Gather, the news blogging site, is teaming with WMUR-TV to hold a blogging competition to decide which New Hampshire Gather bloggers will participate in the two presidential debates being hosted with the WMUR-TV station. The contest is called "Your Voice, Your Vote, Your Next President."
Throughout May, WMUR will sponsor an open writing competition to be hosted by Gather. The competing bloggers will submit posts that will be judged by the bloggers from the Gather community. There will be five Democrats, five Republicans and five Independents that will have a spot in the "spin room" as well as an opportunity to submit questions to the Presidential debates being held on June 3rd and 5th. The contest is rather narrow, as it only includes bloggers from one state, and for only one Presidential debate.
Gather is known for having contests that engage and reward the community, and we're seeing a lot from the online social networking communities in the way of rallying political dialog. As experiments and projects promoting citizen journalism gain traction, the online politics culture is taking a lot of liberties. MySpace has also gotten in on the fun, announcing their Town Hall Series earlier today.