We first introduced you to James Kotecki when Democratic presidential contender Mike Gravel decided to hang out in the college kid’s dorm room for a quick Q & A. Since then, several more male presidential hopefuls, including John Edwards, have visited with James for some pretty solid, quick-witted interviews that he’s posted to YouTube.

Then, sometime over the weekend, golden child Kotecki became a hated man by some embittered journalists posting on message boards throughout the Internets:

I stumbled upon a youtube video by James Kotecki — and his interview of John Edwards. His ’stuff’ is under EmergencyCheese. Being the skeptic that I am… I immediately wondered how ‘this kid’ digitally remastered footage of an Edwards interview for his own youtube. Then I noticed his other interviews of prominent figs. They are real. Checked out his ‘blog’ and found he’s become a star in the media world. Most of you have TV… I don’t.

How does he make a living? Where did he come from (yeah, I know wiki said Syracuse.) I mean… how did this kid become a powerful enough journalist to get interviews with Edwards, Dan Rather, Kucinich, Huckabee, and others? I see no bio on his blog.

Here is a tough question I ask those of you here with[out] JOBS at the moment: “Why am I not watching your video(s) of prominent figure interviews?”

and

Second question — what do / does / would traditional media orgs think about James’ qualifications vs yours (yours being the more traditional journalist with degree in the profession and a history of clips/reporting, whatever.) Will they find James’ experience over yours?

We decided to ask Kotecki what he thinks of the controversy. He quickly typed off that it’s “quite funny and actually pretty interesting.” He didn’t have time to say much more because he’s currently at the CNN YouTube debates interviewing more candidates. Which, in itself, says a whole bunch.