'NYT' Editorial Page Editor Doubts CNN Debate -- Promotes Online '10 Questions' Project

By: Joe Strupp It's not often you see The New York Times' editorial board joining forces with outsiders to promote political discussions. But that is just what the newspaper's opinion-makers are doing through the "10 Questions" project, an online effort aimed at getting presidential candidates to answer YouTube-style questions chosen by online users.

Unlike July's YouTube debate broadcast on CNN, this approach -- co-sponsored by MSNBC.com and Techpresident.com -- is letting online users choose 10 YouTube video questions to be put before the candidates.

Each candidate will then be asked to answer them via their own videos, with everything posted online. Today is the last day to vote, at www.10questions.com.

"It is unusual," says Andrew Rosenthal, Times editorial page editor. "It seemed like an interesting experiment."

Citing the YouTube approach from the earlier CNN debate, Rosenthal praised the idea of taking such videos to candidates, but said letting the news organization choose those that were used defeats some of the purpose.

"CNN picked the questions and presented them in the same silly forum we use for these debates," Rosenthal said. "We like the idea that the questions would be voted on by ordinary people."

Speaking just hours before tonight's CNN Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Rosenthal said that the traditional approach also offers little to voters.

"We ought to rethink them as debates, they are not debates. They are serial press conferences," said Rosenthal. "If there is a debate, there should be a debate. It becomes so much about the moderators, about the format. There is just not enough time. I don?t get much out of them."

But while the 10 Questions project will not give voters a Lincoln-Douglas style battle, organizers say the idea of letting voters submit video questions and letting others choose the top 10 to be asked expands the broad citizen influence.

Rosenthal stressed that each candidate will have up to four minutes to answer in their own videos, and then online users will be able to vote on whether the candidate actually answered the questions. "That is the one measure that is never applied," Rosenthal said of most debate answers. "This is a period of experimenting in media, experimenting in politics."

He said the Times sent letters to each campaign asking them to participate in 10 Questions, and plans to post links to the top 10 questions and answers. A link to the 10 Questions' site already exists on the Times' opinion page.

An e-mail from organizers stated that John Edwards and Ron Paul had already committed to be involved.

As of Thursday afternoon, the top video question among those voting was about Internet neutrality policies. Others in the top 10 included questions about campaign reform, warrantless wiretaps, and medical marijuana.