Mashup Missteps

In my search for blogs that actually create political discourse (and don't just regurgitate news stories), I stumbled upon the Yahoo! Democratic Candidate Mashup. In theory, Yahoo! (in conjunction with the Huffington Post and Slate) has created some sort of interactive debate between the Democratic presidential candidates by tapping into the internet's wondrous resources.

Well, not really. In fact, this "debate" is just a series of interviews, conducted by journalist Charlie Rose. The candidates appear to be interviewed by Rose one-on-one and surely had time to prepare their well-organized responses. Questions from real people mix things up a bit, but in the most controlled way possible.

It's a shame that such high-profile alternative news organizations were able to sit down with all these candidates, only to waste this opportunity -- or, more specifically, to treat this opportunity the same way a mainstream news source would.

At least Mike Gravel was able to air his suspicions of agrarian-based school calendars.