Today, it ends. Unless the vote counting lasts beyond midnight, then maybe it will go into tomorrow (please, God, no).

Before the last big primary, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton made a last-minute appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." This time it was U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's turn. Obama appeared on "The Daily Show" via satellite from Pittsburgh. Looking at the backdrop, I couldn't figure out where he was: Maybe WQED? Maybe PMI? It wasn't a KDKA or WPXI backdrop, I don't think.

Obama thanked Clinton for doing him a favor, saying, "She put me through the paces. This has been like spring training."

Obama recorded the interview in the early evening when "The Daily Show" is always taped, and he gave one last speech at the University of Pittsburgh's Petersen Events Center in an appearance that ran into 11 p.m. news time, allowing local newscasts to carry a portion of his appearance live.

On "The Daily Show," Stewart joked, "Will you pull a bait and switch and enslave the white race?"

"That is not our plan," Obama said, "but I think your paranoia may make you suitable as a debate moderator."

Stewart urged Obama to "hope up" some mundane statements such as, "I'm calling to find out if you're happy with your cell phone service," which Obama obliged with good humor.

After the interview ended, Stewart wondered aloud, if Obama does get elected on his platform of change, "How will he break our hearts? I hope it's a financial scandal."

Stewart concluded the broadcast suggesting Obama grab a bite at Primanti Bros., which he said he'd eaten at after some gigs in Pittsburgh. After a commercial break, Stewart worried, "To Primanti Bros., I hope you're still open and still a restaurant."

They are, Jon, they are.

PBS's "The NewsHour" (6 p.m. weekdays) came to Pittsburgh to broadcast reports from The Fred Rogers Studio at WQED this week, but its Pittsburgh reporting actually began on Friday's broadcast.

Last night, Gwen Ifill anchored the newscast from WQED using the "On Q" backdrop (usual anchor Jim Lehrer was supposed to make the trip, but couldn't on doctor's orders). She did an in-studio interview with Pittsburgh City Council members (Clinton supporter Tonya Payne; Obama supporter Patrick Dowd) about constituent issues pertaining to the campaigns. I'm not sure that conversation was particularly illustrative of the unique nature of Pittsburgh to a national audience, but the lengthy Ray Suarez report on Pittsburgh's progress did hit all the major regional themes (one misstatement: Suarez said, "the smokestacks are gone, so are the jobs, but the air is clean," which isn't really true; it's clear, but not altogether clean).

On Friday, "NewsHour" correspondent Jeffrey Brown turned his camera on the Post-Gazette for a report on how local news organizations are adapting to changes in the media (KDKA was also featured). In addition, author and Pittsburgh native John Wideman offered an astute essay on the nature of the region and its inhabitants.

"[Pittsburgh is] a settlement for people who decline more alluring but riskier options, an unadventurous image the town never quite forgets or sheds," Wideman said. "Pittsburghers have developed a grumpy pessimism laced with stoic affection for the region's intemperate weather, rough work, lack of glamour, its destiny to be a polyglot patchwork of towns, never a smooth, swaggering big city."