in 2000 with the recount in Florida. The story was just as much about ballot problems as it was about news outlets projecting the winner. In a race to be number one, outlets like Fox News and CNN raced to be able to call, then un-call, then call again, the race in Florida. But in the end it was 36 days of “too close to call.” Thirty-six days of images of hanging chads, of replaying the same footage of election workers peering at punch cards to determine voter intent.

But attentive viewing is difficult even under the best of situations. Television is a passive medium, with news being perhaps the most passive. We don’t want to have to spend several hours a day combing news reports for the kernels of truth they contain. We expect that networks remain as unbiased as possible while reporting the news. We expect it and the news outlets proclaim it.

But bias creeps in, and we should be aware of it by now. It’s not overt in news coverage, but it’s present in the choice of which story to lead, which angle to address first, which footage to show. When Fox News shows jubilant Republicans while CNN shows mournful Democrats, the bias becomes clearer. Everyone knows that Fox News appeals to the right, CNN to the left and MSNBC to young viewers who are still learning to distinguish colors and shapes. As a diehard Democrat, it’s good to know that I can turn to Fox News for a conservative take, or to MSNBC, for a good laugh.

But this election, it has been more. We had stories about stories. We had MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth stories, while pundits and anchormen decried the obvious partisan distortions and inaccuracies. Yet for all their indignation, for all their talk of how different 501(c)(4) organizations subvert the political process, distort the intent of the law or are legal but morally questionable, not one of them or their affiliates refused to play the ads.

Then there was the Sinclair Broadcasting debacle. Sinclair attempted to require that all affiliates air “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal,” a “documentary” about Senator Kerry’s anti-war record. Amid outcry from the left and an advertiser boycott, Sinclair relented, only airing segments of the “documentary” as part of a larger show on POWs. But the story whipped up a fury among the left, more so than the airing of the “documentary” ever could have.

Then there was the answer to a question nobody asked: Michael Moore. Moore’s “documentary” “Fahrenheit 9/11” was perhaps the biggest media story all cycle. Bigger than the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, bigger than Sinclair’s attempted airing of “Stolen Honor,” the Moore story dominated the airwaves for weeks and then was revived by his appearance at both conventions. Yet for all the talk, “Fahrenheit 9/11” is a pretty lousy “documentary.” It is grossly inaccurate and misleading, taking liberties with the truth that would make Karl Rove blush. It was hardly worth the effort that conservatives and Bush supporters put forward trying to stop its release.

It was the story that had legs. Conservatives heard about the content and went nuts. Liberals heard the conservatives going nuts and went out in record numbers to watch it, ignoring the problems with truth in order to commiserate with someone who disliked Bush as much, if not more, than they did. The attack against Moore was painted as an attempt to stifle free speech, further galvanizing the left. The perceived affiliation with Moore’s views and looseness with truth galvanized the right against the left. Nowhere was that more clear than when Moore was pointed out during the Republican convention.

Yet for all the stories, all the talk, all the energy expended, this news coverage did very little to illuminate the issues or to raise the level of public discourse. It served to help ratings, to gain advertisers, to sell products, but it did nothing to answer the questions that needed to be asked this election. When a vast majority of the electorate, and I don’t mean just the 51 percent that voted for Bush, but a vast majority on both sides of the aisle are dangerously ill-informed about domestic and foreign policy, why are stories about documentaries and attack ads dominating news?

Of course it hasn’t stopped. The stories now focus around how the networks could get it wrong, how the polling was inaccurate or how pundits could miss the “social issues” button. CNN anchormen decry political weblogs as the source of the early polling numbers, claiming lack of editorial oversight as the problem. Pundits argue whether images of gay marriage in Massachusetts and San Francisco, aired by the same networks that air their shows, motivated people to go out and vote Republican when, clearly, even if Sen. Kerry took Ohio, he would have lost the popular vote by more than 2 million votes.

Then there are the new partisan images: CNN showing angry Democrats in New York City, Fox News showing jubilant Republicans in the heartland. These are the images that feed the beast. I wonder if in two years we will hear pundits arguing that these images of anger and joy are the images that motivate us to go out and vote in the midterms. Either way, it must be good for ratings.