My _Guardian_ column on the CNN/YouTube Debate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/02/guardianweeklytechnologysection.comment
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in cyberblather | on August 01, 2007 07:14 PM (Infothought permalink)New media is just another way to pull the same old tricks
"We should never mistake a change in media style for any advance in citizens' power in politics."
Interesting analysis.
If I understand it right you're arguing that Republicans won't pick CNN again for such a debate in the future, should CNN pick those "campaign-killing" YouTube contributions. But right now the Republicans still agreed to it, right, meaning that CNN pickl the videos? So it remains to see if any of those videos get through.
> Whether any of the candidates would be
> pressed on their answer depended entirely
> on the debate's moderator.
You started that sentence but didn't conclude whether the moderator did push the candidates to answer the questions indeed. I know that once he pushed Barack Obama, who gave an evasive answer to the questions "did soldiers die in vein in Iraq" (it was a lose-lose question, as either way you answer it will open you for heavy rhetorical attack), to actually give a to-the-point answer. But I didn't watch the whole thing, so I can't come up with anything conclusive...
I thought they'd propose a similar debate - but with the questions selected by Fox News. Or maybe they'd get some sort of deal to have an ally pick the questions. There's plenty of time for them to come up with something.
The moderator did push the candidates a few times. But my point was that whether to push, and how far, was entirely up to that moderator, and the "citizens" had no say in the matter.
> I thought they'd propose a similar
> debate - but with the questions selected
> by Fox News.
But the Republicans (or some?) already have it scheduled with CNN/ YouTube for Sept. 17th...
http://www.youtube.com/debates
That was the plan, but after the Democratic debate, some Republican candidates started having "scheduling issues" with the September 17 debate. We'll have to see if they continue to have conflicts, or they suddenly get resolved, or if there's an alternate event.
> That was the plan, but after
> the Democratic debate, some Republican
> candidates started having "scheduling
> issues" with the September 17 debate.
But then they'd be losing hip-appeal and votes from the younger generation, right?
I think the web echo chamber has a very inflated sense of its own importance.
And if the Republicans have a Fox News "debate", very few votes will care about the distinction.
> I think the web echo chamber has
> a very inflated sense of its own importance.
The "web"? Nah. This YouTube debate was marketed on CNN International as the "hip" thing quite heavily. That's primetime, mainstread TV. (I don't have "normal" CNN here, but I could imagine its YouTube promotion was along the same lines as CNN International.)
It's being marketed heavily because this is the slow news season, not because it's important.
How "hip" was George Bush?
Good piece, Seth. I missed out on the hypeful pieces you charged against, but I suppose they existed.
It made for fun TV...