I want the debates to be annotated after the fact, a la pop-up video.

October 3, 2008 5:08 PM

Has anyone seen a pop-up-video style version of the presidential or VP debates that checks facts and names? If not, is there any organization I could suggest this to with any reasonable hope of having them implement it?

I know FactCheck.org and other various news agencies have published lists of selected falsehoods and mistakes, but I would really love to have "true"/"not true"/"his real name is..."/"the actual number was..." info show up on my screen as I watch the recorded version of each debate. I feel like this idea would have enough mass appeal that somebody on the internet (if not a major news outlet) should have done it already, but my searches turn up nothing. Have you seen this anywhere? Can you think of anyone I could suggest this to, who could put this kind of thing together? (I'm half hoping that someone like CNN would love to make this happen, they just haven't come up with the idea yet. Maybe I'm crazy.)

posted by vytae to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

NYtimes did a transcript/video site for the VP debate. I agree this could be fun to watch.
posted by acro at 6:15 PM on October 3, 2008

If you had access to the debate footage and permission to republish, you could do this quite easily using YouTube's annotations feature.
posted by demiurge at 6:24 PM on October 3, 2008

CNN was JUST playing some of this (ending around 10:40 eastern). The segment was called 'Keeping Them Honest' as part of Anderson Cooper's show. It wasn't the whole debate though, just a couple statements.

I was just flipping through the channels when I saw it, so this is all I know about it.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 7:43 PM on October 3, 2008

I believe I saw this morning that MSNBC is doing this exact thing - pop-up fact checking on the VP debate rerun. They said it was airing tomorrow (Saturday) but I forget what time just early afternoonish?
posted by marylynn at 10:14 PM on October 3, 2008

There's a Washington Post version of the NYTimes thing, too. Interesting that newspapers seem to be leading the way on this... I found a third version of this debate-plus format the other day, but I can't find it right now.
posted by so_necessary at 10:34 PM on October 3, 2008

Here's the MSNBC version (sorry about the weird linkjack, can't find it elsewhere). It's a step toward the perfect thing, but still falls short.

This is a great idea, because the 'annotated' version a few days later would be so much more useful than the soporific pablum presentation we had live.

Myself, I just want a more aggressive moderator, with enough balls and big red buzzers to yell ANSWER THE QUESTION BITCH at all appropriate times.

(I'm referring to Biden, of course.)
posted by rokusan at 7:24 AM on October 4, 2008