CNN/YouTube Debates - CNN Not Community Should Pick Videos

Read the latest update on the debate process from CNN!


I listen to NPR and heard CNN Washington Bureau Chief David Bohrman talk about the upcoming CNN / YouTube Debates on Wedneday of this week of this post.

The anchor paired him -- for a moment -- with Joshua Levy from TechPresident.com, and Josh made a statement which caused me to shudder: that the community should select the questions online.

Absolutely not.

The reason I state this is that as one who works online, has been a YouTube contributor, and make simulations online for students in the classroom, I can tell you that people send to vote with their libido.

In other words, if the question's posed by a lovely white woman, it's more likely to be selected over a question by someone -- like myself-- who's black and male, and this even if the former's question was not in compliance with rules!

YouTube seems to attract a segment of society that not only is racist, but expresses it in different ways. This is not the majority, but it's a group that's disproportionately young and very misguided. But that group aside, the habit of clicking on a cute female face is the number one YouTube habit.

Thus, it's good for CNN to be "the leveler" if you will. I've never favored "mob rule" and I certainly advise against it here. If you look at the range of questions asked thus far, the vast majority concern education, as well as -- I count -- at least 25 on Darfur!

People use this event as a medium to communicate their personal concerns and not so much questions that we can use to determine who the best presidential candidate is.

At any rate, keep up the great work on this, CNN and YouTube (Steve Grove, specifically). Also I must add that the number of submissions is about the max you're going to get for this. It may be at about 2,000 by the time the deadline's reached. Given that there are four barriers to entry: time, equipment, knoweldge, and software -- and the marketing effort, which is great -- the number of respondents dwindles to about that number we see.

Also, I'll bet $$ that about 50 percent of the questions were made with Apple Computers, as it's easier to make a video because Macs come equipped to cause that. I have two Mac Books, for example. I can tell when a submitter used a MacBook by where their head's placed in relation to the camera.