America’s Flawed Televised Primary Debates: Three Nonpartisan Explanations

CNBC was the object of heated criticism of the way in which their GOP primary debate was moderated. During and after the debate, moderators were ridiculed for asking 'gotcha' questions and not focusing on the issues. CNN presenters suggested that such criticism was unfair, since the CNN and Fox News orchestrated debates had asked similar … Continue reading America’s Flawed Televised Primary Debates: Three Nonpartisan Explanations

Opportunities for CNN and Candidates in the First Democratic Party Debate

Five candidates are preparing for the CNN debate to be held in Las Vegas on 13 October 2015: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, but also Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee. There are two likely outcomes. The first is an opportunity to actually debate the issues. The previous Fox and CNN debates failed to engage … Continue reading Opportunities for CNN and Candidates in the First Democratic Party Debate

#CNNDebate Needs to Focus Candidates on the Issues, Not Each Other

Bad news heading into the #CNNDebate. CNN is strategising on ways to get the candidates 'interacting' with each other - which is what a debate should indeed entail (unlike the first Fox News-Facebook disaster). However, trying to generate arguments among the candidates, which seems to be the strategy, is different from getting the candidates to … Continue reading #CNNDebate Needs to Focus Candidates on the Issues, Not Each Other

An Open Appeal to #CNNDebate Moderators – Focus on the Issues

I have been critical of the first GOP debate organized by Fox News and Facebook, despite its record-breaking audience. I’ve also written a number of posts about how the broadcast failed to focus on the issues. Given the excitement building around the CNN Debate on 16 September, let me make a simple appeal to the … Continue reading An Open Appeal to #CNNDebate Moderators – Focus on the Issues

CNN and GOP Need to Do Their Arithmetic

CNN and GOP Need to Do Their Arithmetic Those complaining about the way CNN is selecting candidates for the main event of the second GOP debate have a very good point. I’ve written before about the mistakes being made by Fox News in trying to conduct a live broadcast of a 17 person debate, but … Continue reading CNN and GOP Need to Do Their Arithmetic