Viewers build own debates online: Candidates, questions at users' whim

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/14/viewers_build_own_debates_online/


Viewers of the "Democratic Candidate Mashup" on Yahoo's website pick candidates and topics, and listen to recorded answers. The experiment is aimed at people not interested in TV debates.

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff | September 14, 2007

Voters began creating their own mix-and-match Democratic presidential debates yesterday in one of the most extensive hands-on experiments yet to fuse politics and the Web in the 2008 campaign.

In the first-of-its-kind "Democratic Candidate Mashup," Web surfers could choose as many candidates as they wanted, then pick a given topic - Iraq, healthcare, or education - and put the elements together like video building blocks. Later yesterday, they were also given access to the raw footage so they can splice the videotaped answers with their own audio and video additions to produce their own creations.

Hosted by Yahoo!, the Huffington Post blog, and online magazine Slate, the debate features sober questions by PBS host Charlie Rose and more offbeat questions from political satirist Bill Maher on subjects such as legalizing marijuana, whether voters are spoiled, and whether Americans are getting fatter and dumber. The interviews with candidates were taped Wednesday from the various states where they were campaigning, and some of Rose's questions came from users who submitted them on the three websites.

Organizers said they hoped the heavily promoted mashup would attract voters who are turned off by traditional televised debates.

"Unfortunately most people who are not engaged in politics are not going to sit down for an hour and a half to watch a debate," said political commentator Arianna Huffington, cofounder of the Huffington Post. "We don't want to give up on these people, and we want to allow them to participate in the way that they want to participate. With a little luck, they'll become engaged."

In a telephone interview, Huffington said she had in mind young people like her two teenage daughters, who she said do everything online, including watching favorite TV shows.

FULL 2 page story at link.