CNN and the YouTube Debate

Last night's debate was the second so-called YouTube debate where the questions were submitted to the website and CNN chose which ones to pose to the candidates. The first is remembered for some wacky questions. One was submitted by a snowman. This one will now be remembered for the Hillary Clinton operative who got a question through.

Anderson Cooper apologized for CNN not noticing that the questioner was a member of one of Clinton's steering committees but bloggers quickly discovered that some of the other questioners who posed as undecided Republicans were declared supporters of John Edwards and Barrack Obama.

The YouTube debates were clearly the most memorable thus far because of their innovative format. It should have been obvious to CNN that political operatives would try to take advantage of the open format. According to their story posted on CNN.com, they checked to see whether questioners had contributed to any campaign. Bloggers however, just took the time to Google the questioners and look at the other YouTube videos they had posted, probably just five minutes of research.

While CNN has apologized, they've definitely been burned and FoxNews and right-leaning bloggers are using the incident as evidence of a left-leaning bias at CNN. CNN might try to hold another debate in this format, if they decide to do that they should make public the measures they will take to ensure that questioners are not misrepresenting themselves.