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The Debate About YouTube Debates Rages On

A week ago tonight, Democratic presidential candidates gathered in Charleston, S.C., for a groundbreaking event in politics: a debate that featured online video questions submitted by citizens.

The debate about the strengths and weaknesses of the event have been raging ever since, with the big news late last week being that Republicans may not embrace a similar debate. The Huffington Post also caught up with the people whose questions were aired and offered some revealing tidbits, like the fact that one of the questions to Rep. Dennis Kucinich was asked by one of his supporters.

Here's a recap of some of the news and commentary from the past seven days:

-- The Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet: "We saw an old-school style debate for a YouTube audience." The problems that IPDI cited included candidates changing the subject from the actual questions that were asked and candidates criticizing each other rather than talking about their own views.

-- The word from White House Press Secretary Tony Snow (via Think Progress): President Bush isn't "big on YouTube debates."

-- Competing views of the debate from TalkLeft: Site founder Jeralyn Merritt reportedly "thought it was the best debate," but Armando Llorens, who writes under then pseudonym Big Tent Democrat, disagreed. "[I]t was a particularly silly exercise where attention-seeking gimmicks like [a] snowman, costumes and singing were the order of the day. Moreover, the actual questions were, at best, badly phrased routine questions we have heard a million times. ... But what really annoyed me was the conceit that CNN's slections represented some type of consensus view of 'what the people wanted to talk about.'"

Llorens also criticized a new debate proposal being touted by some bloggers on the right.

-- Two writers at Open Left loved the debate. Though Mike Lux criticized CNN's execution of the debate, he describe the concept as "democracy the way it was meant to be, just like in the polling place." Technologist David Alpert called the debate an Internet-inspired "gust of fresh air."

-- Radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh (via PrezVid): "Above all else, this is a show. CNN is in this for ratings. They’re not going to turn over the all-important questions to these candidates to a bunch of dingbats who don’t know what they’re doing. ... The YouTube business is nothing more than the latest attempt by the Democrats and the media to extend the youth vote to the Democrat Party. Think of this as the 2007 version of Rock the Vote."

-- Writing in the New York Daily News, Micah Sifry of techPresident called for a "presidential debate 2.0," where online users would pick some of the questions and vote on the best candidate answers as the debate occurs.

-- Colin Delany of e.politics: "The big loser was traditional political rhetoric. Every time candidates veered off into talking points, I started to drift off myself, but when they spoke as they would in a normal conversation, I would tend to perk up and listen. The format humanized the candidates. With people asking unstilted questions, stilted answers felt hollow."

-- Frustrated by the "inane" questions that he said let the candidates stick to prepared talking points, Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters started a contest among his readers in an attempt to generate "intelligent, cogent YouTube video questions that will produce specific answers from our Republican candidates." He also dedicated an episode of CQ Radio to discussing the debate.

-- Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine engaged in a spirited debate about the debate with a British journalist. Jarvis concluded that television didn't mix well with the new media promise of online video. BBC Editor Kevin Marsh cast more of the blame on citizen media.

-- Conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt is adamantly opposed to Republicans participating in a similar YouTube debate. To prove his point about the "looney format" and "lunatic assumptions," he dedicated part of Friday's show to airing and answering some of the questions already submitted for that event. Hewitt added in a later blog post, "Skipping a CNN set-up camouflaged with YouTube videos is a symptom of wanting to win, that's all."

-- GOP e-politics expert Patrick Ruffini on talk of Republicans avoiding a similar debate: "This is a big mistake. The Democrats are afraid to answer questions from Big Bad Fox News Anchors, and the Republicans are afraid to answer questions from regular people. Which is worse? It's stuff like this that will set the GOP back an election cycle or more on the Internet. No matter the snazzy Web features and YouTube videos they may put up, if they're fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of interacting with real people online, what's the point?"

Ruffini also took his cause at HughHewitt.com. Dean Barnett blogged about the issue there as well, challenging Ruffini's views about the value of online GOP activism. Of the debate format, Barnett added: "With goofy YouTube videos running cover for CNN’s agenda journalism, one can easily imagine several questions being asked at the CNN/YouTube debate that would never be asked, and indeed have no rightful place, in a mature political dialogue."

-- Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo ridiculed the suggestion that YouTube has a liberal bias. "'Liberal Bias,' whatever else it once was, now appears to be the new Republican code word for any venue or events not controlled by Republican commisars like Hugh Hewitt along the lines of President Bush's notorious Social Security town halls in which only certified flunkies who swore to a Bush loyalty oath were let into the room," Marshall wrote.

-- To Matt Stoller of Open Left, the reason that Republicans don't want to submit to voters' questions in a YouTube debate is simple: "Because they will get crushed."

-- Under a headline that referred to YawnTube, Michelle Malkin noted the unimpressive ratings for the debate.

-- Howard Mortman wants to see other online powerhouses like Amazon.com, eBay, Netflix, Peapod and Wonkette hosting presidential debates, with probing questions like "Why do you think that people who purchased your autobiography are also reading Dr. Seuss?"

Posted by Danny | 07:18 AM

Comments

It is so clear the Guliani and Romni dont want to face any reality in public where they might have to give a real answer to a real person. And yes, why shouldn't the Democrats want to speak to the youth, everyone's vote and mind count. Not everyone is a burned out old coot, drugie like YOU RUSH!!! The right is wrong and the left is right.... and if you haven't noticed yet RUSHIE, W DUBEDya and America is now too Bushed to fight terror.

Eileen Frances | 07.30.07 10:51 AM

As the pundits weighed in on winners and losers, two things struck me powerfully: that they all agreed the format itself was a winner, and that most of the news sites offered the clips in lieu of thier own extensive commentary. It appears that the Peace X Peace way, informed global citizenry practicing real grassroots democracy, is not only possible - it's here.
Please check out our blog on the same topic @: www.weekxweek.blogspot.com

Peace X Peace | 07.30.07 01:09 PM

My contention is that the percentage of female questions (24%) chosen does not even come close to (or approximate) the percentage (60%) that is comprised of women in the electorate. It was too heavily weighted towards male questioneers.

Hey, I also not that in your review of the blogs and commentaries about the YouTube debates, you have mainly cited male bloggers and analysts.

I'd like to offer still another commentary on the YouTube debates - as written in my blog post "Almost 9 Million More Women - YouTube Blew It?" at EverydayCitizen.com.

Let us not forget that woman are 54% of the U.S. population, comprising also 60% of the electorate (the number of people in the US that actually vote).

While it's interesting to see what the men have to say, they are not the majority of votes in the election!

By the way, great and comprehensive overview. You have a great blog.

Pam Pohly

Pam Pohly | 07.31.07 05:58 PM

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