Okay, the excerpt below is semi-random, and I admit I found my way to this article via Fake Steve, who found one of John Edwards' quasi-moment-of-Zen (or something...) comments about "change" a bit over-the-top.
Missing in action from tonight's debate was Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who didn't make the cut under ABC's rules and has filed a Federal Election Commission complaint against the network.
In any case, having watched the debates last night, and skimming the press coverage this morning, a couple observations:
1. Facebook has jumped the shark -- sure, it paid mega$ to co-sponsor the debates (at least on ABC, the channel I watched last night), and it was mentioned dozens of times in the ABC pundit discussions, but so what? I was playing along in Facebook during the debates; it was pretty boring. And, at least from what I've seen so far this morning, Facebook got nearly zero mention in the press coverage. What was its value-add last night, other than the co-sponsorship?
2. What's the deal with commercial breaks during presidential candidate debates? It would be fascinating to have insight into TV viewer data, e.g., to see how many people switched to the football playoff games during the commercial breaks... and didn't return to the debates (except perhaps during commercial breaks in the playoff games...).
I'm reminded of David Gelernter's essay from the 2006 Edge.org annual question survey -- from his "What are people well informed about in the Information Age?"
Let's date the Information Age to 1982, when the Internet went into operation & the PC had just been born. What if people have been growing less well-informed ever since? What if people have been growing steadily more ignorant ever since the so-called Information Age began?
ABC News: Obama and Edwards Tag-Team Clinton, Call Her 'Force for Status Quo'
No comments:
Post a Comment