I woke up this morning and read the news. Apparently there had been a televised debate on Channel 2 last night, between the three major contestants for the PM seat: Binyamin Netanyahu, Tzipi Livni, and Ehud Barak. Despite being a longtime advocate of such a debate — and as a self-admitted news junkie — I had no idea such an event was taking place last night.
Hosted by Dana Weiss, the so-called debate was in fact a condensed version of three separate mock interviews, where fierce journalistic inquiries were replaced by relatively dull questions submitted by internet surfers via YouTube. In other words, Livni, Bibi, and Barak weren’t debating each other. They weren’t even debating Dana Weiss. They simply answered questions for people who weren’t there in the studio!
Again, since I wasn’t aware of this “debate” last night, I hadn’t watched it, and this account of events is based on news reports who have dryly mentioned the televised spectacle this morning. To my defense, I can say that I knew of such a debate being in consideration, yet personally I didn’t catch any pre-event promos or sensed any hype about it, neither in the blogosphere, on the radio, or in the printed media. I don’t watch televised news much, so I can’t really tell whether this was promoted in advance by Channel 2 itself — though I assume it was.
They told me there was a debate yesterday. So much for a debate.
YouTube Interview
February 1, 2009 at 11:19 pm
As an American citizen I want to tell you who you should vote for as leader of Israel.
Nah, just kidding. I respect that choosing ones leaders is a domestic issue that is only the business of the citizens of that country.
Too bad I didn’t receive the same respect last November.