In an interesting move, the Al Jazeera English channel put a video on YouTube asking for feedback videos on the YouTube channel. What are people’s perceptions, views, and suggestions?

(An aside – wow, is that anchorwoman Ghida Fakhry ever pretty!)

As you might expect, the video responses were of varying quality. Many respondents disguised themselves. One hid a pretty nasty message in pig latin. Others used it to interview for a job, or to express various opinions of their own. Here were a few that stood out to me for one reason or another.

The Hands-Down Best Critique.

Under pressure (including murder) to dilute reporting, now importing “BBC” types for the English channel.
(Journalist author filmmaker John Pilger)

To Address Preconceptions, Change to a Neutral Name (i.e. “Associated Press”)

Paris Hilton (etc.) vs News – any questions?

And, my favorite…

Save Me Some Brain Ache, Please.

In answer to NOW’s Question of the Week: Do you read blogs? Tell us if blogs change your views on political issues.

Blogs are of many kinds: scrapbooks, personal journals, advertising spaces, photo logs. Political blogs are only one form of the blog. The blogosphere is about freedom of expression – dittoheads, propaganda portals, soap boxes, fake identities, but also debate, discussion, original ideas, and scrapbooked information/evidence/argument.

Some political blogs actually investigate and report news. Some are focused tightly on one specific topic so that there is a constant flow of targeted and detailed information. Others are like a scream of despair, or a series of billboard advertisements.

Blogs do affect my political views, if for no other reason than that they are a valuable supplement to the information and perspectives that I am able to glean from other media. If you are interested in a particular topic, you can search for related keywords (using search engines or more specific tools like Technorati) and get the latest range of feedback and opinion. Subscribe to your favorite blog rss feeds, and it’s like building your own newspaper. Through a service like Feedblitz, you can even have the feeds delivered via e-mail.

What is still more powerful, however, is that because of the ease of blog publication, more people are writing and publishing. There is a sense of political empowerment that comes from dwelling with your thoughts and observations long enough to claim your own distinct perspective – and then to express it, to “offer it up” to others. Blogs encourage this. People who might never write an article or book for print publication can still have a syndicated column as a blogger. Blogs are used for political opinion, activism and reporting. Blogs can distribute information, and calls for political action. Bloggers can report on things that even investigative journalists never observe – and they offer the viewpoints of many who are otherwise never heard.

Blogs encourage people to read, think, write and debate – all in mutally reinforcing feedback loops that make them better at doing all of them. What’s not to love?

As opportunities for real political discussion in public spaces dwindle, the blogosphere offers one form of the social arena for information exchange, conversation, and debate that in other times and places might have been held at the local pub or cafe or quilting bee or bowling night or barbeque. In many cases, we simply don’t have the places or the occasions for those discussions, but we need them more now than at any other time in my life’s memory.

We need more debates in the public sphere. We need politicians to debate in front of us rather than simply reading their statements to the press. Pundits and spokesmen and think tank representatives aren’t enough for us anymore. Americans do smell mendacity, and we are working it out for ourselves as best we can. Political blogs help us to do that.

What’s your view on this question? Post it there, post it here, post it at home.