{"id":531,"date":"2007-07-23T19:00:20","date_gmt":"2007-07-24T02:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=531"},"modified":"2007-11-28T17:34:45","modified_gmt":"2007-11-29T01:34:45","slug":"the-two-hour-youtube-commercial-on-cnn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=531","title":{"rendered":"The Two Hour YouTube Commercial On CNN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now that the first ever YouTube debate is completed, can we please promise not to have any more?<\/p>\n<p>If you separate out the candidate&#8217;s answers and overlay the questions in text, the debate was no better or worse than any other debate. The participation of YouTube added nothing positive to the format or the content.<\/p>\n<p>Since all of the videos broadcast were pre-selected by CNN, this could hardly be characterized as promoting the voice of the people. There were probably considerations by the CNN judges that included such irrelevancies as humor, entertainment value, charisma, and controversy. That is not an appropriate basis for engaging prospective occupants of the White House.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s worse, the gimmickry of this format is notable for whom it excludes. For instance:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Any questioner that doesn&#8217;t have a video camera or video skills.<\/li>\n<li>Anyone who is uncomfortable performing on video or lacks public speaking skills.<\/li>\n<li>All of those without Internet access or who don&#8217;t know how to upload files.<\/li>\n<li>Internet users who are not registered with YouTube and don&#8217;t want to be.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This doesn&#8217;t seem like a format that encourages participation from a cross-section of America. If it was their purpose to produce a debate that was representative of the population, they failed.<\/p>\n<p>What they succeeded at was promoting YouTube and it&#8217;s corporate parent, Google. The program was a two hour American Idol style commercial for a business that has a broad portfolio of vested interests in media and politics. CNN is partnered with Google who&#8217;s search engine is featured on their web site. And all of the political players on the stage have potential for benefiting Google&#8217;s regulatory agenda.<\/p>\n<p>A far better experiment along these lines would have been a blog powered debate hosted by a broad-based and open site that allowed for more diverse and less moderated (or community moderated) participation. If CNN had such a site, I would not have objected to them using it. But since they don&#8217;t, something along the lines of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\" target=\"_blank\">Huffington Post<\/a> might be interesting.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, I don&#8217;t have much hope that that will occur. It&#8217;s a little too far off the radar of old media players like CNN. So we&#8217;ll have to endure these spectacles for some time to come. And of course, the Republicans are going to get the YouTube treatment next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now that the first ever YouTube debate is completed, can we please promise not to have any more? If you separate out the candidate&#8217;s answers and overlay the questions in text, the debate was no better or worse than any other debate. The participation of YouTube added nothing positive to the format or the content. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-media","category-general","tag-youtube"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-8z","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":532,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=532","url_meta":{"origin":531,"position":0},"title":"We Report. CNN\/YouTube Decides","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/25\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The one clearly positive aspect of this \"ground-breaking\" experiment in television journalism, is that watching cutesy citizens asking evasive candidates questions that hunky moderators won't follow-up on, is still better than watching washed-up reporters asking the same questions even more boringly. Many in the media have declared the experiment a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":681,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=681","url_meta":{"origin":531,"position":1},"title":"Republicans Finally Face-Off On YouTube","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/29\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"After initially declining to participate in a proposed CNN\/YouTube debate, the Republican candidates have finally weathered the ordeal that had so frightened them at first. I could care less about the actual substance of the debate because it was so predictably a contest to see who could be more opposed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":535,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=535","url_meta":{"origin":531,"position":2},"title":"Republicans Are Afraid Of YouTube","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/27\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"News Corpse readers are aware that I was not impressed with the Democratic debate co-sponsored by CNN and YouTube (see The Two Hour YouTube Commercial On CNN and We Report. CNN\/YouTube Decides). But my objections were based on execution, not on YouTube or the introduction of citizen participation in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5386,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=5386","url_meta":{"origin":531,"position":3},"title":"Remember This While Watching The CNN\/Tea Party GOP Debate","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/12\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"When the Republican debate tonight airs it is important to put into context the venue in which the candidates will appear. This debate is being broadcast on CNN along with their co-hosts, the Tea Party Express (TPE). From the start, the notion of elevating any Tea Party group to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3433,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3433","url_meta":{"origin":531,"position":4},"title":"WTF? CNN And Tea Party Express Partner For GOP Debate [Updated]","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/19\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Dec 17,2010 - CNN, the once dominant and comparatively respectable cable news network, seems determined to destroy whatever shreds are left of its credibility. They announced this morning that they will be partnering with the Tea Party Express for a Republican primary debate in September of 2011. Generally when a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":62001,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=62001","url_meta":{"origin":531,"position":5},"title":"FTR: Felonious Trump Gave 3 Times as Many False Statements as President Biden in the CNN Debate","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/28\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Lets get this out of the way... President Biden had a bad night, and it was a serious missed opportunity. That said, Donald Trump is still a convicted felon, a rapist, a bigot, a flaming idiot, and an aspiring authoritarian who is an imminent threat to democracy. And, as emphatically\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"Trump Lies","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/FoxNews\/Trump-lies-deceive.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/FoxNews\/Trump-lies-deceive.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/FoxNews\/Trump-lies-deceive.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}