I received an email on YouTube from"joshuahaskellcarr" which was a Death Wish, pure and simple, and explains how much this person wanted me "gone." So I informed YouTube, blocked the user, and now I'm informing you. I'm also "Defining The Relationship" between guests and me in my channel, or "my house." Please do not use nasty words or harass me or any other commenter. And behavior like the one I described in this video will be met with a ban and a report to YouTube and the FBI.
I'm serious about this. We can disagree and still be civil toward one another. Please bring your debate hat and your "A" game, as Ron Paul supporters have done. They're the masters of civil debate; love em.
On the heels of what many have called one of the greatest speeches in history, Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama's video of the speech has been seen over 4 million times and as of this writing dominates YouTube. Early this morning it was the number one video with just over 2 million views, but also there were different copies of the same video posted on YouTube by different channel owners.
Five of the top ten videos this morning were the Obama speech, and a whooping 15 of the top 20 in the "News and Politics" section of YouTube were all the same speech. As of this writing, Obama still rules the News and Politics section of YouTube with 9 of the top 20 videos and if one counts the Iraq Speech video, 10 of the top 20 on YouTube's News and Politics section were Obama videos.
I've not seen this kind of video view performance by a candidate since Ron Paul and that wasn't one speech, it was a combination of supporter-made videos and appearance videos. This, for Obama, is all for one speech, his presentation called "A More Perfect Union".
Now, one would think that the number of videos of the same Obama speech on YouTube would stop there, but not so. I clicked over to the second page of top-viewed videos in the News and Politics section, and saw that another 11 of the top 20 most-seen videos on the second page of the "News and Politics" section were the Obama "A More Perfect Union" Speech. That means of the top 40 videos as of 11:43 AM, PST on March 20th, 2008, 22 of the top 40 videos in the News and Poltics Section were of the Obama speech.
That's amazing.
It means not only that there's a hunger to see the speech, but to see it repeatedly and for people who did not have a chance to see the orginal telecast to view it for the first time. The speech is drawing so many views that we should start looking at it as a television show unto itself, with a nielsen rating. That rating today, starting from 2 AM to now, would be about a "5" share because I estimate that about 5 million people have seen this on YouTube alone. And that does not count the Barack Obama website or any other video distribution company that has a file of the video in its system. So we could safely say that the speech ranks a "6" overall. Not bad for an online version of a 37 minute speech.
Plus, that does not include the ratings for the actual television version of the speech.
But it also means that Senator Obama's message is out and that it's being warmly received. From this perspective, it must be reported that Senator Obama objective of causing a new level of dialog about race has been achieved and with rousing success.
The last Presidential Debate before the Primaries and caucases was held today and by the Dems. It's a contest that caught the West Coast off-guard as it happened during working hours.
What we missed was a performance which featured Senator Barack Obama getting in what turned out to be the ultimate sound-bite.
It started as Senator Obama was asked why he had so many former Clinton advisors on his foreign policy team and how would that cause him to really bring change. But before Obama could talk, Senator Clinton was heard with her now-famous cackle stating "answer that" and Obama did; he got in this zinger:
"And Hillary, I'm looking forward to you becoming my advisor as well."
Pow. Right between the eyes. You could say she walked right into that one.
The debate overall was a good policy exchange which saw Obama emerge as a leader. Plus, Senator Clinton did not make enough of a difference to change her sagging fortunes before the Iowa Caucus. Senator John Edwards performed well, but it's not believed well enough to turn the tide totally in his favor. It's still a close race, but vastly different than even a month ago.
Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee's leading amoung Republicans and my guess is because he's the one that seems less threatening. Giuliani's off-politics antics make him seem less presidential. Ron Paul's still a bit too extreme for Republicans. And Mitt Romney - in my view -- comes off as both way too high-brow and mean-sprited. Huckabee seems to be the mostly likeable candidate for the Republicans.
This is a terrible bit of news I got from Andrew Sulivan and which he got from The Huff Post's Matt Simon. Apparently Congressman Ron Paul gave an interview to ABC News' John Stossel -- one that ABC didn't show on television, but confined to the World Wide Web.
This is the latest and ultimate example of a mainstream media fix that has been in the works in different forms, from polling to television coverage. New Media to the rescue as bloggers and vloggers uncover a fix that would have determined the election in the past.
No more.
According to Matt Simon, Stossel wrote this:
Despite relatively low poll numbers, Paul has had a big influence on the presidential campaign. That's in part because he's raised a ton of money, and in part because of the passionate following he has on the Web. It's one reason we're posting my interview with Paul only on the Internet, where the debate about Paul is very active. In fact, he's the most Googled presidential candidate.
Yeah, right.
Any Internet expert know that television drives web searches. If the interview were shown on ABC, it would have compelled many undecided viewers to go to their computers and search for news on Ron Paul.
ABC either knew this and punted, or didn't know this, and still worked to deny the Paul interview full disemenation. In either case, it's wrong what was done. Here's the ABC interview.
Congressman Ron Paul has a one-trick-pony approach to his candidacy that is based on classic conservative ideology. In this video made after the CNN / YouTube Republican Debate, we see how Ron Paul adresses questions.
This video and post present my message to Steve Grove, the News and Politics editor for CNN, and to Dave Bohrman, the Executive Producer of the CNN / YouTube Debates for CNN.
My take is that CNN/YouTube was lucky to realize the ratings record that was set for the debate, and this was achieved for two reasons: 1) the time of year -- it's the fall holiday season, and 2) the fact that all of the Republican Presidential Candidates were there, which is no small feat.
Still, CNN/YouTube handled this debate differently than the Democratic Debate. First, the level of promotion of the event was dramatically scaled back compared to the first. Second, there were fewer questions picked out of the 5,200 that were submitted : 34 questions versus 43 for the first debate. Third, there was an annoying tendency to pick Blacks who submitted questions about Black issues, when there were videos from people who were not Black, but did ask questions about Blacks and the Republican Party.
(As a momentary aside, I think that practice shows an America that does not exist. It shows an America where only Blacks care about Black or minority issues, and not the real America, where a diverse set of people care about all Americans, and will ask questions regarding how Blacks are treated. To not show this -- the real America -- is criminal and paints America as far more racist than it really is. This country has come a long way and is better than it's ever been.)
CNN/YouTube also didn't handle its video talent properly. In the video I present myself as an example. In the begining I was -- and still am -- part of the sample video for the CNN/YouTube Debates. I'm also on the YTDebates channel, at least as of this writing and you can see my photo on the channel here in this blog post. So when I learned that YouTubers were being flown out by Google to the debates, I thought -- rightfully -- that somone would call.
Nope. Didn't happen.
I also sent an inquiry to determine if this was the case, and didn't get an answer from Steve Grove.
So it makes one wonder -- in this case, me -- what's going on over at CNN / YouTube and why they treat people in this way - or at least me. But given the thousands of people who have made and submitted videos, and the other talent that was promoted, I can't believe it's just me that had the problem.
CNN itself showed little regard for my time when they contact me for the first debate. Three show producers contacted me separately and in one case I thought I was to get on a flight. Then didn't get a call back. Then was essentially made to wait for a few days, then got a call saying I wasn't being flown out, only to get a call from another show flying me to New York.
Nuts.
What bothered me this time around was not that I was not called, but Steve didn't answer my emails attempting to learn what he and YouTube were going to do. If they'd said "Zennie, we don't need you this time", or "Hey CNN thinks you're an Obama supporter, and they've got a problem with that" then I'd be fine. I just wanted communication. I didn't get it.
As for the debate itself there were a lot of problems in addtion to the ones I discussed above. Not a single video question on Health Care was presented, leaving one to think the Republican Party doens't care about it. Is that CNN's call or the Republican Party? One has to assume they were working together. But in eliminating that series of questions, CNN / YouTube and the Republican Party pissed off a country.
Plus, CNN / YouTube did't tell video submitters they were going to do this, and the video makers -- given the Democratic Debate with YouTube, had full reason to think they would do so. Moreover, CNN / YouTube didn't tell anyone what they were going to do -- I learned it from CNN's David Bohrman being quoted in the New York Times.
That's not good.
In closing, I think CNN / YouTube owes YouTubers an appology and I'm also disappointed with how Steve Grove handled things this time around. I have high standards for him and I expect that -- givent the historic nature of what he's doing with YouTube and CNN that he will reach and maintain them. It's not personal -- I like Steve -- just professional.
I don't know Dave Bohrman, but I expect that he's a fine and upstanding person who will take these crticisms to heart and act on them. I think all of us want to see the CNN / YouTube system reach its potential.
