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Democratic Primary Debates: Youth Debate and Current TV?

Over at MyDD, Stoller has an interesting suggestion: let Current TV televise a Democratic primary debate. He’s positing this as an alternative to FoxNEWS’s broadcast of the Nevada debate:

When real political candidates show up at a forum, they legitimize that forum. If Fox News can host a Democratic Presidential forum, it becomes a real news outlet. Democrats are forced to watch our leaders pay respects to a group of people who regularly use their bullhorn to call us traitors. That’s bad, and we don’t like it. We’ve made our voices heard about that, and Reid is probably hoping that if he ignores us we’ll go away.

But the flip side of this is that CurrentTV can also be legitimized as a real news outlet if real political candidates show up at a forum. Reid and the Nevada Democrats could play a critical role in building a new communications platform for Democratic politics by pointing at Current’s citizen involvement and youth focus, and saying ‘more of this please’. Imagine the creativity and innovation CurrentTV and the internet can bring to the Presidential debate process, integrating video podcasts, blogging, public discourse, and fundraising. It would crack the debate wide open.

I don’t know if it will be possible to dump Fox — there may already be contractual obligations, etc — but the general idea of Current holding a Dem Primary debate is exciting. In fact, if the NewsCorp deal can’t be avoided, I’d like to propose some agitation for Current TV to take the traditional “Youth Debate” away from CNN and Rock The Vote, who were utterly embarrassing last time around.

Current’s got Democratic cred thanks to Al Gore’s involvement. Their angle on participatory media is also good, and I think for politically-engaged Millennials their programming and the outlook they represent is more on-target than Pimp My Ride or the latest teenage-hookup drama to be pumped out of Viacom’s cubicle-farm.

What do you think?

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February 23rd, 2007 3:57pm
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Politics - Remixed and Reused

Submitted by Michael Connery on Fri, 2007-02-23 19:13.

Overall, I think its a great idea. Though I think Stoller is thinking a little narrowly when he implies that Current TV should become a new form of media for Democrats. The exciting thing about CurrentTV hosting debates is that it could be a new form of media for politics period. And I don’t know that its a good idea - or even their thing - for CurrentTV to become more of a “legitimate news organization.” If he means that CurrentTV’s mini-documentary “pods” should be regarded as a form of citizen journalism, than maybe. But I’d hate to see Current start hosting more traditional newsy-programs. Seems like it would be forcing something static and top down into a medium/venue whose very nature is that it is fluid. I suspect that my difference with Stoller here may be more semantic than substantive, but its worth making those points.

Having Current TV handle the “youth debate” sounds right to me. There’s only room for improvement on that front. While content is certainly an issue (as you say, Mac vs. PC?), changing the format could be much more transformational. These debates are staged, boring affairs where candidates compete to one-up their opponents with the best soundbyte. If CurrentTV stayed true to its roots, they could be much more participatory. In particular I liked Stoller’s idea of releasing clips on the web for remixing (probably a hard sell to the candidates, though, to participate in something so uncontrolled).

Changing The Definition of News

Submitted by Josh Koenig on Sat, 2007-02-24 12:28.

I’m less concerned with what Stoller was suggesting and more with the idea of hijacking his idea of Current TV, making them the home for this cycled “youth” debate. It makes so much sense to me. If the rationale for “having a debate on Fox” is reaching those viewers, well then having a debate that lives 1/2 online makes even more sense. Frankly, I don’t think it’s likely that the Fox debate will be scrapped, but this Current TV idea has merit regardless.

I think the definition of “News” or “Journalism” is currently up for grabs. It changed most recently to accommodate the 24-hour cable networks, but hasn’t really changed as a result of the internet at all. With the exception of a few instances of stores that have been sourced online, blogging has made its impact in the realm of opinion. Other internet-based developments have yet to really register.

I definitely like the idea of docu-pods gaining credibility as a source for news.

I also really like the idea of remixable debates. You’re probably right that the candidates would balk at this though, although I still think that the first one with the vision to release a media kit ala the Jay Z Construction Set to their supporters could be a big winner. It would he a hell of a project for someone with the resource to set up a public-service slingbox or hacked-tivo setup to give the remixing public access to mass amounts of source material.