Barack Obama
Source: Arktimes.com
First the positive:
The live streaming blog that went live on September 6th showed us how amazing technology is. I personally, was in awe at how fast the journalists watching the speeches wrote not only about what was being said but actually gave a detailed analysis. That takes a lot of skill and it’s probably why the New York Times is one of the best newspapers in the world.
The tweets contained the observations of the journalists. I liked this aspect of the live streaming blog as it gave the reader an imagery of the convention in case they were not watching or were just switching back and forth between tabs. This shows that the New York Times is really adapting to the technology age where people don’t want to be overwhelmed with too much information at one time. This brings me to the negative aspect of the blog.
While I like how they were presenting the information, the content itself left a lot to be desired. Maybe it’s because journalists are very jaded or cynical these days or maybe it’s because presidents usually say things like this but I thought Obama’s speech was very touching. In the first few minutes of his speech I found that he said a lot of things that a lot of immigrants could relate to. He said,
“My parents were given the chance to go to college, buy their own home and fulfill the basic bargain at the heart of America’s story. The promise that hard work will pay off, that responsibility would be rewarded, that everyone gets a fair shot”.
I thought this wrapped up nicely what I think of America. Yes, there is corruption and some lack of ethics. Yet, as a person from a third world country where the idea that the government pays for your college is laughable, I have to agree that this country does give everyone a fair chance. That the New York Times chose to analyze the decorations and the venue over positive messages like these really disappointed me. However, the multimedia presentation really made up for this.
The multimedia presentation was very detailed and very educational. The Times did a good job of providing information not only for the people who have been following it all along but also for the people who do not know anything at all. The presentation included tabs featuring the different issues such as abortion and the war and then it stated what each candidate’s stance was on that issue.
I also thought that their interactive feature was very fun to play with and that the information they provided is actually very helpful, such as the the swing states and how they have voted in the past. I also liked that the interactive feature went one step further and gave the user the option of making their own scenarios about what would happen if each state voted democratic or republican. I think … that’s very democratic.
The multimedia presentation presented both sides equally but it is still very clear that the Times leans democrat as their own scenarios of how the election would play out mostly indicated the different ways Obama could win and Romney could lose. I also liked that they included the latest twitter feeds on each candidate as well as the latest news stories when you clicked on their name. However, one negative of the presentation, is that the twitter feed mostly shows tweets from journalists. I would have loved to have seen tweets and Facebook updates from regular people and what they think about each candidate.
In conclusion, the New York Times did a good job educating the people with their multimedia presentation. As for the live streaming blog, I have to congratulate the journalists on how fast they can analyze and how fast they can write but It also needs to be said that in the future they should not only write about the negatives and the issues but also provide some positives of this country and its candidates. I mean don’t we vote because we care for and love our country? Well show us why we love it.
