Tradition vs. Technology

How technology is changing the traditional viewing habits of political debates.

Tuesday, October 7th 2008, 6:52 pm

By: News 9

Assignment today: Find a presidential debate watch party. Get reaction. Simple, right?

The only problem: We couldn't find a debate watch party. Sure, there are watch parties on college campuses, but we've covered that angle already. We wanted another generation's reaction to the slugfest that's forecasted tonight in Nashville.

Our 10pm producer and I called around to community center, book stores and coffee shops. Nothing. Zip. Nada.

Then we realized - that's the story!

Traditional watch parties are tough to find. People now watch these things in their privacy of their homes and on the internet. Missed it? No problem! Just log on to any news service web site and watch it. Or... just set your DVR or TiVO to record it.

It's just another way technology is changing tradition.

Rusty Surette rusty.surette@news9.net