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YouTube at centre of 2008 presidential campaign
Level 1
Elementary
Key words
1
Find the information
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Look in the text and find this information as quickly as possible.
1. How many video questions have people sent in?
2. When did Richard Nixon and John Kennedy first debate on television?
3. How many questions has CNN chosen for the debate?
4. When is the next US presidential election?
5. How many people have watched the video about Barack Obama?
6. How many people have watched the video about Mr Obama and Mr Giuliani?
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Debate brings YouTube to centre of 
2008 presidential campaign
Ewen MacAskill in Charleston
July 23, 2007
Television, in the form of CNN, and the Internet, 
in the form of the video-sharing website YouTube, 
are joining together to show a debate between the 
Democratic candidates in the United States’ 2008 
presidential campaign. Members of the public have 
sent in video-recorded questions for Hillary Clinton, 
Barack Obama and the other candidates. 
People have sent in more than 2,300 videos which 
they have recorded on webcameras and mobile 
phones. One of them is a short 30-second video 
from someone with cancer who takes off her 
wig and says she would have a better chance of 
surviving the disease if she had health insurance. “If 
you were president, what would you do to provide 
cheap or free medical treatment for everyone in this 
country?” she asks. 
The organizers say the event is an important step 
for the Internet, in the same way that the televised 
debate between John Kennedy and Richard 
Nixon in 1960 was an important day in the history 
of television. But some bloggers, who want the 
Internet to be democratic and free for everyone 
to use, have said that they are not happy that 
CNN is part of this event. The fact that CNN has 
chosen the 25-30 questions has also made a lot of
bloggers angry. 
The candidates will meet in a military college in 
Charleston, South Carolina and watch the questions 
on a large screen, 7.6 metres wide and 5.5 metres 
high. So far people have sent in questions about 
climate change, immigration, gay rights, welfare 
and foreign policy. US newspapers and television 
cover Iraq all the time but people have only sent 
in a few questions on this topic. CNN is checking 
the questions carefully but there might still be 
some difficult and uncomfortable questions for
the candidates.
Steve Grove, head of YouTube’s news and politics 
section, said: “A lot of these YouTube questions are 
emotional and personal. The person asking each 
question is in his/her own surroundings, and that 
person brings you into their world and into their 
reality. That makes it a very powerful experience.” 
Some of the videos do not ask questions at all: in 
one, a man plays guitar and sings a song about 
possible vice-presidents; another includes a talking 
duck; one man, talking about what petrol can do to 
the environment, drives a 1987 Chevy in his video. 
Phil Noble, founder of PoliticsOnline, said that 
it was very interesting that YouTube was now 
showing more and more videos connected with 
politics. “In the past, there wasn’t much technology 
in presidential campaigns. The difference in this 
election is that technology has become a key part of 
the campaigns. Each candidate’s campaign is now 
using YouTube all the time.” 
The Internet played a small part in the 2004 
presidential election, when people gave money 
online to the campaign of the Democrat Howard 
Dean. Online Democratic bloggers played a bigger