Twitter will come to Current TV for debate chitchat

Current, the edgy news and culture channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, has come up with a new way to broadcast the presidential debates: show Twitter commentary on what people are saying.

Through an official partnership with the microblogging service, Current will broadcast "Hack the Debate," which will live-stream on Current.com as well as air on the network. Twitter updates, or "tweets," will be shown in real time for all four debates (three with the presidential candidates and one with the vice presidential candidates), which begin on September 26. It makes a whole lot of sense, given Current's slant toward young and tech-savvy news hounds (i.e., the people who use Twitter) and heavy focus on user-submitted content.

"The debate stage is only set for two candidates, but Current was founded to make room for millions of participants," Current CEO Joel Hyatt said in a release. "We're thrilled to work with Twitter and take advantage of their extremely powerful communication platform, giving people a chance to speak directly to Current's nationwide television audience."

Last year, MTV featured Twitter as a promotion platform for the Video Music Awards, and featured some popular tweets on-air, but did not incorporate them into a live broadcast.

Current has not said how the tweets will be selected for on-air display, but it's likely that they will be hand-picked to provide a range of perspectives and serious commentary. So expect more about the candidates' differing views on the economy...and less about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's hair.

[lacykemp]

I think this is an awesome idea. During the DNC and RNC it was pretty fascinating to read people's commentary on what was happening real time. And, I've got much more interest in what my counterparts are saying than political analysts on television.

[Harrison912]

I agree with lacykemp. It's a great idea. It gives new meaning to the people having a voice in American politics. I hope both McCain and Obama have key people on Twitter to get a feel for what we think. It's extremely interesting and valuable feedback for both sides.

[redhelk]

this is so on? this is funny - its a list of the most popular videos on twitter ? kinda what i thought ? politics and cats
http://www.snackfeed.com/public/twitter -- twitter is where people are talking politic

[barnesjon]

I agree with everyone above but a this blog post really shows how to make twitter powerful. I do have one problem with twitter on cnn, will they just use a live stream or pice pull the comments they want used ?
http://tinyurl.com/3uks8o

[mario_current]

Hey there, Mario from Current here. Just thought I'd answer a couple of questions about tweet selection. First things first, we are expecting to be flooded with tweets during the debates, and the space provided to display tweets on TV will be somewhat limited. We will be filtering for the obvious stuff (hate speech, death threats, anything that violates broadcast standards, etc.), but we will also be pulling primarily from tweets that include the #current hashtag.

We are also working on a few ways to display things in different ways, just to keep it interesting. Not every tweet can make it to the screen, but we will try to cram as many in as possible within the time allotted.

Hope this helps clear things up. Visit <a href="http://current.com/debate">Hack the Debate</a> for more updates.

//mario