Debates should be more than sound bites; "promise so much, deliver so little"

[DeepModem Mom]

Politico: Debates should be more than sound bites
By PETER BERKOWITZ & EMILY MESSNER | 10/1/08

Presidential debates are among the most watched broadcasts on TV, rarely surpassed by programming other than the Super Bowl and the most hotly contested NFL conference championships. Given their popularity and importance, it is a shame that the debates, which promise so much, deliver so little....

This year’s presidential debates — along with the vice presidential debate, the endless primary debates and virtually all such debates in recent memory — are variations on a common format: The candidates are limited to short answers, with few opportunities to elaborate on their ideas or respond to their opponents. They face and address not each other but a moderator or panel drawn from the media. The moderator or panel chooses and asks the questions, asks follow-ups, keeps candidates to their time and, in town-hall-style debates, serves as a buffer not only between the candidates but also between the candidates and the audience.

The system inflates the significance of the media, makes the candidates look small and weak, and squanders an excellent opportunity for the public to learn about the candidates’ positions and their capacity for reasoned discussion.

In 2003, the Debate Advisory Standards Project published “The Debate Book,” an extensive effort to establish “fair and commonly accepted guidelines” for political debates at the state and local level, drawing key lessons from presidential debates. The advisory group found that 71 percent of voters believe debate rules should “give candidates more time to explain their views on complex issues.” Voters, particularly undecided voters, were turned off by the spectacle of candidates having to jump from one difficult policy question to another while compressing their answers into 30-to-90-second sound bites.

Nonetheless, debate organizers seem wedded to the idea that the number of topics in a debate should expand while the time to answer them shrinks....

Many experts believe that media panels are ineffective, not least due to long-winded questions designed to provoke gaffes, corner candidates or simply show off the journalist’s brilliance. Inexplicably, moderators are still considered indispensable.

To provide voters — especially undecideds — a higher-quality discussion on the leading issues, presidential debates should increase the time devoted to discrete topics, eliminate moderators and panels, and enable candidates to challenge each other directly....

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/14133.html