Thursday, September 20, 2007

That's A Start

The YouTube debate might have been flashier, but it really just amounted to the old debate format with a new gimmick. The Democrats' Online Debate, on the other hand, better exploited the strengths of the new medium. Charlie Rose asked the questions; each individual candidate answered fully. The viewer lines up the answers he or she wants to hear and clicks play.They call it a mashup, but it's more like a video archive of the candidates' substantive policy positions.

If there's a drawback it's that the viewer selects the clips, so while the lesser known candidates get equal opportunity, they don't necessarily get equal exposure. But that's democracy, I guess. The customer is king.

Now what I'd like to see is a series of round-robin, one-on-one debates between all the candidates, whether online or live. Whatever happened to the country of Lincoln-Douglas?

Thanks to Jason over at Voices of Reason for the tip.

Posted by Judah in:  Media Coverage   Politics   

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