PoliticsTV: Top 10 YouTube Debate Videos
July 31, 2007, 7:53pm
Here’s the countdown:
- 10) Health care
- 9) Gay marriage
- 8) Gun control
- 7) Refugees in Darfur
- 6) The “redneck” question about Al Gore
- 5) The taxes song
- 4) The snowman question about global warming (I’m not a fan)
- 3) The John Edwards “Hair” video
- 2) The “ridiculous exercise” about “the candidate to your left”
- 1) Jon Stewart poking fun at the debate on “The Daily Show”
And here’s the countdown in video:
Notice anything about the countdown? Like the fact that the most serious questions barely made it into the top 10 and that half of the questions involve attempts at humor. That pretty much sums up the CNN/YouTube debate.
It was not a serious exercise in democracy; it was all a big joke perpetrated by CNN, YouTube and a small segment of the electorate on the rest of America. Let’s hope everyone does better the next time.
Categories: Democrats, Politics, Technology, Presidency 2008
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August 1st, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Don’t blame You Tube or CNN. The bottom line is that there can be no serious exercise in democracy, when the constituents of this allegedly self-governing society refuse to take their jobs as citizens seriously.
There’s been a lot of back and forth online over whether average citizens ask better questions than journalists in debates. Given the what’s-in-it-for-me nature of most YouTube questions, I still prefer journalists. But what everyone agrees on is that pols respond no differently regardless of the question source.
Not discussed is the reason they remain unshakably on script — which has nothing to do with the nature of the questions, who is asking them, or what format they’re delivered in. It is because the politicians know who they are talking to — a nation which is, by and large, filled with citizen slackers.
Civic apathy, and the civic ignorance that flows from it, is rampant in America. For a bit of empirical evidence, see the recent Pew study on “Public Knowledge of Current Affairs.”
7people-press.org/reports/displ…
And the dismal results reported there were just for civics 101 questions, like asking people if they could name all 3 branches of government (42% could not!). Imagine the results if asked about the key differences of competing energy policies or foreign policy strategies.
America faces multiple existential crises, and an endless array of other crises and challenges. But they will never be adequately fixed by any president or party acting in a sea of civic ignorance. Yet no one will discuss this vital issue in the light of day.
7youtube.com/watch?v=w2YTsjiIyM…
You can tinker with debate formats all you want, but until and unless candidates are asked, over and over, in all forums of all kinds, who among them has the courage to channel JFK and challenge the average apathetic American — to ask us to “ask not” — but instead to truly measure up to our obligations as citizens, by fully informing ourselves and engaging in a real way in self-governance — until that happens, absolutely nothing substantive will ever change for the good — not in debates, not in journalism, and most critically, not in public policy.
Jeffrey Abelson
apathybusters.blogspot.com
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:23 am
Wow Danny.
That’s a much, much harsher tone than what you said at the debate:
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:21 am
David,
You interviewed me about an hour after the debate ended. My impressions have changed since then, in part because of things like this PTV video.
Notice that in my initial reaction to you, I played up CNN’s montage of healthcare questions as one of the high points of the debate. But look where PTV put it — at No. 10. The Darfur question landed at No. 7. The question about rogue regimes that generated so much heated discussion between the Clinton and Obama camps last week didn’t even make the cut. Jon Stewart and Billiam the Snowman did, though.
So after seeing videos like this from PTV, and after having gone back to the debate transcript and the debate clips on YouTube, my view of this particular debate has evolved. I’m much more critical now because, as I wrote last week at Beltway Blogroll, I think the silliness overwhelmed the substance that did clearly exist during the debate.
I’m still a fan of the format; I just want to see CNN and YouTube (or some other media outlets) do a much better job in the future.
Danny
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:38 am
I don’t understand how a PoliticsTV “Top 10″ could impact your thought process about the debate this much.
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:03 pm
The PTV video was not the only factor. As I said, I also went back and looked at the debate transcript and at the video clips of the debate posted to YouTube. Plus I’ve read as much coverage of the debate as humanly possible.
With the exception of the Clinton/Obama feud over the meaty dictators question, the coverage has consisted of talk about a snowman, a gun enthusiast, Hillary’s blouse and the like. If that’s what stuck with the nation from the debate, then something went horribly wrong in putting it together.
One solution might be eliminating half of the questions, as I said in the video interview with you. But my fear in that case would be that the “entertaining” questions by snowmen, about “the candidate to your left” and the like would survive the cut, and the videos with the most potential to reveal something significant about the candidates would be tossed into the YouTube haystack.
CNN and YouTube had almost 3,000 questions from which to choose for the Democratic debate. I’m convinced they could have chosen 20 solid ones. In fact, at Technology Daily we found 30-plus just on tech-related issues, and several of those (on topics like broadband and H-1B visas) would have been excellent questions to ask. But CNN did not choose wisely.
The format can work; they just have to work harder at it.