I’ll admit, I was suspect of the concept of the CNN / YouTube debates.
I mean, really, does it matter how the questions are asked? Candidates just give canned answers anyway. That’s still true, but the YouTube debate of the democratic primary ended up going off pretty well.
Unlike other sites, I am not going to try to rate the candidates’ performances (despite my political science degree). Rather, I am going to talk about the more technical aspects of the format and the inclusion of YouTube.
Good:
The No. 1 positive of the debates was an increased sense of humanity from the questioners. Most town hall-style debates don’t have questioners who are nearly as impassioned. It’s largely the format.
First, a lot of people are camera shy and don’t like getting up in front of millions of people. Second, only certain people have access to those debates. The debate has to be in your area, it has to fit your schedule (Americans are busy people) and you have to be able to get tickets.
YouTube changes all of that. Anyone, anywhere can send in a question. They don’t have to worry about the camera, because they can rehearse their question over and over again until they feel comfortable. The YouTube format also encourages users to ask the tough questions.
The debate featured some of the best questions I have seen in a long time and often some very good answers.
Also, the debate was watchable online. That’s a must. Not everyone has CNN where they are (an intern friend of mine was only able to catch the debate because it was live on the Web), and not everyone wants to watch it on TV. Even better, it was easy to find the debate online to watch after the fact.
That’s what the main stream media needs to do more of. A lot of media companies have great content but they are unwilling to expand their delivery options. It’s very important to allow people to consume content how they want to when they want to.
That’s one major triumph of these debates. Everyone can still check out the individual debate questions (if you want to pick and choose which ones you want to watch) for months after this debate. It will be a great tool allowing people to compare debate performances over the coming months.
Bad:
The No. 1 problem of this debate was the amount of candidates debating. Eight candidates is a minimum three too many. I know that it is extremely early in the race and no one should be written off, but the debate got boring when some of the better candidates had to wait 20-30 minutes in between talking.
This debate format led itself well to some quality questions. Quality questions need quality answers. Does everyone really believe there are eight worthy democratic candidates? Of course not.
Somewhere between three to five candidates would be the sweet spot. It would allow for more responses for each candidates and a lot more time for rebuttals. It would be a real debate.
I give CNN some props for partnering with YouTube. That took some guts, but it was a better debate format than normal. I would be shocked if they didn’t pull in a lot of extra younger viewers this time.
A few years ago I rarely watched CNN and never went to cnn.com, because it was a stodgy company that looked dated compared to its competitors. Now, it’s a trail blazer and it’s producing some of the most compelling content out there.
All in all, I think the debate was successful. The format could use some tweaking and certainly less candidates, but the questions were real and that’s what this nation needs. And it’s great to be able to consume the debate in the format that works best for you.
