By: Pauline Millard As election day closes in, citizens all over the country wonder which politicians really have answers to their community's problems, and which ones are just hot air.
Over in Seattle, residents are try to pick among Seattle School Board and City Council candidates. SeattleTimes.com hit the streets and asked residents what questions they had for the candidates for their project "
Digital Democracy." The first one surrounded affordable housing.
One by one, each city council candidate sat down and answered the question over the course of a minute or so. Some had concrete solutions, such as Venus Velazquez's suggestion to have a housing trust fund, while others danced around it.
Cory Haik, the senior producer for interactivity and projects seattletimes.com, told me in an e-mail that the project was produced in less than two weeks with just two staffers. YouTube was chosen as the video player to riff on the CNN/YouTube debate concept. The print side of the paper helped select the questions.
I really like this project because it shows how easy it can be to use technologies on the web in order to serve your readers. You Tube is free, and from what I can tell the little videos didn't involve any editing. SeattleTimes.com lays out the questions and the responses clearly, which will hopefully help residents make decisions come election day.
How is your paper handling local elections online? I'd love to see it.
Here are some of my past Picks:
'The Roanoke Times' Educates Readers About
Childhood ObesityThe 'Oakland Tribune' Looks at Area Violence in
'Not Just a Number' DenverPost.com
Rallies For the Rockies in The World Series
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