Should people be posting public comments while the President is speaking?

I think it could have been saved for after but I relaly don’t give a damn.

I would have trolled.

If you were sitting in your living room and watching with a group of friends would you all have been totally silent until the man was done speaking?

@Blondesjon Excellent point.

I see something different between splitting the screen between the President and Joe Blow’s comments and talking with friends in your living room.

Not in this day and technological age my flightless friend.

(penguin waddles disgruntedly back to her ice floe.)

I didn’t see that, but it sounds awful to me. It’s one thing to check online after the speech and well, fluther about it, or to talk to your friends in your own living room about what’s happening. Playing the comments as the speech is still going on the speech itself? Completely unnecessary, and rather distracting I should think.

Some people need to post their comments before they lose their train of thoughts. I don’t see any problems posting the comments as they are made. It does make them easier to keep in context when the comment and the speech topic are concurrent.

Why? Is he god?

To the best of my knowledge, there isn’t a time restriction for freedom of speech….

My only complaint is that they’re probably not even constructive comments. It’s most likely you-tube and yahoo-type comments like, “Thanks for spending us to hell Obama!” It just a way for dumb rhetoric to be passed around.

Maybe they were bored.
Are we so attention deficient as a society
What do mean by we? I watched the speech, and never texted anybody. Are you including me?
I was bored as well.

You really don’t have to read them.

Isn’t it disrespectful for you to have read them?....shouldn’t you have been paying more attention?

It does seem rude.
I went to shave my legs while he was on.

@cheebdragon I don’t appreciate the nastiness of your tone. I’m not talking about what individuals should or shouldn’t be doing but I think it was disrespectful of the tv station

I couldn’t care less about people commenting. If they want to comment on Twitter or FB or Fluther or whereever else, go for it. However, I find it beyond absurd that the network would choose to display those comments. Not because it’s disrespectful, but because who the hell cares what random people on the Internet think? Are you watching TV to find out what people think about the speech? Is anyone??

Oh sure, I agree @MrItty. As I said, I’m not talking about what individuals want to do or post, but I think it was tacky and stupid of the tv station.

President isn’t a god-king.

I don’t have a problem with it.

If the President is speaking, individual Americans have the right to be doing anything they want: talking over him, tweeting cutting remarks, or not listening.

But the media has a responsibility to broadcast the speech without simultaneous comments uninterrupted.

Just curious…....but what station was this?

I watched alone and didn’t text or email anyone. I was too busy screaming at the TV.

When has a news station ever been respectful? Honestly? I’m not trying to be nasty, as far as I’m concerned, respect is something earned.

Look, you usually can’t give away advertising for a Presidential speech. By making the whole thing participatory, I bet they draw a much bigger audience and might even be able to make money on the speech. Don’t forget, television is a business (including public TV). If allowing people to make comments in the side bar draws more viewers, I think it’s a good thing.

Respect to those to whom respect is due.

I flipped between ABC and NBC during the speech and didn’t noticed anything like this. Just Biden twitching and Boehner looking like he was ready to knife Obama.

I agree it would be distracting with comments on the screen. I get distracted and irritated when this guy is dancing around the television screen during Fox NFL football. :P At least viewers who are at home have a choice to change the channel to a station that doesn’t have this distraction.

For comparison, I was completing a fetch quest for one of those free-to-play MMOs.

Well, in an open forum style that was shown, I feel that interaction is necessary. So it flows better as opposed to a statement that has flaws in it that can be challenged sentence by sentence. In town hall meetings it is like this, and it seems to work fine, its more intimate. It does however, look unprofessional on a large scale mass.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. If you get the responses while the speech is being given, you are getting real data. If you wait until the talking heads have a chance to tell you what the speech was about, you lose something.

@WestRiverrat Yeah, he’s right. I mean in communications class, were taught that you should be able to get the crowd really involved. Otherwise, its called dictatorship.

Since this is so widely acceptable, why not extend the ability to speak up by putting similar comment boards behind CEOs at meetings, pastors in church, and your mom?

Sounds great to me! Most of them tend to drone on and on anyway! : D

Guess I seem to be in the minority. It also seems to have become a referendum on this President which is not what I intended. Thanks for the input all.

One of the major problems with public speaking is that far too many of those who speak think that every word which drips from their lips contains wisdom the rest of us would be very wise to ponder and memorize.

Why don’t they just add instant replay to the mix (just in case a part of the speech comes out of the wrong side of the mouth).

I think it would be very rude to talk if you were witnessing the Presidential speech live. But I think it’s a bit much to expect people to hold the same standards to a television image.

I doubt almost anyone stands during the National Anthem when it plays on television before a game. That’s what you’re supposed to do to show proper respect, but many folk chat, eat nachos or chat with each other during the Anthem.

Now adding twitter to the mix.. it’s kind of different. I don’t think you can expect people not to chat on forums during Presidential addresses. That’s just silly. It’s very tacky though for the news media to put the running commentary on during the speech to put a sort of MST3K spin on it. That’s really tacky of the news people, but not the fault of the people doing it. That’s what chat rooms are all about.

I do wonder why they don’t expand the chat function and post running commentaries on everything they run these days. There’s no reason not to go all the way with the idea.

And chatting, texting or even heckling the President during a debate or speech is nothing new. I remember being a kid and hearing my grandfather heckle Carter from his armchair. His comments just weren’t available to run by during the speech because there was no technology like that around at the time.