• by joseph , September 25, 2011

I never thought those three institutions would merge but they did. Clearly the way the world uses media today is morphing the scope of politics and the 24 hour news cycle into an entirely new beast.

For those that did not get a chance to see the GOP Presidential Debate the other night on September 22, 2011, Google and Fox News joined forces to create a really elaborate change in how questions would be presented to the candidates. It seemed like such a novelty. It seemed almost like they were just saying, "ha ha! Look what we can do!" with no understanding of why they were doing it that way. It seemed to take forever to get the questions out because every question had to be introduced with how it was produced online through submitted videos. Then following the playing of the video question, the crowd would erupt in cheer in their elation of how marvelous the question was... or appeared to be. Of all the things I could ask a presidential candidate, there are certainly better ones that could have been asked.

How I would have loved to have had my tweet appear on the big screen and get the candidates to answer one of my questions? What would you have asked? The only one up there talking that was honest and least like a politician was Ron Paul and sadly enough, the majority of questions were aimed at Romney, Perry, Cain, and Bachman. Clearly the debates are no longer about reaching a conclusion over who should be president based on substance but more about a dramatic Hollywood style production focused on getting ratings and showing off new technology.

While I loved Google had a part in the production and the new technology that allowed me to watch the debate on my Roku Box through the YouTube channel, I am not so sure that Google is what made is the highest rated debate for the season according to Nielsen. Being a conservative debate, those most interested in watching the debate only watch Fox news and wouldn't have known how to change their TV box over to NBC or CNN. Oh, I say that in jest... kind of. It is kind of hard to argue with the numbers that show that the majority of Fox viewers are made up from the oldest demographic.

It seemed like the most amazing part of the debate was the new buzzer courtesy of Google. The world will forever know the sound of the new bell and how dogs have made more shovel-ready jobs. That was another line that created more articles about the joke than articles about the candidates' substance. Limbaugh wanted to take credit as he said something like it earlier in the day but Jim Villanucci of the Tonight Show and political blogger Jeff Carter both coined similar lines long before Limbaugh did. No surprise considering Rush often assigns responsibility to the wrong person. You have to love factcheck.org