ABC News to Debut Twitter-Enabled Broadband Video Show, "NightTline"

In a posting on its Web site, Monday, ABC News announced that its long-running nightly news magazine show, "Nightline," is expanding its relationship with microblogging service, Twitter, to launch a new, weekly, half-hour broadband TV show that will be hosted by "Nightline's" regular anchors and correspondents, and that it says will provide a forum for viewers to use Twitter to simultaneously discuss and debate the news of the day. Entitled "NightTline" and set to premiere at 12:30PM (ET) this Wednesday, the new show will be available on the "Nightline" page on abcnews.com, and will also be broadcast on the ABC News Now 24-hour digital channel. According to ABC News, the show will feature a "new, unique visualization of Twitter using Pixel touch-screen technology" that will allow its anchors to incorporate viewers' tweeted questions and feedback.

In order to encourage participation by its Twittering audience, the show will follow "Nightline's" recently launched "Face-Off" model, presenting viewers with a live debate around topical issues. The show's first episode will feature a debate on the question, "Is torture ever acceptable?," between Andrew McCarthy, a former US attorney who believes that "waterboarding is not necessarily torture," and Air Force veteran, Matthew Alexander, who believes that it is. "Nightline" and its anchors and correspondents currently have over a million Twitter followers between them. "'Nightline' has been a pioneer in its embrace of Twitter," James Goldston, "Nightline's" executive producer, said in a prepared statement. "This new collaboration provides an ideal venue for news and Twitter enthusiasts alike."