The Great Debate

The audience at last night's Democratic debate looked more like the Oscars - appropriate given its location at the Kodak Theatre - than most political functions I am used to seeing, but that didn't stop me from tuning in.

I have to say, given the contentiousness of this presidential contest, the debate between Senators Clinton and Obama was remarkably civil. In addition to the expected coverage and analysis*, the New York Times made a point of discussing extreme effort at friendliness.

A great example came at the end of the debate with the question of a joint Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket (about halfway through the video):



But beside all of that, as our class prepares to discuss "convergence journalism," I have to say I'm impressed with the joint efforts at coverage of the debate. The debate was broadcast on CNN and CNNPolitics.com, and it was jointly sponsored by the Los Angeles Times and POLITICO.

Perhaps spurred by the earlier YouTube debates and meet-the-candidate efforts by MTV and MySpace, this debate seemed to want to encourage audience participation. Wolf Blitzer made it clear at the beginning of the debate that some questions would be those submitted by readers of POLITICO and that you could still vote during the debate for which questions you would like to be asked.

All in all, it seemed to me, someone who is not a political junkie, that both the coverage efforts and the debate itself were reasonably successful and more balanced than we've come to expect from some of the media during this campaign. So for that, and for a multimedia approach, I congratulate both the candidates and the media.

*Disclaimer: This NY Times multimedia, interactive analysis seems to have no permalink, so I don't know if it will continue to be accessible in the long-term.