A Plea to Moderators of the US Presidential Debates and their Media Organizations Lessons can be learned from this year’s primary debates and applied to enhance the value of the forthcoming US Presidential Debates, beginning on September 26th, 2016. The major lessons include the following: Moderators should aim to generate a debate between the candidates, … Continue reading A Plea to Moderators of the US Presidential Debates
debates
No More Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Remember when everyone was complaining about voters having no real substantive choice among candidates for office? We were faced with a problem of deciding between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, two characters from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass (1871). I’ll post John Tenniel’s illustration. No one could tell them apart and they became a common refrain … Continue reading No More Tweedledum and Tweedledee
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
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
A New Approach to Presidential Debates by Tracy Westen and Bill Dutton
Multimedia Convergence: A New Approach to Presidential Debates “A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.” “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. And a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves … Continue reading A New Approach to Presidential Debates by Tracy Westen and Bill Dutton
Grading the Fox News-Facebook GOP Presidential Debate Spectacle by Bill Dutton and Tracy Westen
The televised and Facebooked GOP debate was a disaster. The clear loser of the debates was the media, particularly Fox News and Facebook, for putting together a media event that made a mockery of televised debates. It clearly drew a large audience (over 23 million viewers), and gave some greater national visibility to some of … Continue reading Grading the Fox News-Facebook GOP Presidential Debate Spectacle by Bill Dutton and Tracy Westen
More Challenges to Informing Voters Online: Lessons Learned by Tracy Westen
[After posting our blog on 'A Dirty Dozen Reasons ..’, Tracy Westen followed up with an email detailing additional challenges learned during the 1990s when he worked through the Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) in Los Angeles to improve voter information. His note was so informative, and useful, that I have posted it here with … Continue reading More Challenges to Informing Voters Online: Lessons Learned by Tracy Westen
A Dirty Dozen: 12 Reasons Candidates and Networks Fail to Move Presidential Debates Online by Tracy Westen and Bill Dutton
At a time when the 16 GOP candidates are preparing for televised debates on August 6, 2015, in which each candidate might get about 5-10 total minutes of air time, without significant time for rebuttals or follow-up questions, it is appropriate to ask: Why aren’t the debates moving online? The Internet could provide a platform … Continue reading A Dirty Dozen: 12 Reasons Candidates and Networks Fail to Move Presidential Debates Online by Tracy Westen and Bill Dutton
Envision Voters Staging Their Own Candidate Debates, a Comment from Tracy Westen on the Televised Debates for the Republican Party
Televised presidential debates are stuck in the past. The networks televised the first presidential debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. Despite the passage of over a half a century, television has not significantly improved its debate formats. And though we are now deeply into the third decade of the Internet/Web revolution, … Continue reading Envision Voters Staging Their Own Candidate Debates, a Comment from Tracy Westen on the Televised Debates for the Republican Party