MSM: not just stealing from dot-orgs, bragging about it.

An article in today's New York Times says of an upcoming CNN broadcast of candidates answering recorded video of queries culled from YouTube:

The first of a new kind of presidential debate is scheduled for tonight, one in which members of the general public pose questions to the candidates via homemade video.

"First"? Not really. This is exactly the format of the candidate response we showed at about 1300 MoveOn house Parties for the Planet two weeks ago. The turn out was good for those so maybe CNN is just casting about for a way bump the ratings. I watched late last night as CNN took pains to give a peephole of transparency to the process by which they winnow down hundreds or thousands of videos. Basically they don't have a way or don't trust the ways they do have for polling: they said partisan hacking of a poll or vote was likely so their editors and consultants were deciding what was best or at least representative. That is bs. Why don't they just finish the job and swipe MoveOn's entire method. MoveOn does trust its members and polls them regularly for the issues and questions foremost on their minds. In theory, the Times is a newspaper and one of the better ones read for its information...so it can't be that both writer and editor were simply uninformed of what nearly 100 thousand people in this country just watched.

The supporting quote in the Times article comes from someone who should be even more aware of the trends but who, I suspect, considers MoveOn a threat to her party's grip on power and to her very paycheck:

“These debates are the first real political foray into citizen journalism,” writes Morra Aarons, a blogger and political director for BlogHer.org, which covers women’s issues. Ms. Aarons is also a Democratic consultant who supports Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton but is not affiliated with her or any campaign.

Perhaps I should not be surprised that one MSM outlet is scratching the back of another as it attempts to make money through use of media with which they have not been able to innovate as well as groups who have only democracy on their minds and not advertisers. I can see what they are doing and unless they take to scratching people's eyes out, eventually we will all see it.