PrezConference: Ask the candidates
So here’s the idea: We post video questions for the candidates on YouTube — tagged PREZCONFERENCE — and see which ones they answer and don’t. I’ll put up the interesting ones on PrezVid (soon new blog, PrezConference). Yesterday at the VON conference, I asked folks for their questions. Here are a few. More at PrezVid and more on YouTube.
Jeff Pulver and Liz Stephans have questions about net neutrality and internet policy for all the candidates.
(Crossposted at PrezVid)
Tags: netneutrality, prezconference, prezvid
March 20th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
If you’ve found a way for politics to be more responsive to the people, you’ve done a great thing.
Thanks! Keep chipping away at the status quo.
March 20th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Hi Jeff,
Interesting initiative. I hope the candidates will take the questions seriously and video reply to them. I am looking at this with keen eyes and hope some of these may rub off in Canada where our next federal election may come soon. I don’t know if the Canadian politicians are quite ready for YouTube questions yet. But may be they are?
I’ve checked out all five videos so far, and they all look great. Short and to the point. (Good sound qaulity) By the way, looks like Jeff and Liz’s video currently has a small typo in the tag. Currently it has “prezconfrerence” (..frer..) instead of ‘prezconference’ (..fere..)
Best of luck,
Kempton
March 20th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
[...] PrezConference: Ask the U.S. presidential candidates - An interesting initiative from Jeff Jarvis in encouraging people in posting their YouTube video questions to the U.S. presidential candidates questions directly. Good stuff. I hope some of these will rub off in the next Canadian general elections. Will see. [...]
March 20th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
[...] probably endless, but here’s a particularly interesting one.  Jeff Jarvis and friends have put out a call on their project site PrezVid for YouTube users to record their questions for the candidates on [...]
March 21st, 2007 at 12:17 am
[...] Jeff Jarvis has set up a project for regular folks like you and me to ask questions of the presidential candidates. Just record your question as a video, upload it to YouTube and tag it PREZCONFERENCE. [...]
March 21st, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I gave a couple of my pre-existing videos with that tag; see the ones from NoMoreBlatherDotCom.
The VON videos are certainly interesting. Unfortunately, the ones I looked at are a bit on the “light” and open-ended side and are likely to result in a candidate going into “replay” mode, giving their stock speech. A candidate’s position on various things can be obtained from their website or past statements, so asking someone for their stance on net neutrality will most likely simply fill up space that could be spent on more useful questions.
Let me suggest trying to ask *adversarial* questions based on *past policy-related statements and actions* and doing so in a way that will *knock a candidate off their stock spiel*.
Instead of asking about net neutrality, look up someone’s position on net neutrality and find flaws in their position. Then, either alone or with people who are familiar with asking adversarial questions, try to think up a “toughie” that would help reveal flaws in the candidate’s position or thinking processes.
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:41 am
The Firesign Theater made a ‘pre-emptive satire’ about this in their 1971 LP, “I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus”
http://www.descope.com/features/wallofscience.html
“From here, Clem is ushered into the presence of “our President,†a H(W)all of Presidents-like attraction featuring the only President who pretends to take questions from the audience to which he replies with a canned non-answer (again, sound familiar?).”
“In the presence of the President, Clem seems less a loner and more of a guy from the inside (Clem refers to the President by what seems to be insider slang as “Spring Head.â€). It’s clear that Clem has information on how the President works and, using the speech recognition system that runs the Fair (and mistakenly hears his name as “Uh, Clemâ€), he stops the attraction and is assumed to be a maintenance worker. Unable to get past the gatekeeper software of the President (or is it just a case of bad programming?), he causes the President to crash / shut down / go 101 (“the ride is closed? But I waited 20 minutes from here. Hey, Paolo! He broke the President!).”
May 6th, 2007 at 10:00 am
With gas prices forever climbing under current laws, the middle class is struggling to hold onto their piece of the “American Pie”. During a conferentce for the US Attorney Generals, 27 Attorney Generals expressed their frustration over the inadequate laws in their states relating to price fixing and gouging at the gas pump. Alteritive fuels are ten years away, we need new laws now! No one is asking the right question about gasoline price fixing. I want to know, without being answers liced with platatudes as to want our legislators are going to do to bring justice to the question of gasoline price fixing?
July 29th, 2007 at 9:18 am
What are you going to do about the corruption in our court systems?