CNN's YouTube Debate: A Mockery of Democracy? Part II
The CNN/YouTube debate between the Democratic candidates for President has ended and more important than analyzing whether there might be a change in the horse race was the performance given by CNN and YouTube for this new format of debate.
The CNN/YouTube format will have another chance to redeem itself when the Republicans enter the arena on September 17th. That said, a lot of work should be done to improve this format if it is to be a serious and viable form of debate in the future.
The biggest fear brought up in the first CNN/YouTube debate post was that a substantial portion of the debate would be devoted to some rather silly or humorous videos for the purposes of entertainment. That was not the case. However, it would be fair to say that there were still some of those kinds of videos that made the cut. As such, one has to wonder whether a viewer was distracted by the entertainment value from these several videos and did not fully pay attention to the subject at hand. Additionally, a couple of those music videos featured people holding up signs to voice their message. Perhaps my eyesight is severely lacking, but those signs were incredibly hard to read on the TV. CNN should find a way to better present such footage if they indeed decide to take more of those videos when the Republicans come to bat in September.
Another problem highlighted by this format was the introduction of a few subjects that perhaps had no business being presented in a presidential debate. One, arguably, was the question asking if the Democratic candidates supported giving reparations to African-Americans. Aside from the merits of this subject (which is a whole other topic, for another time), this topic, even if it were supported by a large portion of the African-American community, is simply a very little issue nationwide. That said, Dennis Kucinich promptly killed his own presidential campaign by coming out in support of reparations.
The other topics brought up by people submitting videos included:
Taxes were not well covered in this debate, as one question was given in the form of some music video and the other was essentially a person stating "Democrats always raise my taxes! Answer that!"
The issue of guns was not discussed in any depth as the person submitting the video was worried about his "baby," which turned out to be an assault rifle.
On the positive side, Anderson Cooper did try to keep things on track (with the challenge of dealing with eight candidates in only slightly over two hours) during the debate and also tried his best to come up with quick follow-ups or his best interpretation of what some of the fantasy moderators tried to ask the candidates.
Also positive was the showing of campaign videos from each of the candidates, even though the lower-tier candidates did not get as much time as the top three (Clinton, Obama, and Edwards) and Bill Richardson did not get enough time as the fourth candidate. Additionally, a few of the questions did cut to the heart of a matter, without adding in all kinds of premises or qualifiers, including questions regarding gay rights/marriage, the Iraq war, and a couple of the health care questions.
To the credit of both CNN and YouTube, since not even half of the questions were completely silly in nature (even if there were quite a few that should have nothing to do with the campaign), they did an adequate job of making sure that serious questions and issues were raised in the debate.
The videos used for the debate can be seen at YouTube's website and presumably, the entire debate can be watched from there as well.
So, with everything said, the CNN/YouTube venture probably had enough positive things going for it that it should continue to try its new format when the Republicans walk onto the stage in September. The concerns brought up prior to this debate are still valid for the September episode, however, a couple of the fears have been addressed and the joint venture has its work before them with the upcoming debate. We will see how CNN and YouTube, as well as the candidates for the Republican nomination, will fare in a little under two months.
The CNN/YouTube format will have another chance to redeem itself when the Republicans enter the arena on September 17th. That said, a lot of work should be done to improve this format if it is to be a serious and viable form of debate in the future.
The biggest fear brought up in the first CNN/YouTube debate post was that a substantial portion of the debate would be devoted to some rather silly or humorous videos for the purposes of entertainment. That was not the case. However, it would be fair to say that there were still some of those kinds of videos that made the cut. As such, one has to wonder whether a viewer was distracted by the entertainment value from these several videos and did not fully pay attention to the subject at hand. Additionally, a couple of those music videos featured people holding up signs to voice their message. Perhaps my eyesight is severely lacking, but those signs were incredibly hard to read on the TV. CNN should find a way to better present such footage if they indeed decide to take more of those videos when the Republicans come to bat in September.
Another problem highlighted by this format was the introduction of a few subjects that perhaps had no business being presented in a presidential debate. One, arguably, was the question asking if the Democratic candidates supported giving reparations to African-Americans. Aside from the merits of this subject (which is a whole other topic, for another time), this topic, even if it were supported by a large portion of the African-American community, is simply a very little issue nationwide. That said, Dennis Kucinich promptly killed his own presidential campaign by coming out in support of reparations.
The other topics brought up by people submitting videos included:
- Whether race was the reason why FEMA messed up dealing with the crisis following Hurricane Katrina.
- If Barack Obama was "black enough" and if Hillary Clinton was "feminine enough" to be acceptable.
- Who the candidates' favorite teachers were.
- Whether the candidates sent their children to public or private school (hopefully knowing full well that no candidate will ever say that they took their child out of public school [or never sent them in the first place] because the public schools in their areas were terrible).
- Whether the attention given to Al Gore hurt the feelings of the other candidates.
- If the candidates would ever work as President for minimum wage (who would ever flat out say "no" without the qualifier "I'm not worth all that much anyway" or "The salary the President gets now is too small for the amount of work involved"?)
- What "In God We Trust" meant to the candidates.
- And, finally, for each candidate to state one thing they liked and one thing they disliked about the guy next to them (only former Senator Mike Gravel took up that challenge and John Edwards made a remark about Hillary's coat, which might well get him slammed by some on the Internet as attacking a woman).
Taxes were not well covered in this debate, as one question was given in the form of some music video and the other was essentially a person stating "Democrats always raise my taxes! Answer that!"
The issue of guns was not discussed in any depth as the person submitting the video was worried about his "baby," which turned out to be an assault rifle.
On the positive side, Anderson Cooper did try to keep things on track (with the challenge of dealing with eight candidates in only slightly over two hours) during the debate and also tried his best to come up with quick follow-ups or his best interpretation of what some of the fantasy moderators tried to ask the candidates.
Also positive was the showing of campaign videos from each of the candidates, even though the lower-tier candidates did not get as much time as the top three (Clinton, Obama, and Edwards) and Bill Richardson did not get enough time as the fourth candidate. Additionally, a few of the questions did cut to the heart of a matter, without adding in all kinds of premises or qualifiers, including questions regarding gay rights/marriage, the Iraq war, and a couple of the health care questions.
To the credit of both CNN and YouTube, since not even half of the questions were completely silly in nature (even if there were quite a few that should have nothing to do with the campaign), they did an adequate job of making sure that serious questions and issues were raised in the debate.
The videos used for the debate can be seen at YouTube's website and presumably, the entire debate can be watched from there as well.
So, with everything said, the CNN/YouTube venture probably had enough positive things going for it that it should continue to try its new format when the Republicans walk onto the stage in September. The concerns brought up prior to this debate are still valid for the September episode, however, a couple of the fears have been addressed and the joint venture has its work before them with the upcoming debate. We will see how CNN and YouTube, as well as the candidates for the Republican nomination, will fare in a little under two months.
Labels: 2008 Elections, Democrats
posted by Will at 12:20 AM
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