e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Live Fact-Checking the Prez: Sunlight’s On-The-Fly Presidential Speech Coverage

September 8th, 2011

Looking for a different way to follow President Obama’s jobs speech this evening? Try “Sunlight Live:”

As you tune in tonight, consider checking out the Sunlight Foundation’s “Sunlight Live” coverage of the speech. Sunlight Live combines streaming video, government transparency data and social media coverage, to provide insight to the proposals, people and policies mentioned during major political events.

It’s kind of like pop-up video (remember that on VH1 so many years ago?)…as politicians speak, we fact-check them in real time with a cover-it-live embed, alongside data cards that highlight what campaign contributions and lobbying likely influenced how they frame issues.

Cool idea — basically, annotation of the speech as it happens, the kind of coverage that television simply doesn’t provide. Of course, plenty of folks will live-blog or live-tweet the speech, but an unfiltered Twitter-frenzy doesn’t exactly lend itself to clarity. Give Sunlight Live a try and see what you think.

– cpd