{"id":535,"date":"2007-07-27T12:35:02","date_gmt":"2007-07-27T19:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=535"},"modified":"2007-11-28T17:33:24","modified_gmt":"2007-11-29T01:33:24","slug":"republicans-are-afraid-of-youtube","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=535","title":{"rendered":"Republicans Are Afraid Of YouTube"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a> and We Report. CNN\/YouTube Decides<\/a>). But my objections were based on execution, not on YouTube or the introduction of citizen participation in the electoral process. Despite it’s shortcomings, there is merit in venturing out into new constituencies and the broadcast did attract a record number of 18-34 year olds.<\/p>\n

Republicans, however, are shrinking<\/a> from the ghastly specter of pajama-clad netizens. So far, only John McCain and Ron Paul have RSVP’d. The others have not actually sent their regrets and they may yet agree to attend. But Mitt Romney was overtly dismissive, saying…<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/object>
\n“I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps so. But the real question is, “If you can’t stand up to a snowman on YouTube, how can you stand up to Al Qaeda?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> A coalition of Republican bloggers has mounted an Internet campaign to Save The Debate<\/a>. From their web site:<\/p>\n

“Republicans cannot write off the Internet […] If you approach the Internet from a position of paralyzing fear, you will be out-gunned, out-manned, and out-raised at every turn. It is fundamentally unacceptable to surrender to the Democrats on one of the most important battlefronts of this election.”<\/span><\/p>\n

This online petition has the potential to be effective, except for one thing: It’s online and Republicans are afraid of that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 electoral process. Despite it’s shortcomings, […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-youtube"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-8D","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":531,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=531","url_meta":{"origin":535,"position":0},"title":"The Two Hour YouTube Commercial On CNN","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/23\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that the first ever YouTube debate is completed, can we please promise not to have any more? If you separate out the candidate'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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":681,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=681","url_meta":{"origin":535,"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 "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":532,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=532","url_meta":{"origin":535,"position":2},"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 "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":604,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=604","url_meta":{"origin":535,"position":3},"title":"Changing the World of Internet and Politics","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/15\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"PoliticsOnline is conducting a poll to... \"...help select the top 10 individuals, organizations and companies having the greatest impact on the way the Internet is changing politics.\" The award \"seeks to recognize the innovators and pioneers, the dreamers and doers who bring democracy online.\" Top 10 lists are always somewhat\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3859,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3859","url_meta":{"origin":535,"position":4},"title":"CNN Turning To Andrew Breitbart And Into Fox News","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/12\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It's bad enough that America has one Fox News. One network that has mainstreamed lying and abandoned all journalistic ethics in favor of spreading propaganda and nurturing ignorance. Now it appears that CNN has aspirations to out-Fox Fox. They put out a press release announcing some new hires: \"CNN is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6241,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=6241","url_meta":{"origin":535,"position":5},"title":"Republicans Are Afraid Of MSNBC","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/20\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"If you think that you have been inundated with Republican candidates yelping at one another on television for the past year, you would be right. So far there have been 17 GOP primary debates aired in a campaign season that has seen only two actual elections take place (Iowa and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","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=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}