CNN & YouTube Democratic Debates: My Initial Thoughts

So after watching the CNN and YouTube Democratic debates, I was immediately left with this question: So who won? Who moved ahead? Who stood out? Who fell behind? Who, in the end, looked Presidential?

I hate answering these questions. I'd rather deal with Michel Foucault's conception of power than Dennis Kucinich's proposal to stop funding the war to end the war.

I will state unequivocally that the YouTube-inspired questions were insightful, humorous, passionate, and the format added a really different energy to the debates. The "winners" of the debates were the folks from YouTube, and this debate, of user-generated material, will set the standard for political debates in the future.

I neglected to post what I said specifically when I was interviewed by the Swedish news team that I think might be useful here. One of the things she asked was this relationship between users of YouTube and a platform like CNN? I responded that it will be a unique format because you really are talking about two different communities and their own ways of gathering, presenting, and using information. YouTubers, and users like them, are very self-sufficient, very sophisticated and savvy about using the internet to find what they want to know and relaying that information to others. There's an inherent freedom that a powerful corporate media, like CNN, does not promote. It's "news" in their own way, while CNN is a medium in which information is presented to us, so there really is no way for "users" to define the material.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that all YouTubers do not watch CNN, and those who watch CNN do not use YouTube. That sort of distinction is not very useful to me. What is useful is the impact of the YouTube vids in a format that is still corporate controlled and it just happens to be a Democratic debate? This is similar to a live Q&A session in a debate that is covered on live television, but what the vids presented, that was fairly consistent, was how creative, insightful, provocative, knowledgeable, and powerful, user-generated content is in a live format. I should say, questions from ordinary people (the duo from Tennessee comes to mind and it was hilarious! On a separate note, I wonder if there's a way to rate the videos themselves.). What I thought was revealing was how each candidate responded to the videos themselves. The candidates seemed to fall along these lines: either they picked up the video and rolled with it, and did quite well, or, they looked awkward, distant, unsure, in a sense, almost out of touch with the people themselves.

Here are some high points that demonstrated what I mean: Obama's response to a video questioner who asked how does Obama deal with the charge that he's not "black enough?" Obama began his response about hailing a taxicab in Manhattan which drew a solid response. Another is Richardson's immediate answer to whether the No Child Left Behind Act should be scrapped or revised? His response was to scrap it which also drew a solid positive response. And finally, Hillary Clinton's response to her being a woman, which is a similar set of questions posed to Obama, was by far, smartly done and also drew some strong positive reactions and praise saying, "I couldn't run as anything other than a woman."

Dodd was smart, but he looked as though he was speaking on the Senate floor. Same with Biden. Kucinich, although had a high point on his call to end the war by cutting funding, was awkward. "Text Peace" which is a cool tagline, but once is enough. Edwards had his charm and high moments, but seemed only good at populist themes.

Richardson is interesting because as a governor, he can see the effects of federal policy from a local level, and it seems like he has a solid position from the ground up. However, there were some random moments in his responses, almost a stammering, the kind when someone is excited, who knows the answer, but stumbles upon his words. It wasn't pervasive, but it was memorable. The one I remember was some mentioning of "Muslims" which made me wince because of the context of his response. Maybe it's a good thing I don't remember the specifics.

Gravel was just an angry oddball, but I suppose being last in the polls you have nothing to lose so I thought of him as a "What the hell I'll say what I want to say at this point" of a campaign. His, "I took the train" after Anderson Cooper's question in regards to personal transportation and global warming, is one of those moments that marks Gravel's disposition.

So who do I think won?

Well ... ... ...

UPDATE: 07/24/2007, 11:18am EST
So I was reading the Washington Post and rewatching the debates again. On a lead article in the Washington Post was the tagline describing the YouTubers as "citizen-interrogators," their videos adding the necessary edge to the debate. I generally agreed, but I thought it was strangely unsettling. For reasons that I generally mentioned, the YouTube element was remarkably productive, but as I stated earlier, it's still under the context of a corporate medium. I'm not referencing this to YouTube as a corporation. That is not the focus of my attention. It's about CNN and, as a practical matter, the videos had to have been prescreened and selected based on a specific criteria: humor, wit, presentation, identifiable question, raising an issue, etc. Again, this is not my actual point, but important to remember that it is a specific selection of YouTube videos, and I agree with this pre-selection. I certainly do not want to see, what I believe, would be the vast majority of nimrods and nutcases using the debates to showcase their neurosis.

It's this notion of the "citizen-interrogator," and I think it's a particular social and political function of, simply put, asking the hard questions. I think it's great that the videos raised a number of difficult and personal issues for the candidates. I'm sure it could've went further, but it was just enough for me to see the differences amongst the candidates.

But, and this is my point, whose job is it to "ask the hard questions?" Where were the "hard questions" one year ago? Two years ago? Six years ago? I find it extremely disingenuous for CNN to pat itself on the back for utilizing a new form of "user-generated" content, of allowing and encouraging "citizens" to raise these questions, when it itself was suppose to do that for us because it's their damn job?!? I'm annoyed. It seems that using "citizen-interrogators" is a "safer" way to do the job that CNN is suppose to do, lest CNN be accused of being less than transparent. And through it all, CNN will take credit for this so called "innovation" when these practices of interrogation, criticism, and problem-solving have long been a staple of the very best bloggers on the internet representing all points on the political spectrum. All CNN did was distill and repackage a medium and community for mass consumption.