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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Alex Jasiukowicz Creative
Services Director 603-641-9073 Direct ajasiukowicz@hearst.com WMUR-TV, GATHER.COM LAUNCH FIRST-OF-A-KIND
POLITICAL BLOG SITE AMATEUR BLOGGERS WILL BE
SELECTED TO COVER JUNE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES Manchester, NH (May 8, 2007) – WMUR-TV, the Hearst-Argyle Television,
Inc. station in New Hampshire, is providing voters with an unprecedented way to
experience and participate in the forthcoming June presidential debates. With partner Gather.com, WMUR has
developed an online space for voters to engage each other in discussions about
the candidates and the issues.
From this newly created online community, 15 amateur bloggers from New
Hampshire (5 Republicans, 5 Democrats and 5 Independents) will be chosen to
cover the June presidential debates.
The June 3rd Democratic and June 5th Republican debates will be
simulcast on WMUR, CNN and their respective websites. “Building
this blogging community allows our viewers to directly participate in the
debates. Not only will they be
able to express their opinions, responding to what they see on television
before, during and immediately following the debates, but a few will have a
chance to actually be at the events,” says WMUR News Director Andrew Vrees. This integrated media experience is the first of its kind
created between Boston-based Gather.com and any media partner. Gather.com has attracted postings from
major political figures, including Senator John Edwards, Senator Bill Bradley,
Speaker Newt Gingrich and Governor Mike Huckabee. WMUR and Gather, Inc have created an online writing
competition to select the best bloggers to cover the debates. The competition runs May 8th –
May 27th. Beginning Tuesday May 8th,
viewers will be able to join the special WMUR political blog community at http://WMUR.gather.com. From this site, viewers can write their own blogs, read
and rate the blogs of others and have a chance to attend and cover the June presidential
debates. Entries in the online writing competition to cover the
debates will consist of the bloggers’ commentary and analysis on the primary
campaign to date (approximately 500 words). Each posting is considered a separate entry. Submitting additional entries increases
a bloggers’ chances of attaining the highest readership and the highest ratings
from other members of the community.
Entrants into the competition must be residents of New Hampshire, though
the reading and posting of blogs
is open to anyone. At the end of the competition, members of this online
community will vote to choose the bloggers who will “represent” them at the
June debates. Fifteen bloggers
will be selected (5 Republican, 5 Democrats and 5 Independents). On the night of each debate, the 15
representative bloggers will be in the spin room at the debate site and will post
commentary before, during and after the event. The Democratic and Republican debates will be held at St.
Anselem’s College in Manchester, New Hampshire on June 3rd and June
5th respectively from 7 PM – 9 PM (ET) and are being produced
by WMUR-TV and partners The New Hampshire Union Leader and CNN. WMUR
political director Scott Spradling and Union Leader political columnist John
DiStaso will lead the panel of those posing questions to candidates, and WMUR
anchor Jennifer Vaughn will moderate audience questions. The debate moderator will be CNN’s Wolf
Blitzer, anchor of the daily political newscast The Situation Room and the Sunday public affairs program Late Edition with
Wolf Blitzer. This online initiative is part of WMUR-TV and parent
company Heart-Argyle Television’s Commitment 2008 project, a commitment to
provide unparalleled political coverage.
Commitment 2008 involves an intensified effort at WMUR and Hearst‑Argyle’s
26 other news-carrying TV stations, and on their respective local websites, to
provide comprehensive local TV news coverage of national, state and local
election campaigns. WMUR and Hearst-Argyle has
provided a minimum amount of airtime for daily political news and
candidate-discourse coverage. That
minimum was increased last year to 10 minutes -- including at least five minutes
of original content each day in the 30 days leading up to the Primary and
General election. With WMUR’s significant political coverage contributions
in New Hampshire and Hearst‑Argyle’s Commitment 2000, Commitment 2002,
Commitment 2004 and Commitment 2006 programs, the Company has earned the prestigious
Walter Cronkite Award four consecutive times, the only recipient ever to do so. About Gather, Inc. Gather.com (www.gather.com) is the leader in
social media for adults. Today, 300,000 Gather.com members connect around
shared interests ranging from politics to books and from cooking to travel, and
they’re compensated for their activity on the site. Members can engage in
conversation with state and local politicians, health and financial experts,
personal coaches, bestselling authors, and more. Over one million people visit
Gather.com each month to read content created by Gather.com members. Gather.com
has a highly educated, highly informed adult audience membership -- a
demographic elusive to most social networking sites. This demographic has made
Gather.com an exceptional partner to media companies, advertising agencies,
leading consumer brands, book publishers, and movie studios. Gather.com
partners include Borders, Starbucks, Amtrak, Columbia Records, and AARP.
Gather.com is a privately held, privately funded company headquartered in
Boston, Massachusetts. Investors include Allen & Company, The American
Public Media Group, Hearst, The McGraw-Hill Companies, and Southern California
Public Radio. For more information, visit www.gather.com or call (617)
720-4000, x1032. About WMUR-TV & Hearst-Argyle WMUR-TV is the leading source of television
news in New Hampshire, reaching more than one million people, and is the
largest commercial television station in the state. WMUR.com is the most
viewed New Hampshire web site for local news. An ABC affiliate, WMUR is
owned by Hearst‑Argyle Television, Inc. Hearst-Argyle
Television, Inc. owns 26 television stations, and manages an additional three
television and two radio stations, in geographically diverse U.S. markets. The
Company’s television stations reach approximately 18% of U.S. TV households,
making it one of America’s largest television station groups. Hearst-Argyle owns 12 ABC-affiliated
stations, and manages an additional ABC station owned by Hearst Corporation,
and is the largest ABC affiliate group. The Company also owns 10 NBC
affiliates, and is the second-largest NBC affiliate owner, and owns two CBS
affiliates. Hearst-Argyle
also is a leader in the convergence of local broadcast television and the
Internet through its partnership with Internet Broadcasting,
and in the application of digital broadcast spectrum for new local
informational services through its Weather Plus partnership with NBC and
various NBC affiliate groups.
Hearst-Argyle Series A Common Stock trades on the New York Stock
Exchange under the symbol “HTV.”
HTV debt is rated investment grade by Moody’s (Baa3), Standard & Poor’s (BBB-) and Fitch (BBB-), each with
a stable outlook. The Company’s
Web address is www.hearstargyle.com. ### |
