NYT: Changing the Terms of the Debate

Interesting little piece in the NYT today...they asked 7 people for their ideas on how a "new media" debate really should be run.

Predictably, most of the answers are stupid. KEVIN KELLY from Wired wanted the candidates to become cyborgs, wearing constant recording equipment so that their life would become one large debate. Is he retarded? He wants to turn candidates into the Borg? More importantly, he really wants to highlight the minutia of candidates lives so that their opponents can pick apart and dissect every trivial decision they make to a degree that would dwarf even today's seemingly pervasive media coverage? He really wants to turn the debate into a question of the political implications of a candidate's choice of candy bar? Food store? Failure to take obesity seriously given the impulse purchase of a Snickers? Jesus...what a fucking _terrible_ idea...

ANDREW RASIEJ and MICAH L. SIFRY from TechPresident.com want to pose questions by majority vote over the web. That's nice and all, but how to you deal with sybil attacks (yes, I'm a giant nerd)? And there's a non-trivial chance you could end up with questions like, "What do you think about Britney Spears' last bender?"

DAVID ALL from some Republican consulting firm wants people to be able to interrupt candidate in real-time time over the Internet. Yes, brilliant, David. Clearly that problem with modern political debate is that people aren't talking over each other enough.

MATT BAI from the NYT Magazine suggested letting the candidates "Web 2.0" their opponents by scribbling comments about what they're saying on a screen over their head. Much as I like the idea of hearing the moderator say, as Bai hypothesized, “Senator Clinton, while you were talking about reform, Barack Obama just listed 10 of your corporate contributors over your head. Care to respond?”, I think this one has the same flavor as David All's "people need to interrupt each other more!" idea.

The two best, I think, were TOM BROKAW and a man who should win the "Weirdest Name of the Year" award, ZEPHYR TEACHOUT. Teachout's idea I actually like, and that's to have many simultaneous debates. In essence, he suggests having a round-robin tournament of debates between all pairs of candidates. He identifies, I think correctly, that the more useful benefit of "new media" is less the "user participation" part than the higher bandwidth part. There are infinite channels with infinite memory, so why not get as much debate as possible? So what if it's in parallel? The mob is good at digesting large amounts of information and redistributing it in comfortable, chewable form.

Brokaw, on the other hand, does little to hide his basic contempt and/or amusement at the question:

"IF this is truly the campaign of the new media, candidates should be required to answer questions only on their cellphone, BlackBerry or other personal digital assistant, so we can size up their personal text message codes, ring tones and thumb-typing skills.

The questioners could be sweaty fat guys muscling people aside as they get off airplanes, shouting loudly into cellphones: “Rudy, I just landed. Can we talk?” “Hillary! Hey! Mike here! Can you hear me? Hello? Hello?”

Calls would have to be routed through Mumbai so the candidates could offer their positions on Islamic rage and inquire about their car insurance rates simultaneously."

He goes on to say that the best thing you could do for the debates would be to give the candidates a few drinks before-hand. I think he has hit the nail on the head.

All the talk of "new media" is pointless if it doesn't address the fundamental problem with the debates, which is that it encourages speaking in pre-prepared sound bites, and it does nothing to actually get an honest answer out of them. Just opening the flood gates and letting any shmuck post a question doesn't really help that both because (I guarantee you) the handlers will quickly find a way to game the filter that dictates what questions actually get to the candidates and because, even if you can get some good questions, all the pressures that push candidates into speaking in sound bites are still there, and there's still nothing to hold them accountable to what they say.

This all reminds me of the rush to get computers into schools. It misses the point. Technology is a tool. It isn't an end in and of itself. You have to have a goal you're trying to achieve first. Once you have the goal, _then_ decide if the technology can help. Don't just decide a priori to use the technology and then retrofit a goal onto it.