Media criticism in context: “Yes, it would be nice if the press spent less time on inanities and more time on how candidates planned to actually run the country. But this view of the media is just too simplistic.” Via Salon.
Update: More news on the Obama surge from the Cafe Press primary: “After being nearly tied two weeks ago in weekly candidates sales (Obama at 28%, Hillary at 26%), now as of last week, Obama has surged to account for 48%, while Hillary is down to 19% of weekly candidate sales.” More here, and thanks to John Hlinko for the tip.
Hillary Clinton’s Online/Offline Town Hall. She’ll take questions via email, text and video, with Bill and Chelsea (among others) hosting satellite town halls around the country.
Republicans make Fox News sick. “To recap New Hampshire for Fox News: Hannity was pursued by a Republican mob, O’Reilly got into a shoving match with an Obama aide, and CNN grabbed more viewers. Now that’s a week to remember!”
The Day After. The end of the Edwards campaign, through the eyes of his blogger outreach staffer.
Australia wild party child turns party pro. My teenaged near-namesake uses MySpace to promote a party, 500 “friends” show up and do $20,000 worth of damage. Delanys everywhere are extremely proud. Via my friend Doug McCammon.
Money Could Stretch Out Campaign. Interesting idea — even though the primary season is compressed this time around, online fundraising might help candidates stay in the race even if they lose the early rounds (somebody call Ron Paul).
The past week’s online uproar at the thought of Republican frontrunners skipping their turn in the sights of YouTube video questioners has been both revealing and (for a Dem) quite a source of mirth. Talk about a PR black eye — hey guys, let’s give the impression that we’re afraid to speak to regular people unless we’re sure we can yank on their puppet strings from above the stage.
Since Jose Antonio Vargas’s original report that only Ron Paul and John McCain had so far agreed to participate in the September Republican version of last week’s CNN/YouTube debate, plenty of folks on the left, right and center have dogpiled on the candidates, lacerating defenders’ arguments and leaving me with little doubt that Romney, Giuliani, et al will ultimately grudgingly deign to take questions from The Common Man.
Why did this happen? Sarah Lai Stirland, writing in Wired’s Threat Level blog, said early on that it’s all about the war, noting that candidates other than McCain and Paul may be reluctant to face a video as powerful as this one:
The YouTube debate may not have revolutionized politics, but it sure as hell was more of a pleasure to watch than your average political event. I’d read both hype and skepticism in the days beforehand, and I suspect that ultimately the new format will have a bigger effect on the debates themselves than on the political process. Still, it brought home the hollowness of much of our scripted political speech, since those candidates who could break through the rhetoric and speak with a human voice really stood out. And it demonstrated the real potential of citizen politics — sometimes a million monkeys banging away on keyboards WILL produce quality.
Guest article! David Newland — screenwriter, producer and former National Geographic web video guy — watched last night’s debate with the eyes of a man who’s seen (and created) more online video than he’d probably like to remember. He has both debate analysis and practical advice for future questioners.
YouTube Debate Questions and Video Production
The debate is done and I am happy. Now, a few caveats up front. I am of mixed opinion about whether this was a one-time stunt, or if user-submitted videos will become a fixture in politics, and yes, the YouTube submissions were filtered through CNN, so we may have seen only the best produced videos (a brief glance at some of the non-chosen videos on YouTube seem to bear this out).
But still, people actually produced quality amateur videos.
I had expected to see question after question in the “video confessional” mode ala Lonelygirl15 and a million other YouTube videos — a person sitting in front of their computer, in a face-warping close up, with a junk background. Videos that burn my eyes and strain my ears. And yes, about half of those videos were like that.
But the other half showed production values. They showed effort and thought, and as amateur video submissions, that’s what I’m looking for. A 50% success rate? That’s pretty good. We are not only a media-savvy culture, we are apparently a media-producing-savvy culture, too.
Some quick highlights from the candidates’ strategies to leverage the debates to build their supporter bases, connect with voters and foster online community:
Kucinich wins for best use of his own video clip: Text “P-E-A-C-E.” SMS list-building exercise, anyone? The kids’ll love it. Bob Dole bonus moment: repeating it twice in person.
Chris Dodd unveiled a comprehensive debate exploitation strategy, also soliciting questions via video and offering some behind-the-scenes footage. And, he promises answers to some of the top-rated debate questions that DIDN’T get asked.
Picking up fans during a July debate is nice. Building your list of potential donors? That’s golden.
So, as promised, I missed the first presentation of tonight’s debate, but with all of the live-blogging going on, I feel like I might just could skip the rebroadcast of the real thing (only kidding, but man, a Tivo would kick ass right now). I’m sure this puppy is being dissected at high speed all over blogland, but let me point to some quick highlights from the world of rapid typing. Spencer Overton has gone out on a limb at techPresident — live-blogging in front of an audience of tech/political types? No pressure. Danny, Shira, Heather Andrew and the other mainstream media kids over at National Journal have outdone themselves as well, with two separate threads running, one on Hotline On Call and the other at Tech Daily Dose.
As someone who generally writes essays rather than stream-of-consciousness pieces, I’m fascinated to watch these on-the-fly articles spring up. Writing them must be like trying to shoot a bird on the wing, knowing each time you draw a bead that dozens more will fly by in the meantime. The time for perspective will be laternow.
The folks at National Journal’s Technology Daily have really poured some resources into their debate coverage today — besides reprinting some excellent Tech Daily pre-debate stories on their Daily Dose site, they’ll also be live-blogging the event itself. I promise not to plagiarize — intentionally, at least. The site currently features articles about the debate’s degree of innovation (including a quote from A Familiar Online Politics Writer as well as some rather blunt opinions from the author of Cult Of The Amateur), a look at some tech-related questions that have been submitted, details about how the candidates will be trying to use the medium to their advantage, and of course, this little gem from Red State Update:
Remember, it’s not a real debate unless someone’s top comes off — that’s just common sense.
Here at e.politics world headquarters, I tell ya things are HOPPIN’! We are PLUMB FIRED UP! Tonight’s the REVOLUTIONARY, GONNA CHANGE EVERYTHING presidential debate, sponsored by CNN and YouTube — with questions submitted by YOU, the great unwashed masses….
Okay, okay, it’s another presidential debate, basically in a town hall format, but with questions submitted by video rather than in person. A game-changer? When you think of it as a town hall, probably not. And as has been widely discussed, CNN is still vetting the questions, so there’s always a chance that we’ll end up with the same Washington-consensus questions that dominate the regular debates. But Jeff Jarvis quotes debate moderator Anderson Cooper as saying about the questioners: “These are people that are very passionate about this topic. I want to make sure that this debate honors them, and honors the time they took to make these questions.” So perhaps we’ll get some good questions and some video presentations that really take advantage of the medium — responding to Jeff’s piece, Troy Scheider says that the debates, “while still far from perfect, are an encouraging sign folks are trying — and that we’ll find that new sweet spot eventually.”
The e.politics “team” (me and the cat) will miss the live broadcast — I’ll be at a previously scheduled dinner and she’ll be napping — but my colleague David Newland will be watching from the safety of his new home, Los Angeles. He’s been a web video producer at National Geographic as well as a screenwriter and an all-around video guru, and he’ll be evaluating the video questions from a film-guy’s point of view. I’ll catch the rebroadcast at 11 and take in the whole spectacle from an online communications perspective. Together we shall be an unstoppable force. If you’re looking for more, besides Jeff and Troy’s pieces, Josh Levy’s Daily Digest at techPresident has links to some good preview articles.
Web 3.0: The Future of Video. “The future of video is professional content with a twist. Interactivity. Targeted to niche audiences, by niche additions.”
Estonia Presses Bush for Cyber-Attack Research Center Critical quote: “NATO was designed to counter physical threats and hasn’t yet developed detailed plans for cyber warfare.” Hey kids, how about we get ready to fight the NEXT war instead of the last one?
‘BONG HiTS 4 JESUS’: Nevermind. Hooray! Schools can crack down on speech — thank god, I was afraid we might teach those little bastards to think for themselves, or something.
New details emerged today about the CNN/YouTube-sponsored Democratic presidential debate, to be held on July 23rd in South Carolina. Some salient points:
No live panel of questioners, only Anderson Cooper as moderator.
Questions will come from videos submitted to a YouTube channel.
Questions may be directed at a particular candidate or asked generally of everyone on stage.
The debate organizers are encouraging the use of sound and graphics to create a rich media experience for each question. They’re hoping for presentations that are “creative and inventive,” and for the videos to provide real context for the questions.
Submitted questions will be visible on YouTube, though the debate organizers aren’t going to tip candidates and the public off about which ones will be chosen. As with normal YouTube videos, viewers will be able to leave comments, rate videos, etc.
Anderson Cooper will be able to ask questions directly if new issues burst into prominence between the end of the submission period and the beginning of the debate. I.e., the debate won’t be strictly limited only to the YouTube questions.
Update: the debate organizers expect to use 20-30 questions in total.
Tameka Kee with MediaPost asked an excellent question yesterday when we were emailing about her recent article on the Post’s online political coverage: what about the Yahoo/Huffington Post/Slate online debates: revolutionary, over-hyped, or just what we need?
My answer: business as usual for the world of the ‘net, since just about any media presentation we can think of is eventually going to migrate online, at least as an experiment. In this case, I’m not too confident that the results are going to be satisfying — I can think of few things more excruciatingly boring than staring at a bunch of talking heads in suits for an hour in a tiny window on my computer screen. People seem to like to consume online video in short bursts, not the marathon viewing session that a debate requires. In other words, streaming is SO broadcast-era. But if debates are a product of the television age, what would the Internet equivalent be? (more…)
