A coalition of people and organizations across the political spectrum has been urging both John McCain and Barack Obama to make the presidential debates more “of the people” by bringing them more fully into the Internet age.

Last night, both candidates endorsed the Open Debate Coalition’s call. Specifically, the coalition asked the candidates to support two “open debate” principles:

1.    The presidential debates are for the benefit of the public. Therefore, the right to speak about the debates ought to be “owned” by the public, not controlled by the media.
2.    “Town hall” Internet questions should be chosen by the people, not solely by the media.

But now that the candidates and the public both agree, will the media give up its stranglehold on the debates and act in the public interest?

The coalition is now posing three questions directly to the media and the Commission on Presidential Debates:

1. Will the media pool choose to put their video of the debates in the public domain, so folks can freely blog key moments and share them without fear of being deemed a lawbreaker?

2. Will Tom Brokaw use some bottom-up debate questions collected and voted on Google’s site, in addition to or in place of the top-down ones the Commission collected?

3. Will the Commission adopt these principles for future debates, now that the candidates from both major parties embrace them?

Don’t just watch and find out. Hold the debate moderators accountable by rating the debates right after they happen. We’ll tally your response along with thousands of others and inject our people-powered feedback into the news cycle, giving citizens a chance to talk back to the media spin.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hold our future leaders — and the media that cover them — accountable.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.-->