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RULES FOR PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
in Waycross Candidate and Issues Forums.
The purpose of Waycross Community Media’s Candidate and Issues Forums is to help our residents become better informed voters for the upcoming election and encourage participation in the democratic process. Waycross respectfully asks that all participants keep to topics that are relevant to the campaign being discussed and refrain from personal attacks on candidates or issue representatives.
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
- Questions will only be accepted from residents living within the area pertaining to the office or issue of that particular forum.
- Following the conclusion of opening statements, the call-in phone number will be given out and will be displayed at the bottom of the screen. The caller will have up to 20 seconds to ask one question; there will not be an opportunity for a follow-up question. There may be only one phone line available for call-in questions.
- Each caller will be interviewed off camera. They will be required to give their name, address, city and phone number for verification by a call handler. Anyone refusing to provide this information will be ineligible to participate. Upon confirmation of the caller’s information, the call handler will ask for the question to assure that the same question has not been previously asked in the same forum. If the caller has a duplicate question, they will have one opportunity to come up with an alternative question. The resident will be identified on-air by their first name and street;
Example “Our caller is Mary from Waycross Road.”
- Residents may also submit questions via e-mail. They must include their name, address and phone number for verification to have their question considered. The resident will only be identified on-air by their first name and street; all other information, inclluding e-mail address will be blocked from the screen.
- Viewers MAY NOT direct questions to a particular candidate or issue representative; they must be phrased as to give all candidates or issue representatives the opportunity to respond. Question not posed correctly will be immediately disqualified.
- Waycross reserves the right to disqualify any question submitted for any reason and to terminate the call-in/e-mail portion of the election forum at any time.
- Contact information for call-in and e-mailed questions will be furnished to the participating campaigns upon request.
updated 09/2006
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