rg123
06-15-2007, 07:47 AM
CNN PLANS TO CENSOR QUESTIONS http://techpresident.com/node/403
The CNN/YouTube Debate: Make it Truly Open
By Joshua Levy, 06/14/2007 - 4:31pm
This morning Micah and I participated in a conference call with CNN President Jon Klein, CNN VP and Washington D.C. bureau chief David Bohrman, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley, and YouTube politics and news editor Steve Grove. While the semi-illuminating hour made CNN and YouTube's intentions clear, we were disappointed by one major detail.
For those that don't religiously read my daily digest posts every morning with your bialy and coffee, CNN and YouTube are co-sponsoring a Democratic debate on July 23 in Charleston, S.C., and a Republican debate on September 17 somewhere in Florida (they're still figuring out where). YouTube users are being asked to submit their questions via video uploads to YouTube, and twenty to thirty of these will be chosen by CNN and viewed at the debate. Anderson Cooper will moderate, but the only questions will come from those YouTube videos (although they will reserve some space if a big question erupts in the blogosphere).
On the surface, this format seems like a revolution in citizen participation in presidential politics, and it could inject some life into the drab debate format that -- let's be honest -- excites neither the candidates nor the audience.
There will be an enormous video projector displaying the submitted videos, and the candidates' podiums will also have small video screens attached. Google Earth will be used to show where each questioner is located. Neat.
But cool technology on big screens is only half (or less) of the technological revolution -- it's really all about the people. To be sure, it's great that YouTube and CNN are involving the YouTube community in this effort. But there's a glaring omission: CNN will be the sole arbiters of what videos are shown and questions are asked. This format is contrary to what YouTube's community of users -- and other online communities like it at Digg, Facebook, MySpace, and elsewhere -- are used to.
Members of the YouTube community upload a video hoping that it will be seen, commented on, responded to, and virally spread by their peers. This behavior functions as a kind of distributed voting mechanism, in which those videos the community likes most float to the top (though as Micah suggested earlier today, it doesn't always work that way).
But if CNN has total editorial control over what videos are shown to the candidates, it's pulling the rug out from under the so-called "user-generated content" revolution. This stuff is much less fascinating if a third-party gatekeeper comes in and tells us what is interesting and what is fluff. Instead, YouTube and CNN should let YouTube users decide what the best questions are, and then use those questions in the debate.
Micah suggested this, but we were told that if they did this, the candidates would know what the questions would be in advance, and it wouldn't be fair. However, I don't think this is the real reason. What would be so terrible if the candidates knew the questions in advance, sort of like an open book test? And wouldn't their answers be even more telling? After all, if you had the questions in advance and still flubbed the test, wouldn't that reveal something? Besides, this idea of surprising a candidate into making a gaffe reeks of broadcast, old-politics thinking -- the exact sort of think CNN and YouTube say they're trying to change. The simple fact is, CNN is uncomfortable giving up editorial control.
Klein, Bohrman, Grove, and Hurley all made it clear that the strength of this new kind of debate lies in users' ability to submit creative work; the format will be similar to previous debates that had a group of "real people" in the room asking questions, but the video component will make the questions richer and more inventive. To prove this point, Grove mentioned the sample video YouTube produced to promote the debates, in which a man in inner-city Oakland asks candidates what they will do to stop the spread of check-cashing centers in low-income neighborhoods. To illustrate his question, the man includes footage of check-cashing centers from around his neighborhood. Grove is right; this kind of video-question is more dynamic and interesting than what's come before it. But the community of YouTube users should be allowed to decide which videos are the most interesting and pertinent.
It's not only the debates that users want more control over. For the last few months, David Colarusso has run a site called Community Counts that aggregates responses to candidates' Spotlight videos (in which the candidates make a video asking the YouTube audience a question, and then respond to the audience as a whole or to selected participants) and has the community rate their favorite videos. The idea is that candidates must respond to the highest-rated videos, giving the community a much bigger stake in the project. So far, the project hasn't changed the way Spotlight operates.
So come on, CNN and YouTube, you still have time to change the format. You already impressed us by freeing the debates and letting us use debate footage any way we please; now it's time to truly open up the debates and involve the entire YouTube community, not just 20-30 lucky individuals.
One more thing: as Grove et al pointed out, this debate will be different because it can continue for days online at YouTube, where people will no doubt be posting comments about what they saw. But let's face it, YouTube's commenting system sucks at aggregating an interesting conversation. If you've spent even 10 seconds perusing the comments on any popular video you'll see what we mean. If YouTube is really serious about "empowering, educating and connecting voters" (in Hurley's words) it will throw some engineers at turning its comment boards into a real peer moderation system. Otherwise this whole thing looks like an effort to just get more eyeballs on their site.
p.s. TechPresident publisher Andrew Rasiej has a good idea: give users the chance to vote on the videos, but keep the results hidden until after the debates. This way, the community chooses the videos but the candidates can't see the questions beforehand.
The CNN/YouTube Debate: Make it Truly Open
By Joshua Levy, 06/14/2007 - 4:31pm
This morning Micah and I participated in a conference call with CNN President Jon Klein, CNN VP and Washington D.C. bureau chief David Bohrman, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley, and YouTube politics and news editor Steve Grove. While the semi-illuminating hour made CNN and YouTube's intentions clear, we were disappointed by one major detail.
For those that don't religiously read my daily digest posts every morning with your bialy and coffee, CNN and YouTube are co-sponsoring a Democratic debate on July 23 in Charleston, S.C., and a Republican debate on September 17 somewhere in Florida (they're still figuring out where). YouTube users are being asked to submit their questions via video uploads to YouTube, and twenty to thirty of these will be chosen by CNN and viewed at the debate. Anderson Cooper will moderate, but the only questions will come from those YouTube videos (although they will reserve some space if a big question erupts in the blogosphere).
On the surface, this format seems like a revolution in citizen participation in presidential politics, and it could inject some life into the drab debate format that -- let's be honest -- excites neither the candidates nor the audience.
There will be an enormous video projector displaying the submitted videos, and the candidates' podiums will also have small video screens attached. Google Earth will be used to show where each questioner is located. Neat.
But cool technology on big screens is only half (or less) of the technological revolution -- it's really all about the people. To be sure, it's great that YouTube and CNN are involving the YouTube community in this effort. But there's a glaring omission: CNN will be the sole arbiters of what videos are shown and questions are asked. This format is contrary to what YouTube's community of users -- and other online communities like it at Digg, Facebook, MySpace, and elsewhere -- are used to.
Members of the YouTube community upload a video hoping that it will be seen, commented on, responded to, and virally spread by their peers. This behavior functions as a kind of distributed voting mechanism, in which those videos the community likes most float to the top (though as Micah suggested earlier today, it doesn't always work that way).
But if CNN has total editorial control over what videos are shown to the candidates, it's pulling the rug out from under the so-called "user-generated content" revolution. This stuff is much less fascinating if a third-party gatekeeper comes in and tells us what is interesting and what is fluff. Instead, YouTube and CNN should let YouTube users decide what the best questions are, and then use those questions in the debate.
Micah suggested this, but we were told that if they did this, the candidates would know what the questions would be in advance, and it wouldn't be fair. However, I don't think this is the real reason. What would be so terrible if the candidates knew the questions in advance, sort of like an open book test? And wouldn't their answers be even more telling? After all, if you had the questions in advance and still flubbed the test, wouldn't that reveal something? Besides, this idea of surprising a candidate into making a gaffe reeks of broadcast, old-politics thinking -- the exact sort of think CNN and YouTube say they're trying to change. The simple fact is, CNN is uncomfortable giving up editorial control.
Klein, Bohrman, Grove, and Hurley all made it clear that the strength of this new kind of debate lies in users' ability to submit creative work; the format will be similar to previous debates that had a group of "real people" in the room asking questions, but the video component will make the questions richer and more inventive. To prove this point, Grove mentioned the sample video YouTube produced to promote the debates, in which a man in inner-city Oakland asks candidates what they will do to stop the spread of check-cashing centers in low-income neighborhoods. To illustrate his question, the man includes footage of check-cashing centers from around his neighborhood. Grove is right; this kind of video-question is more dynamic and interesting than what's come before it. But the community of YouTube users should be allowed to decide which videos are the most interesting and pertinent.
It's not only the debates that users want more control over. For the last few months, David Colarusso has run a site called Community Counts that aggregates responses to candidates' Spotlight videos (in which the candidates make a video asking the YouTube audience a question, and then respond to the audience as a whole or to selected participants) and has the community rate their favorite videos. The idea is that candidates must respond to the highest-rated videos, giving the community a much bigger stake in the project. So far, the project hasn't changed the way Spotlight operates.
So come on, CNN and YouTube, you still have time to change the format. You already impressed us by freeing the debates and letting us use debate footage any way we please; now it's time to truly open up the debates and involve the entire YouTube community, not just 20-30 lucky individuals.
One more thing: as Grove et al pointed out, this debate will be different because it can continue for days online at YouTube, where people will no doubt be posting comments about what they saw. But let's face it, YouTube's commenting system sucks at aggregating an interesting conversation. If you've spent even 10 seconds perusing the comments on any popular video you'll see what we mean. If YouTube is really serious about "empowering, educating and connecting voters" (in Hurley's words) it will throw some engineers at turning its comment boards into a real peer moderation system. Otherwise this whole thing looks like an effort to just get more eyeballs on their site.
p.s. TechPresident publisher Andrew Rasiej has a good idea: give users the chance to vote on the videos, but keep the results hidden until after the debates. This way, the community chooses the videos but the candidates can't see the questions beforehand.