Current.com, the media TV channel and Web site backed by Al Gore, is jumping into the 2008 presidential campaign with a new section featuring videos of the candidates waxing poetic about various issues.
At this point, the "Viewpoints" section features video snippets from Republican Mike Huckabee, Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards and--because he can--Al Gore.
Candidates can pick from any of the 13 topics selected by Current: abortion, climate change, gay rights, government eavesdropping, healthcare, immigration, Iraq, poverty, prayer in schools, stem cells, taxes, torture in war, and waterboarding.
Their campaigns then package their candidates' thoughts on a particular topic into one-minute videos, which are shipped back to the Current staff and posted online.
Users who have registered at Current.com can then leave comments about the video and are asked to vote in a Digg-like fashion for their favorites.
With 12 video posts, Huckabee actually touches on the greatest number of topics. Obama has two videos on climate change and Iraq, while Edwards has three videos on poverty, healthcare, and Iraq. A spokeswoman said Obama's thoughts on climate change are apparently most popular, while Gore is also earning raves for his thoughts on healthcare (above).
All of the major presidential candidates have been invited to post videos, and Current expects to be posting more responses from Republican candidates shortly, according to a spokeswoman. "Working with their staffs to get this done takes time."
I understand the idea behind this section--opening a dialogue, letting the young people have a voice, blah blah. But given that the videos are being prepared and edited by the campaigns, I can't imagine there are going to be any off-message or spontaneous moments. You could probably find these same videos posted to the candidates' own Web sites. I suppose there's an opportunity for a debate to ensue among those commenting on the videos, but that does not yet appear to be the case.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment