Popular social networking site MySpace and premier
news names NBC news and msnbc.com have teamed up to launch a new competition to
recruit two ?citizen journalists? to cover the 2008 United States presidential
election. They will report whether
Barack Obama or John McCain will become the next US president directly to the
MySpace and msnbc.com community.
The competition, entitled ?Decision
?08 Convention? calls for MySpace users in the US over 18 to film a two
minute video that answers one of three questions:
- ?Why do you vote??
- ?Why are you the best person for this job??
- ?How will you stand out in the crowd and get the
scoop no one else can??
The winners, as voted by the MySpace community
will be awarded a trip to either the Republican National Convention (RNC) or
the Democratic National Convention (DNC) respectively to cover the election, being
held on 04 November 2008. The two
winners will visit the NBC News media centre with their reports (both text and
video based) featured on the Decision ?08 community and in MSNBC?s convention
coverage.
It is a
key feature of MySpace?s IMPACTchannel, a hub on the social network that is geared
towards civic and social engagement.
Lee Brenner, Director of IMPACT and executive producer
of political programming at MySpace comments, ?MySpace is a significant forum
for political discussion today and we?re empowering MySpace users with a unique
opportunity to express themselves from the most important political events of
the summer.?
The selection process is divided into two
phases. A panel of judges from MySpace
and NBC news will first narrow down submissions to five finalists. The MySpace community will then vote for the
two winners of their choice, one of whom shall cover the RNC to be held in
Minnesota, whilst the other will report on the DNC in Denver, Colorado.
Mark Lukasiewicz, vice president of digital media
at NBC News, feels that the project will add an insightful first-hand account
of the election on a peer-to-peer (P2P) level.
He comments, ?The ?Decision ?08 Convention Contest? will give
everyone in the MySpace community and all of msnbc.com?s users the chance
to experience the political process first-hand, and share that experience
with their peers during this crucial election.?
MySpace?s IMPACT Channel hosts the official
MySpace profiles for the 2008 Presidential candidates and provides tools to
enable voter registration, fundraising, and volunteering. The first MySpace
Presidential Primary took place on the Impact Channel on 01 and 02 January
2008. More than 150,000 MySpace users
voiced their choice for the nation?s highest office on this occasion.
The IMPACT Channel also enables its users to
access NBC News and msnbc.com content, as well as interact with their anchors
and reporters throughout the election season. This accessibility is reciprocal
with msnbc.com, which integrates Decision ?08 into its own Politics home page,
thus providing access to user-generated content from the MySpace community.
The competition opens today, 26 June at 15:00
EDT. Entrants have until Wednesday, 16
July at 15:00 EDT to upload their video to the Decision ?08 page.