Open Debate Coalition Asks Candidates To Follow Through By Oct. 15 Debate

Today, as reported in Politico, the Open Debate Coalition released the following letter to Senator McCain and Obama -- asking them to follow through on open debate principles in time for the October 15 debate.

Open Debate Coalition

www.opendebatecoalition.com

Dear Senator McCain and Senator Obama,

Thank you for your recent letters affirming our coalition’s open debate principles, designed to make this year’s presidential debates more “of the people” than ever before. As we approach the final debate on October 15, we ask you to proactively implement such principles right away.

The closed nature of the recent debates has been universally criticized. The editors of Politico wrote, “The presidential debate commission’s rules are a scandal” resulting in “a format designed to limit improvisation, intellectual engagement, and truth-telling.” 83% of Obama supporters and 75% of McCain supporters agree that tough follow-up questions were lacking. Even Saturday Night Live spoofed the lack of follow-up questions in the debates, and the watered-down “town hall” questions chosen.

Therefore, we ask you to jointly announce the following in advance of the October 15 debate:

1) That the debate moderator has broad discretion to ask follow-up questions after a candidate’s answer, so the public can be fully informed about specific positions.

2) That after a “town hall” debate full of questions handpicked by the moderator, none of which were outside-the-box, you will allow Bob Schieffer to ask some Internet questions voted on by the public in the fashion outlined in our previous letter – which you agreed to. Existing technology will make this easy.

3) That, as a stipulation of the next debate, the media pool must release all 2008 debate footage into the public domain – as you agreed would be in the public interest. CNN, ABC, and NBC agreed to release video rights during the primary, and CBS agreed more recently. But Fox threatened Senator McCain for using a debate clip during the primary, and NBC invoked copyright law against Senator Obama to stifle political speech recently. The public deserves to know debate video can be reused without fear of breaking the law.

4) That you agree to work with the Open Debate Coalition after the election to reform or create an alternative to the Commission on Presidential Debates, so that the debate process is transparent and accountable to the public. Despite both of your agreement with the open debate principles, the Commission did nothing to implement them – or even to engage in dialogue about potential implementation. Also, the “31-page memo of understanding” with debate rules is nowhere on the Commission’s website, and has not been turned over despite requests.

The signers of this letter don’t agree on every political issue. But we do agree that in order for Americans to make the best decision for president, we need open debates that are “of the people” in the ways described above. You have the power to make that happen, and we ask you to do so.

Thank you for your willingness to take these ideas to heart. If you have any questions, please contact: OpenDebateCoalition@gmail.com

Sincerely,

Lawrence Lessig; Professor, Stanford Law School, Founder, Center for Internet and Society
Ellen Miller; Executive Director, Sunlight Foundation
Craig Newmark; Founder, Craigslist
Jimmy Wales; Founder, Wikipedia
Aaron Swartz; Founder, Reddit
David Kralik; Director of Internet Strategy, Newt Gingrich's American Solutions
Patrick Ruffini; Republican consultant, former Republican National Committee eCampaign Director, and a blogger at TheNextRight.com
Mindy Finn; Republican strategist, former Mitt Romney Online Director, and a blogger at TheNextRight.com
Eli Pariser; Executive Director, MoveOn.org Political Action
Adam Green; Director of Strategic Campaigns, MoveOn.org Political Action
Mike Krempasky; Founder, RedState.com
Arianna Huffington; Founder, HuffingtonPost.com
Markos Moulitsas; Founder, DailyKos.com
Roger L. Simon, CEO, Pajamas Media
Eric Burns; President, Media Matters for America
K. Daniel Glover, Executive Producer, Media Research Center’s Eyeblast.tv, and of AirCongress
Jon Henke; New media consultant (including for Fred Thompson, George Allen, Senate Republican Caucus) and a blogger at TheNextRight.com
Matt Stoller; Founder/Editor, OpenLeft.com
John Amato; Founder of Crooksandliars.com
James Rucker; Executive Director, ColorOfChange.org
Andrew Rasiej; Personal Democracy Forum and TechPresident.com
Micah Sifry; Personal Democracy Forum and TechPresident.com
Bill Mitchell; Professor, MIT
Josh Silver; Executive Director, Free Press
Carl Malamud; Founder, Public.Resource.Org
Clay Johnson; Director, Sunlight Labs
Robert Greenwald; President, BraveNewFilms
Kim Gandy; President, National Organization for Women
Roger Hickey; Co-Director, Campaign for America's Future
Billy Hallowell, Director of Content, VoterWatch
David Colarusso; Founder, communityCOUNTS.us

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Big News! Obama and McCain agree to Open Debate Coalition principles!

On September 25, 2008, Prof. Lawrence Lessig, the founders of Craigslist and Wikipedia, and a left-right-techie motley crew launched the Open Debate Coalition. This was an effort to bring the presidential debates into the Internet age and make them more "of the people" than ever.

There were two specific proposals: First, debate footage should be put in the public domain so that citizens can freely share it, blog about it, and put it on YouTube without fear of being deemed a copyright lawbreaker. Second, existing Internet voting technology should be used to allow voters to just just ask questions, but help select them.

Big news! Both candidates agreed with the Open Debate Coalition's principles! Read Obama's letter here and McCain's letter here.

Did any of this pass quietly into the night? Nope! Check out the big splash below!

WASHINGTON POST: Lessig (and others) Asks Candidates to Make Debates More Open

Tonight's debate is officially on -- and a group of academics, Internet pioneers and technology advocates are asking the candidates to "open up" the debates to the public rather than being "controlled by the media."

L.A. TIMES: Diverse web coalition asks McCain, Obama to alter debates

Currently, the job of designing and choosing questions is left to the media host. During the primary season some debates chose from questions submitted online, but the letter writers say those chosen were "gimmicky and not hard-hitting enough." They prefer use of bubble-up Internet technology, which they call "the essence of the internet as we know it."

NATIONAL JOURNAL: McCain, Obama Urged To Adopt 'Open Debate' Principles

The letter calls on the candidates to commit to "a principle that whenever you debate publicly, the raw footage of that debate will be dedicated to the public domain. Those in charge of the video feed should be directed to make it free for anyone to use."

BROADCASTING & CABLE: Obama, McCain Back Public Re-use Of Debate Footage

Both Barack Obama and John McCain are urging the TV networks and Presidential Debate Commission to allow debate footage to be distributed and used freely on the Internet...

CQ POLITICS: Activist Coalition Asks Candidates to Make Debates More Web-Savvy

“This cycle’s YouTube debates were a milestone for Internet participation in presidential debates,” the letter said...But the coalition complained that these debates “put too much discretion in the hands of gatekeepers,” adding, “Many of the questions chosen by TV producers were considered gimmicky and not hard-hitting enough, and never would have bubbled up on their own.”

BROADCASTING & CABLE: Group Pushes for Rights to Debate Footage; Open Debate Coalition seeks more Internet-friendly debates, rights to video footage.

A coalition of groups from both sides of the political spectrum asked the presidential candidates to pledge to hold more Internet-friendly debates, including requiring media companies to release rights to video footage.

CRAIG FROM CRAIGSLIST: Open Debate Coalition: Free the Presidential debate videos

We're experiencing a great movement towards networked, grassroots democracy, and anything citizens can do to promote that is good for the country. The Open Debate Coalition's principles mark a significant step forward in that direction.

NEWT GINGRICH'S AMERICAN SOLUTIONS: Transforming the Presidential Debates

We think we’ve found a good opportunity to bring some much needed reform and in the process once again demonstrate our tripartisan nature. We’ve teamed up with individuals on the left (including Moveon.org) along with others on the center and the right to sign a letter to support transparency in terms of the content and questions asked during the debates.

PC WORLD (IDG NEWS): Coalition Wants Debates More Friendly to Voters, Web

A truly open debate would allow the public to select the questions, added Mindy Finn, a Republican online strategist who signed the Open Debate Coalition letter. The YouTube debates took an important step forward, "but the media still chose the questions, leaving the people out [of] the process, again," she said. "It's not enough to feign interest in the people's opinion, you have to walk the walk by giving the voters the chance to see their most important questions asked, the ones that the greatest number of people care about. Otherwise, it's a faux open debate."

CNET: Liberals, conservatives ask for Internet-friendly debates

At the "town hall" debate scheduled for October 7, the questions are already promised to be from the audience or people on the Internet--not the moderator. Even so, the debate organizers should choose the top 25 questions that "bubble up" on the Internet "to ensure that the Internet portion of this debate is true bottom-up democracy," the letter says.

WIRED: Google Launches Google Moderator For Presidential Debates

A group of plugged-in politicos recently petitioned the Commission on Presidential Debates to open up the general election debates to the public. In addition to asking that the CPD to make the video feed of the debates freely available, the group asked the commission to allow the public to select the questions to be posed to the candidates.

PC MAG: Tech Leaders, Bloggers Call for Truly Open Debates

A collection of bloggers, political activists, and other technology luminaries sent a letter to both presidential candidates on Friday asking them to make the debates truly open to the public.

GLENN REYNOLDS (INSTAPUNDIT): Just call me "Mr. Diversity"

TECH PRESIDENT: This Debate Belongs to You and Me

The ask? It's two-fold. The first is that the events' raw footage be released into the public domain. The second is that at least some questions should be chosen "town hall" style, using the Internet...

ARSTECHNICA: Bipartisan coalition: debate footage must be public domain

The letter's signatories are a disparate group seldom found agreeing on much. They include Lawrence Lessig, Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, Craig Newmark (of the eponymous List), Arianna Huffington (of the eponymous Post), RedState cofounder Mike Krempasky, Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales, MoveOn executive director Eli Parisier, and former Bush/Cheney eCampaign director Patrick Ruffini.

APPSCOUT: Lessig, Bloggers, Activists Call for Open Debates

The authors of the letter would like the ability to let the most popular questions "bubble up" to where they would be used in the debate.

Coincidentally, Google released a tool to do just that on Wednesday: Google Moderator...