Last week, an interesting discussion developed on my Facebook page about Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the media’s coverage of her nomination.
The debate started when I posted a link to an article on this site about last week’s meeting between U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M. and Sotomayor. Deming resident John Lanning posted a comment stating that he could not believe New Mexico’s U.S. senators were supporting Sotomayor.
And it went from there, with the New Mexico Independent’s Gwyneth Doland, former congressional candidate C. Earl Greer, NMPolitics.net columnist Michael Swickard and Democracy for New Mexico’s Barbara Wold debating what’s been reported about Sotomayor and whether Rush Limbaugh, Newsweek and FactCheck.org are reliable sources of information.
That’s a panel of participants that rivals those assembled by any television or radio program in the state, and the benefit of Facebook is that Lanning and anyone else who has a Facebook account can also join in.
The spirited but respectful debate spanned four days. I had fun watching it develop. Albuquerque radio reporter Peter St. Cyr had this to say in a comment he posted in the midst of the discussion:
“Facebook comments are the new talk radio… without people interrupting themselves. Cool,” he wrote.
You can find the debate here. You’ll need a Facebook account to access it.