As 2016 election talk and coverage reaches wall-to-wall levels, a new app aims to sift through the verbal political diarrhea on TV and social media to facilitate smart debate.
Sidewire launched on Thursday in Iowa as a platform for spotlighting opinions from top political figures and creating a breeding ground for substantive debate and discussion.
“Getting [expert] perspective is crucial, but we’ve kind of entered a time where there is so much information flying at everyone that it’s really hard to sift out the signal from the noise,” Andy Bromberg, Sidewire’s CEO and co-founder, told the Des Moines Register.
The app has landed over 100 politicos for launch, including John McCain and spokespeople for Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio and Chris Christie. Other contributors come from the journalism ranks, including NBC’s Chuck Todd and The Washington Post’s Matea Gold.
Co-founder Tucker Bounds, who was a spokesman for John McCain during his 2008 campaign, is laser-focused on making his app must-use for the top candidates.
“Campaigns are looking for every avenue to be influential with a message,” he told Re/code. “It makes natural sense for different campaigns to use Sidewire to get straight to the influencer community.”
The app serves as an aggregator of sorts, curating the top political stories for its users to discuss. What makes it different than your average political chat on Twitter or Facebook?
“This is a new type of platform,” Bounds said. “A place where you can have direct engagement with influencers and journalists or someone who works in the news. Or, if you are [one of those people], you can have engagement with campaign candidates.”