July 25th, 2007
CNN/YouTube debate: world-changing or a bore?
How are we to judge the new debate format which boasted such innovations as a talking snowman questioning presidential candidates about global warming? Reaction to CNN’s video-questions-from-voters debate Monday night varied from praise to contempt, reports Wired News
As the eight Democratic candidates answered questions from video voters, the pundits were watching closely for any clues the debate might offer about the future of politics. Are YouTube users better questioners than inside-the-beltway reporters? Were the 39 questions that CNN chose from the thousands submitted challenging enough to illuminate the issues?
Apparently, the verdict is still out.
“CNN selected too many obvious, dutiful, silly questions,” wrote Jeff Jarvis, at PrezVid, a site that tracks presidential campaigns. “The candidates gave us the same answers they always give,”.
The questions ranged from serious to the intensely personal. And if nothing else, those who tuned in, at least for a short time, felt some camaraderie with their fellow citizen.
“For about two hours last night, American political discourse was more genuine, diverse and — just as the internet visionaries promised — more authentic than most days on the campaign trail,” wrote The Huffington Post’s Ari Melber.”
But if viewers were hoping to see candidates caught in a moment of uncommon honesty, they didn’t find that. The responses were pretty much status quo, according to one YouTube video commenter:
“In my opinion, (the debate) sucked — yes, it sucked,” the young man told the camera in a reaction piece uploaded to YouTube after the debate. “Why? Every single candidate didn’t give a clear answer to any of the questions they were asked, not to mention that it was boring — much like the candidates themselves, who shouldn’t be in office.”
Some viewers felt that the debate actually did more to blur the candidates rather than to differentiate them.
“I feel like Clinton and Obama came off great — but Biden really surprised me,” said Joshua Abeyta, 23, a political science student at the University of California at Berkeley. Abeyta, an undecided voter, said that he found Biden’s frank manner refreshing. But the debate had done nothing to make up his mind.“If anything, it made it harder (to choose),” Abeyta said.
