The story out of last night’s CNN/YouTube debate is turning out to be less about any one of the candidates’ performances and more about CNN’s chronic inability to weed out participants whose partisan or ideological leanings should have precluded their involvement. It’s not just the top story on Memeorandum; it’s the dominant story:
One blog covering the controversy but not yet featured in the roundup — it takes some time and linkage to make the cut — but sure to be a staple of Memeorandum round-ups in the near future is CQ’s latest blog, opening for business today: Ground Game. It’s written by my old college buddy and current flatmate, Eric Pfeiffer (the journalist, not the furniture designer).
In addition to covering the issue of improperly-screened questioners, he discusses how much these things matter:
The real question facing Republicans today is not whether they should make use of emerging technology, but how the medium can be used to improve their communication skills.There’s a tendency in the media to overemphasize the real-world impact of online activism, but the danger to those who ignore the grassroots power of the internet is very real. … “It’s pretty remarkable that just a year after ‘Macaca’ the candidates are standing on a stage in St. Petersburg,” Grove acknowledged.
Make sure you follow those embedded links.
Meanwhile, many of the bloggers linked in the roundup pictured above are now questioning the usefulness of these YouTube debates as organized by cable news networks, or at least by the Cable News Network. But as Pfeiffer points out, that’s not the only way CNN’s YouTube partnership is outdated:
You Tube debates have already expanded to include a Mayor debate in Salt Lake City, several student council elections and campaign forums hosted by TV stations in Greece and Poland.
I probably should have known that, but it’s news to me. That’s good enough reason to bookmark and blogroll it. After you do, check this video out even though — and I really hate to do this to you — it’s all Greek to me:
Update: In an e-mail released this afternoon, RedState is calling on CNN to fire their political director. Considering the egregious and recurrent nature of this problem, I can’t say that sounds unreasonable:
Dear RedState Reader:
RedState is calling for CNN to fire Sam Feist, their political director; and David Bohrman, Senior Vice President and Executive Producer of the debate.
During last night’s debate, which CNN billed as “a Republican debate, and the goal was to let Republican voters see their candidates,” CNN either knowingly or incompetently allowed hardcore left wing activists to plant questions and Anderson Cooper willingly gave one of those activists a soapbox so he could harass the Republican candidates about military policy.
Simple googling would have revealed these left wing activists.
Had CNN done its homework, this would not have happened. They either willfully let it happen, or incompetently bungled it. Either way, heads should roll.
The RedState editors have a related post up on the site as well.
P.S. Can you just wait for the newly-announced ABC News-Facebook presidential fiasco debate?
I’m kind of nonplussed about this. On the one hand it makes sense that it would be irritating for RedState’s readers to sit through hostile questions put up by lefty activists, but on the other is the purpose of a debate really so candidates can hit soft-ball questions out of the park?
I’m with Tim about being nonplussed. Back in the day, a plant was someone in the audience who asked a question of a particular candidate and lo and behold, was either a campaign staffer of that candidate or someone found to do the asking for a campaign staff. As Tim said, softball. Gaming is not new, just because it’s YouTube. Btw, were there not plenty of ‘don’t take my guns away’ comments??? I thought so but maybe it’s me
I’m certainly not calling for a debate full of “softball” questions. As Patterico correctly predicted after the Dem debate:
No matter what you thought of the CNN/YouTube debate, no matter who the questioners were, that’s pretty much spot on (the occasional Bible-beater notwithstanding).
See RedState’s proposal for a “do-over” YouTube debate. Conservatives can’t ask EVERYONE softballs — they have an interest in distinguishing between the candidates; they would just choose different questions than CNN and Google. (This might actually make for a full post, now that I think about it.)
And not to be too didactic, but perhaps “nonplussed” does not mean what you think it means.
I find this short YouTube clip of John Roberts (no relation!) speaking with General Kerr after the incident to be relevant here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgEhOzLQeh8
First of all, the narrative posed by the interview contradicts itself on at least one major count: Roberts asserts that CNN did, in fact, perform a background check on Kerr, but only to determine if he had made any campaign contributions. They found that he had not, and he affirms early in the conversation that he had not. Then, near the conclusion of the interview, he states that has been involved in political campaigns earlier this fall, making at least one donation– all for Republicans. Roberts doesn’t even blink.
To my mind, this information doesn’t so much reaffirm the assertion that CNN’s political fact-checking department is either corrupt or inept as it does point to the Sisyphean nature of the fact-checking endeavor. As opposed to offering conclusive evidence of bias on CNN’s part, this incident seems rather to raise a host of questions: What exactly does a background check such as that performed by a news organization consist of? How many different databases pertain to such a check? In what manner would a background check performed by MSNBC or FOX differ from one conducted by CNN? What sorts of biases and what sorts of different databases would pertain to such a check? Is it counterintuitive to expect that an intelligent question pertaining to the national interest in such a forum would be posed by an individual with zero prior involvement in politics? What level of prior involvement meets the threshold? Had CNN recognized Kerr’s prior involvement in politics, would his history with Republican campaigns have weighted equally in the decision of whether to use his question as his history with Democratic initiatives? What does it mean for the Republican party at this juncture that a one-issue activist ostensibly within its camp would have his more minimal ties to a Democratic campaign highlighted— that he would be “outed” as a sometime Democratic sympathizer in areas pertaining to that same issue— as a result of his attempt to steer debate within the party?
You raise a good question about how much vetting is enough, but I think we can say: being a publicly-announced supporter of the Hillary Clinton campaign is something they should have at least MENTIONED the fact during the debate. If they really didn’t know, that’s effectively just as bad.
And if Kerr has donated to Republicans, that does lend some nuance to Kerr qua Kerr, but this it doesn’t change the issue at hand. It’s not incidental Democratic affiliation if he’s been a public supporter of both Hillary and John Kerry, as reported.
An aside: As I think James Taranto asked, why is he supporting the wife of the man who enacted “don’t ask, don’t tell”? I find it unlikely she would successfully get rid of it, even if it’s a good idea, even if she says she would now.