Who Owns Politics?

by: Hopeful

Sat May 05, 2007 at 04:22:33 PM EDT

Before the first Democratic debate, an alliance of liberal and conservative bloggers, advocacy groups, technologists, and others asked the DNC and RNC to require debate video to be available on the internet. I'm proud to remind you that our own founder, Juan Melli, was one of the original signers of the letter to the DNC. This led to presidential candidates Obama, Edwards and Dodd to join this call.

Now Kagro X at dailykos reports that CNN agrees:

Due to the historical nature of presidential debates and the significance of these forums to the American public, CNN believes strongly that the debates should be accessible to the public. The candidates need to be held accountable for what they say throughout the election process.
The presidential debates are an integral part of our system of government, in which the American people have the opportunity to make informed choices about who will serve them. Therefore, CNN debate coverage will be made available without restrictions at the conclusion of each live debate.
We believe this is good for the country and good for the electoral process. This decision will apply to all of CNN?s presidential debates, beginning with the upcoming New Hampshire debates in June.

I don't think the importance of this can be overemphasized. Anyone with access to the internet can comment on the debate, and place (or link to) video on sites like youtube. As an example, see how these videos present Romney and Giuliani's former views. Liberals, conservatives, moderates, speech coaches, fashion analysts -- anyone interested -- can analyze the candidates, while linking to evidence.

In contrast, the MSNBC model is that no one else can use the debate video. What Romney said last week was totally inconsistent, but it would be illegal for me to post a clip thanks to MSNBC. There was, however, an entertaining game where you can rate the candidates after seeing the clip MSNBC chooses. What fun!

Which is a healthier democracy? Shall we have a vigorous debate where all are free to join in, or will a few news divisions (now known as profit centers) of multinational corporations control the debate? I'm glad to see the bloggers, the presidential candidates, and CNN are on the right side. I hope it spreads to all debates, not just presidential but at the state and local level. Juan and his colleagues have helped us all.

Hopeful :: Who Owns Politics?