America Needs Funky Bacon

After watching last night's U.S. presidential debate I am convinced more than ever that I should vote for Mittens.  No, not the imposter Mittens: Mitt Romney.  I'm referring to the original Mittens, Eve Online's favorite spy master/tyrant/media mogul The Mittani.  Too bad The Mittani is not running because I think this year has shown that the U.S. currently has the worst political class in my 48 years of living on planet Earth.  He'd win in a landslide.

But enough about The Mittani.  What has me riled up currently is the press.  Not the gaming press who I've railed against before, but the real world mainstream media.  Specifically the presidential debates.  I watched the one last night and the moderator, CNN's Candy Crowly stepped on it.  She decided to interject herself into the debate on the subject of Libya and then admitted she was wrong about her facts on CNN afterwards.

Two paragraphs about U.S. politics is enough because I have not come to bury the U.S. political system; I have come to praise the Eve Online community.  CCP has created a virtual world in New Eden and the players have imported their ideas of how the world should work.  The most striking example is TEST's IT operation that has more stringent quality control checks and operating procedures than many real world companies.  The U.S. presidential debates are showing this dedication to making New Eden a better world than meatspace extends to the internet radio and podcasting community.

At the risk of slighting someone, I'd like to point out three examples of people I think have proven over the course of their Eve careers that they would do a better job of moderating a real life debate than what we've seen so far in the U.S. presidential and vice-presidential debates.  The first is the long time Eve Radio veteran Funky Bacon.  He helped lure me into Eve with the professionalism he displayed in his coverage of the Band of Brothers takedown which included handling both BoB's Dianabolic and The Mittani on his show at the same time.  He further showed his capability towards impartiality when Massively.com's Brendan Drain appeared on his show with The Mittani.  Do I think Funky Bacon would have done a better job of moderating a town-hall style debate than Candy Crowly?  Hell yeah!  He also would have done a better job than vice-presidential debate host Martha Raddatz and probably than Jim Lehrer.

The second figure is current Eve Radio rock DJ and Voices from the Void host Arydanika.  During the past CSM election cycle she hosted several two and three person debates and while she has a more light-hearted tone than Funky Bacon I think she would definitely have done a better job than Candy Crowly last night.

Last but certainly not least is the master of the marathon podcast Jade.  With two CSM election cycles under his belt, the Lost in Eve podcast sets the standard for CSM debates.  Jade and his co-hosts do what I think real world journalists should do; get the facts from the candidates and then perform the analysis afterwards.

Am I idealizing the jobs not only these three but the entire Eve podcasting and radio community do?  Perhaps.  But I still maintain the hobbyists who are learning on the job still do a better job than the trained professionals.  I've made that argument about the mainstream gaming media in the past.  Now I think we have proof that the Eve community does a better job than the mainstream media as well.