By Jeff Musal

Many of you may have seen the recently aired CNN/YouTube debate in which YouTube users could submit video questions for the candidates to answer. The YouTube users voted on the video that they would most like to see answered, and the videos that received the most votes may be played on the air on CNN.

I watched it, and it went as good as could be expected, a lot of non-answers and quick topic changes, but dispite the expected, it was a relatively good debate that did shed some light to the American mainstream about some of the candidates views.

That said, I was disappointed to find out that according to an a recent article, the video that received the most votes was not aired. It was no surprise that CNN was going to cull down and hand chooses the videos aired, but the topic of the number 1 ranked video wasn’t even presented. According to the article, the highest ranked video raised the issue of presidential impeachment. For one reason or another, it was decided that this question would not be aired.

That’s how it works. If CNN doesn’t want to air that question, that’s fine – its their network and their airtime. But as a result, what could have potentially been the most democratic debate ever, was little more than a dog and pony show. I have no problem with CNN choosing which videos to air, but if the highest ranked video is ignored completely – then they should call it what it is- another example of mainstream media and politicians working hand and hand.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 11:40 am and is filed under Extra. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.