ESPN should be applauded for putting together a town hall meeting to discuss such a highly publicized, highly dividing topic in a public forum.

Although it will look and sound a lot like a trashy talk show at times, the end product will be beneficial to those who haven’t had a chance to (or didn’t want to) listen to varying views on the issue.

Bob Ley from Outside The Lines is moderating the discussion, and his discussion panel consists of Selena Roberts from the New York Times, Terence Moore of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Chuck Smith (ex-Falcons player) and ex-Falcons player and Vick teammate Terrence Mathis. There are a few others but I didn’t catch all of their names and can’t recognize their faces right now, but when I update this again I’ll add them. Also, Jeffri Chadiha is planted blogger-style on the panel stage with his laptop, reading forum comments from the ever-present, ever-resounding netroots community.

Hopefully the discussion will be productive and helpful… ok, maybe not. But let’s hope at the very least we get a balanced discussion of professionals, mixed with a bunch of people in the crowd yelling at Moore. Let me give you this right now: Selena Roberts just upped her readership at NYTimes.com because she’s on point right now. Works out that NYTimes.com just opened up all of Roberts’ pieces to the public.

So on goes the town hall meeting, another hour to go… I’ll try and post more later.

WOW… the white guy on the panel almost said, “you people…” it’s going to be a rowdy hour to go.

Side note: If Michael Vick is probably at home right now watching the town hall meeting he’s either:

• Booing Terence Moore from his couch
• Applauding Selena Roberts and creating “I heart Selena” shirts
• Playing Madden ‘08 and lauding in the last year for a long while he’ll be playing in a NFL stadium without using a cheat code.

Some other links:

• Some ESPN town hall hate from Moore’s Atlanta-Journal Constitution coworker.