loudhail » OffTheBus http://blog.loudhail.com new media for new times Fri, 18 Mar 2011 03:23:43 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 Grassroots politics coverage http://blog.loudhail.com/2008/07/13/grassroots-politics-coverage/ http://blog.loudhail.com/2008/07/13/grassroots-politics-coverage/#comments Sun, 13 Jul 2008 13:47:12 +0000 loudhail http://blog.loudhail.com/2008/07/13/grassroots-politics-coverage/ The Huffington Post (if you don’t know it by now, check it out: it is an online newspaper almost entirely made up of guest bloggers) sent me a nice email asking me if I wanted to join OffTheBus. OffTheBus is an initiative, where bloggers all over the US collaborate to report about the elections in a different way.

From their e-mail:

“It’s the electoral race of the century. Political maps are being redrawn, and rules are getting rewritten across the board. Fundraising records have been broken. The candidates are even comparing the sizes of their email lists.

The mainstream media is tripping over itself to report on every last press release and campaign announcement. But do any of us REALLY know what’s going on?

With you helping from the frontlines, the Huffington Post can change campaign coverage. OffTheBus is HuffPost’s citizen-powered and -produced election site, and we’re depending on readers like you to tip us to what’s going on or, better yet, to write up the stories you think should be covered.

(…)

Last October OffTheBus members dropped in on Sen. Barack Obama’s Nationwide Canvassing Day from more than two dozen locations. Hours later every observer independently relayed to us that the economy, not the war, was the voting issue. Twenty-four hours later we reported on the significance of the economy, beating the mainstream media to the punch by a few weeks.

As our numbers grow, the same collaborative reporting model that got HuffPost’s OffTheBus the scoop on the economy may tell us a lot more about what’s happening nationwide.”

This sounds exciting. If I was in the states permanently, I would probably join them… not sure how useful I can be with all my travelling all over the place. But if you are interested in the US election and feel you can contribute, check it out. I am very curious to see what happens with OffTheBus, and how the coverage influences mainstream coverage.

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