Presidential candidates debate on the Web

from this?



To online debates

Yahoo, Slate and the Huffington post have announced that they have are co-hosting the first-ever online presidential debate. This comes two weeks after the Democratic presidential candidates all lined up behind former Sen. John Edwards by refusing to participate in a debate that was sponsored by Fox News Channel and the Congressional Black Caucus. That was in the wake of remarks made by Roger Ailes that President Bush would have trouble telling the difference between Obama and Osama bin Laden.

There will be two online debates, one for the Democrats and one for the Republicans candidates both hosted by Mr. Charlie Rose held after Labor Day.

The debate will feature real-time questions sent in by the online audience, and viewers questions uploaded on video.

So why online as opposed to the old TV model?

With an online debate the though is that you can engage rather then enrage the audience. For many people the TV presidential debate sometimes feel like way to scripted like a planned out TV drama. With online debate you can members of the public participate in the debate. The 2008 campaign has been all about connecting people through the Internet and giving them the tools to blog about the candidates and raise money online.

This is also a sign of how the campaign is moving away from TV and one to the Internet where you can produce videos and upload them to YouTube for free.

In the past local TV stations have relied on political ads for a large part of their revenue.

"In the 2003-2004 election cycle, some 80 percent of new revenue for local stations came from political advertising," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. said.
Durbin told this story by way of explaining why he has introduced, along with Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., S. 936, the Fair Elections Now Act. Durbin says he's tired of political campaigns being a "cash cow for TV stations."

While it is hard to believe that Durbin's plan to take the money out of politics will work I think that the Internet is completely changing the way our candidates campaign.

Now that all the presidential candidate have YouTube channels and some of them have already begun to use their channels to ask questions of the public and answer them in short videos.

In a way the online debate has already began. Through the site ExpertVoter.org you can even keep track of what issues the candidates have made videos on.

What are you going to do to bring about change?



RE: David's Question on Education in a Changing World