Improving the Presidential Debates p.

By: Debra Gersh

Discussion analyzes media roles in the 1992 debates
and speculates on what should be done in 1996
THE 1992 PRESIDENTIAL and vice presidential debates drew big ratings, experimented with innovative formats, and allowed the public unprecedented ability to question the candidates directly.
Despite these successes, however, there remains a myriad of issues to resolve before 1996, including proposed legislation that would require candidates receiving matching federal funds to participate in debates, the format such debates might take in the future, and who will ask the questions ? the public, the press or both?
"The first question that comes up is, Why now? It's probably strange that so soon after the 1992 presidential debate and campaign that we should be addressing this subject once again," noted Marvin Kalb, director of the Joan Shorenstein Barone Center at Harvard University, which co-sponsored a Washington, D.C., forum on the debates with the Annenberg Washington Program of the Communications Policy Studies at Northwestern University.
"I think the answer is as simple as: It's complicated, it needs improvement, and we probably need all the time in the world to arrive at an improved process," Kalb said.
Among the issues discussed by panel participants was the role of the media in future presidential debates.
What role will the press play? asked Sander Vanocur of Old Owl Communications. Any role it wants to play, said the former ABC News senior correspondent.
The press in 1992 portrayed the debates as important to voters, which was not always the case in previous election years, explained James M. Bernstein, assistant professor at the Indiana University School of Journalism.
Early analysis of coverage of the 1992 debates shows that the news media are recognizing the importance of debates to the voters, more than half of whom say the debates are one of the best ways to learn about candidates and a third of whom say such forums help them decide who will get their vote.
"The change, we think, is a good sign," Bernstein said. "One of the main reasons for having televised presidential debates is because of their value to voters. The more the news media recognize voters as a participant in the debates, the greater legitimacy the debates will have."
The second presidential debate in Richmond, Va., which allowed voters to ask questions of the candidates directly, was not only remarkable in its format but turned out to be one of the most popular forums.
ABC Newswoman Carole Simpson, who moderated that debate, said everywhere she goes people stop to talk to her about their impressions of that town hall-style meeting.
"It has been quite unbelievable how many different kinds of people saw that debate and want to talk about it," she said, adding that some voters told her that debate influenced their vote.
The town hall debate was criticized by some for the simplicity of the questions ? and some people needed help phrasing their queries ? but Simpson was "distressed by my colleagues' snobbery."
"Those were the people's questions," she said, "and isn't that what the election is all about?"
Nevertheless, Simpson, who is a senior correspondent and Washington anchor for ABC News' World News Sunday, thinks the town hall format is not the only one that should be used.
There still is a need for questioning from professional journalists, but Simpson likes a combination of formats, as was employed in 1992.
"I think voters who are used to the overabundance of talk shows want to see those people reacting with others like them. I think they want that connectedness," Simpson added. "I
hope the town hall format will be
institutionalized as the debates are
institutionalized."
Commenting on another evolution in coverage, Newsweek media critic Jonathan Alter declared that "Spin is dead."
Spin ? "going into the pressroom after the debate and arguing that your candidate won and the other guy lost and this or that sound bite was the most important" ? has become "point-less and irrelevant to the pro-cess,"
Alter said.
Decisive now are the flash polls, conducted immediately after, or even during, the debates.
Alter, a senior editor at the weekly newsmagazine said presidential election coverage now is "poll-driven, rather than [based on an] ideological bias or other kind of favoritism. You can draw a chart, you can take the tone of coverage and where the candidates are in the polls, and it almost tracks perfectly. So if Bill Clinton had been behind in the polls in the last few weeks before the election, he would have taken a pummeling in the press."
Although other speakers criticized the "debate over the debates," Alter said he thinks that "The press needs the debate over the debates the way a bear needs honey."
"It's just another story that a very hungry institution with an insatiable appetite for campaign news must have. So, if there isn't a good debate over the debates in the run-up, the press will essentially create one," he maintained, adding that "Inevitably, this will mar any system that the Commission [on Presidential Debates] comes up with.
"The press will make mischief with the arrangements. No matter how wonderful a system, no matter how agreed upon by the candidates, there will always, always be controversy over the logistics and particulars of the debates, because controversy makes news," Alter said. "And, at that period in a presidential campaign, the appetite, as I said, is insatiable."
Further, Alter opined that "Reporters are reconciled to not participating on the panels as much as they have in the past."
Not only do a number of journalists agree that the single-moderator format is the best, but many also decided that "They couldn't in good conscience participate in a system where their participation was dependent upon the approval of the candidates," he continued.
While he thought Simpson did a "wonderful job" in the Richmond debate, Alter said he thinks the format is "overrated" and doesn't elicit the most useful information.
The idea of using a single moderator is not new, however.
The panelist format was criticized after the 1960 presidential debate, and suggestions for change included using a single questioner, explained Diana Carlin, assistant professor of communications studies at the University of Kansas and a member of the Commission on Presidential Debates Advisory Board.
Although the commission had a single moderator in mind when discussing the 1992 debates, Carlin pointed out that there was no one single-moderator format discussed.
Carlin, reporting the results of focus groups convened before and during the debates, said voters rated the Richmond format highly, "mainly because questions were asked not by journalists but by real voters.
"There was basically a sentiment in all of the focus groups that the media have their opportunities day in and day out to ask questions, and often those questions . . . deal with things that are not necessarily high on the public agenda," Carlin explained, adding that the questions asked in that forum were consistent with what the focus groups said they would have asked.
"I do believe the format has a dramatic effect on whether or not people are learning what they need to learn, but not so much is it a matter of whether you have panelists or whoever asking, but it's the types of questions that are asked and whether those questions reflect the public agenda," Carlin concluded.
Although the 1992 debates were a "resounding success," they "occurred only after the all-too-familiar debate over debates, as it has come to be known," commented Clifford M. Sloan, a partner at Mayer, Brown & Platt and co-author of the book For Great Debates.
Sloan said that there are at least two major problems with the pre-debate wrangling.
"First, there is the very real threat that there will be no debates, and that the public will be deprived of the opportunity to see the candidates discourse at length on the substantive issues," he explained.
"Second, even if debates occur, the problem is that the media coverage of the campaign is completely dominated by coverage of the debate over the debates at a critical time," Sloan said. "At the very time when the public is tuning in to the campaign and the candidates, the media coverage is consumed with reports about the positioning, the bickering and jousting between the candidates about whether there will be debates at all."
Representatives from the Bush and Clinton campaigns, however, said much of last year's debate over debates focused on format and scheduling, rather than on whether they would participate or not.
Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said he planned to reintroduce legislation that would require candidates receiving federal funds to participate in debates.
That proposal, however, met with objections from other panelists, who cited First Amendment concerns ? the right of candidates not to debate and pay the political consequences ? as well as the reluctance to agree to debate particulars now, when the situation in 1996 will likely be very different.
Similar legislation was introduced in the last Congress and was included in a campaign reform bill, but was eventually vetoed by President Bush, Markey explained.
Another panel during the forum consisted of television executives who were asked to look at coverage beyond these last debates.
Their focus for the future was on flexibility and being prepared for changes ? technical and political ? that likely will come in the next four years.
Many of them agreed that the town hall format, so innovative in 1992, likely will be old hat by 1996. In addition, public input should not only continue, but intensify.