Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Suicide Attacks, Debates & Primaries

The attack is casting a shadow over the first Democratic Presidential candidate debate scheduled for this Thursday in South Carolina.

All eight of the Democratic hopefuls that have formally announced their Presidential intentions will converge on South Carolina State University for their first group discussions with one another. Click here for a full breakdown of the contenders.

With the possibility that 23 or more states will hold their primary elections in January and early February, political experts are predicting that the party nominations could be decided as early as “Super-Duper” Tuesday, February 5, 2008—almost ten months before November’s elections—and that this new process favors candidates with large war chests and does not allow the nation to hear from lesser-known candidates.

So what does all this have to do with local news coverage? The accelerated schedule has caused a ripple effect for news rooms across the country. Today, I found myself building a special Decision 2008 election section for our Web site almost 20 months before the actual election is held. I can’t be the only person who finds this odd.

Look for the launch of our new Election 2008 section this Thursday on our Web site, just in time for the first debate.

The debate begins at 7 p.m. on Thursday and will be aired live on MSNBC. NBC17.com will also provide streaming Web coverage.