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Viewing Tool Provides Scrutiny of Debate Footage

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Fri Oct 03, 2008 02:30 PM
from the everything-under-a-magnifying-glass dept.
Government United States Technology Politics
The New York Times has an interesting tool for reviewing the debate. Alongside the actual video, there is a transcription (which you can click on to go to that section of the video), a search tool (that counts the number of usages by each candidate), a topic segmentation view, and even a fact checker that links to corrections.
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Viewing Tool Provides Scrutiny of Debate Footage 50 Comments More /

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  • I will have to watch the debate again, but I'm pretty sure Palin referred to herself as a "maverick" at least once in the debate, but I cannot find it by using the tool to search for "maverick".

    • Probably, most of her responses were taken straight from John McCain's debate last week. I have to say I'm surprised that so many in the MSM seem to think she did a good job. Even the NPR coverage was favorable towards Palin. I thought she was extraordinarily stiff, and had to work really really hard to fit her scripted answers to Gwen Ifill's questions. She was hanging on for dear life.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by try_anything (880404)

        I have to say I'm surprised that so many in the MSM seem to think she did a good job.

        She set expectations so low. I didn't watch the debate, but my friends who did were really depressed afterwards, because they expected her to humiliate herself again. She delivered a controlled, heavily scripted, marginally competent performance, which is exactly what VP candidates are expected to do.

        Come to think of it, controlled, heavily scripted, and marginally competent is exactly what VP candidates are expected to

        • I watched some of the debate because I was expecting both of them to humiliate themselves. Biden is great at sticking his foot in his mouth and Palin keeps getting that deer in the headlights look. Once I realized both them were going to manage to stick to the script I flipped the channel.

        • Yes, but there's a pretty good chance that either of them will die (Obama by some racist asshole, McCain by being a hundred and twelve), so the VP is unusually important here.

          I thought Biden actually did better than Obama in the first presidential debate... but I digress.

          • Yes, but there's a pretty good chance that either of them will die (Obama by some racist asshole, McCain by being a hundred and twelve), so the VP is unusually important here.

            Out of curiosity I looked up some actuarial tables on the web and calculated McCain's chances of dying in the next 4 years (based on averages - of course, being president would introduce factors that could skew the figure either way - i.e. he might get assassinated, he might succumb to stress, but then again he has bodyguards and probably much better medical care than most of us). Let's put it in positive terms and say that statistically he has a 85.5% chance of surviving 4 more years, and a 68.2% chance o

      • Mara Liasson(sp), NPR's political correspondent, carries water for the Right.

        Listen to the way she frames everything when dealing with the 2 campaigns. Her coverage is one of the major reasons I didn't contribute to NPR this year.

      • So I'm not the only one who thought she usually couldn't form a coherent sentence when the discussion veered away from one of her scripts?

        Listen, Biden didn't do amazingly (he had trouble connecting his good ideas into a coherent thought) but whenever he stopped talking about his canned sentences, he could form a sentence. In fact, when he elaborated on the script, he did his best...

        I can't figure out why the MSM was so nice either. She didn't bomb, which is all they were hoping for, but I like my president

    • Try "mavericks" since she grouped herself with McCain.

    • As I recall, she used the phrase "we are the mavericks". And you won't be able to search the text in this tool. It's completely Flash-based.

      • Ah, nm. I just noticed the built-in search box. It claims two results for "mavericks", but only shows one. The text is: "And I've joined this team that is a team of mavericks..."

        • It claims two results for "mavericks",

          Interesting that a search for "maverick" doesn't turn up any of the "mavericks" matches. And the search box says to use anything 3 letters long or longer...

          • And the search box says to use anything 3 letters long or longer...

            Well, there's your problem... McCain and Palin are just two characters.

            • McCain and Palin are just two characters

              Two? I'd say one and a half, at best. Considering how she pretty well made herself look like a feminine facsimile of what McCain has made himself into, there wasn't enough "character" in her to qualify as a fully unique character.

              • Are you kidding? If anything McCain is the "half-a-character". Even if you don't like her surely you understand that a significant portion of the Republican base was basically stagnant until she came along.

      • I'm figuring more out with this tool. (Nifty!) The other spot was: "A team of mavericks, of course we're not going to agree on 100 percent of everything."

      • CNN has a searchable, text-based transcript here [cnn.com].

        I count six "maverick" instances by Palin.

    • Yep, she actually used the term "a team of mavericks".
  • The fact checking is something I wish they would do live during the debate. Maybe a ticker at the bottom.

    Still, this is a step in the right direction!
    • Even better if the candidates were called on the facts while still talking about them

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by schwaang (667808)

      Well factcheck.org [factcheck.org] gets their stuff out the next day, which is pretty good since they put together source material and also put the claims in the context of the whole campaign.

      • Well factcheck.org gets their stuff out the next day, which is pretty good since they put together source material and also put the claims in the context of the whole campaign.

        I'd like to see the networks run a factcheck hour the day after [debate].

        They could play it straight or just put Stewart/Colbert on tv to try and draw in extra viewers with comedy.

  • Viewing tools? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hatta (162192) on Friday October 03 2008, @02:43PM (#25250113) Journal

    No thanks, I already viewed those tools last night.

  • In summary (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2008, @03:25PM (#25250599)

    Flowchart of Palin's debate tactics [imageshack.us]

    The fact that it's so accurate actually stops me from laughing.

  • Which channel's footage does it use?

    I watched CBS's coverage in HD and saw the color balance change frequently when showing Biden, revealing the uneven patterning of makeup. It was worst when they did a split-screen presentation of Biden and Palin.

    I'll see about getting the section of transcript around the color balance changing back and forth to see if this tool also has affected video.

    • So.. a vote for McCain/Palin is a vote for putting Jesus Christ in office?

      Your ideas intrigue me. I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by rk (6314) *

        Remember, the conjugation/inflection is ATHY, ATHIER, ATHIEST.

        "The soup is very athy today!"

        "CNN is athier than Fox."

        "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the athiest of them all?"

      • So.. a vote for McCain/Palin is a vote for putting Jesus Christ in office?

        Wait, the GOP haven't switched the ticket when I was busy eating babies, did they? Jesus Christ in office? Man, and I thought McCain was old. At least then you might not have to worry about Palin taking over, since J.H.C. has already shown incredible resiliency to being murdered. Would that violate the constitution, or would it only be a problem if his dad was on the ticket with him?

    • Re:McCain/Palin 08:Put Christ BACK in the Oval Off (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2008, @02:58PM (#25250289)

      What is up with this demonization of Atheists in the US? We're just people who have come to the conclusion that a "god" isn't real, just as chrisitians (?) come to the conclusion that santa claus, the easter bunny or the tooth fairy isn't real when they grow up. We are of no threat to christians, except perhaps to stop them from imposing their religion on the world.

      The existence of a "god" obviously can't be disproven, but neither can flying pink elephants, or the flying spaghetti monster.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You shouldn't be so hard on atheists. You both share a common disbelief in thousands of deities. They just believe in one less than you do.
    • Thank you Anonymous Coward. I was on the fence before, but your post has convinced me to finally convert to Atheism! I can't thank you enough sir. Your insightful, non-judgmental, articulate post is a shining beacon into this dismal hell where we all live!

    • I don't browse at -1 very often, but I happened to catch this post. I hope this isn't indicative of most Slashdot Trolls nowadays. Slashdot has a long, proud history of trolling and it brings a tear to my eye to think that they may have degenerated into this drivel. Come on Trolls, you can do better!

    • Scary, isn't it?

      Yes, yes you are.

    • "Put Christ BACK in the Oval Office" ? Doesn't the guy in there now claim to have a direct line to what God wants?

      I actually believe that Bush is incredibly ignorant of basic Christian teachings, the most basic of which is "All men are sinners". If Bush really believed in his heart that all men -- including all soldiers, all FBI agents, everybody -- were sinners, he would never approve letting them have power with no oversight. Warrantless wiretaps can only be trusted to people who won't be tempted to

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by spun (1352)

      The NYT is quite moderate by any reasonable standard. I suspect that you are pretty far to the right of normal, mainstream America if you think the NYT is left wing. You don't get to redefine the political spectrum to suit your extremism.

      • Actually, I'm what you would almost certainly call rather left of center(with some moderately libertarian elements); but I apparently suck at getting the tone of sarcastic humor right. I though, apparently naively, that somebody arguing that facts and feelings ought to receive equal weight would either be ignored or laughed at. Similarly, I assumed that the term "damn liberal rag" would be so obviously inapplicable to the NYT(especially its editorials) that it would be an instant red flag. It actually cree

        • I've heard the liberal media moniker aimed at the NYT in the past. Probably by the far right extremists. For the records though I caught your sarcasm.

        • Oh man, I'm sorry. How can you parody that which is already a parody of itself? People on the right really believe what you wrote, I've seen them say it again and again.

      • And yet every poll shows that more and more people see a very liberal bias in the media, and according to a Rasmussen poll from last year, the Times is seen as the most liberal (of included newspapers) with over 40% perceiving a liberal bias and just 20% seeing it as objective (11% thought it was conservative).

        The bias is so obvious to people that it was the only paper to actually be rated as having a more liberal bias than conservative one by liberals themselves, and they as a group see every media outlet

        • Have a link for that Rasmussen poll? I'd like to see how they asked the questions. Besides that one poll, can you reference any others?

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Mr. Slippery (47854)

              The problem isn't who is being asked questions or giving the reporters the answers. It is the over tones of the reporting from the reporters themselves.

              But what you describe has nothing to do with left/right bias. It's all about - as you say - creating controversy and selling papers.

              They rolled over on it because for the previous 10 to 15 years, the exact same saber rattling stuff had been said but the previous administration and administration officials. I suspect you were too busy popping zits and chas

          • So according to this logic because I hold 2 degrees, live in my nations capital, and have traveled to London, Paris, Switzerland, Italy and Monte Carlo my opinion can not be questioned for any reason.

            Perhaps you are willing to surrender your free will to you perceived betters, but I tend to look more at the empirical evidence and make up my own mind. But to each his or her own.

    • But at least with Biden you'll always have the suprise as to what fact he'll make up on the spot next.

      Like in many of his, speeches several of these spontaneous facts showed up last night so part of the fun in watching is just trying to figure out what statements he's making are real and what ones are simply pulled out of his hat. Not an easy thing to do since he can be just as forceful and passionate while defending a completly made up fact as a legitimate one.

      Voting records, policy stances, even the exist

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