Debates, Democracy and Two-Way Conversations
ABC News thought they controlled the information stream of last night’s so-called debate. Their imperious announcement that the debate would be televised on the West Coast with a 3-hour tape delay and commercial interruptions every 5 minutes or so signalled the priority to monetize rather than democratize. In their search for the almighty dollar, ABC decreed this: Not only would they not televise it live on the West Coast, they also weren’t interested in streaming it live on the Internet (though one affiliate did do exactly that)
ABC thought they controlled the information stream and by extension, the content and form of political debate. Out of touch, ABC News doesn’t understand an age where Twitter transmits and receives information from New Zealand to New York in an nanosecond, where the conversation is two-way, sometimes one to one, sometimes one to many, but always delivering packets of information, conversation, and observation.
ABC News thought they did all the right things. After all, they placed a live blogger on their site and opened comments, offering an illusion of a conversation while shouting into a vacuum. They are as out of touch with the reality of today’s networks as they are with the reality of the meaning of ‘real’ news.
As former Clinton press secretary George Stephanopoulis engaged in self-indulgent bickering with Senator Obama, an anxious group of West Coast backchannel participants were virtually seated in an East Coast UStreamer’s living room, comfortably watching the debate in real-time, commenting via Twitter as it progressed through time if not substance. Those networkers sought and found a substantive two-way conversation, a discussion about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, hunger riots around the world, deaths of more soldiers in Iraq, the death of American pride in their country.
Meanwhile ABC shoveled a pile of words about bitterness, elitism, Jeremiah Wright, and of course, the most pressing issue on all of our minds — whether or not the candidates wear an American Flag on their lapel as some signature statement of patriotism.
Patriotism does not deserve to be marginalized on a lapel pin. True patriotism is taking the fence off the public square and understanding that you don’t get to buy and sell democracy as a banner ad at the top of your web page. True patriotism, particularly from so-called journalists, implies an integrity nowhere to be found in tonight’s debate. When democratic discourse is squashed in a democracy, rebellion ensues. Disruption. Riots. Change. Progress.
Sitting in someone’s UStreamed living room watching that ‘tape-delayed’ debate in the same real time as the folks on the East Coast is my version of flying the bird in the face of the executives who are so deeply out of touch. The conversation is open and thriving, from one -to-many networks to many-to-many networks, and peer to peer networks, the wall is breached and information flows down to the grassroots, building like a tidal wave formed out of an offshore earthquake.
ABC News can no more control the flow of information on today’s networks than they can control their obvious need to frame a debate between Democratic candidates in triviality and Republican talking points.
While Hillary Clinton and ABC engage in tabloid politics, a new paradigm emerges called “new”. In the world of new, Presidential campaigns are funded by small contributions and driven by people on the streets and networks. Debates are watched in virtual living rooms, discussions are held at the round table called Twitter among strangers and friends, lurkers and participants, speakers and listeners. Good is done in New.
While Howard Wolfson and Pat Buchanan and the rest of the pundits continue to dig deeper in the mudhole, real people quietly move to make a difference, to highlight the hungry, weak, and the needy, to reach beyond the confines of corporate strangleholds and disrupt, renew, rebuild.
Listen and you’ll hear them. Those who ignore New, lose. The invitation is theirs to decline.
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