Bipartisan Group Urges Overhaul of General Election Debates [View all]

[brooklynite]

Source: New York Times

A presidential debate season that begins in mid-September. A television studio backdrop without a live studio audience. And a “chess clock” model, where each candidate is allotted 45 minutes of speaking time, which begins ticking down when they start talking.

On Wednesday, a bipartisan panel released recommendations aimed at overhauling the general election presidential debates, with the goal of halting declining viewership, especially among younger voters and Hispanics, and allowing voters to emerge with a better understanding of the candidates and their positions.

If adopted, the group’s proposals could have serious ramifications for the 2016 presidential debates. Already, the decision by network executives to limit the first two major Republican debates to the 10 candidates who are ranked highest in national polls has caused major consternation within the Republican Party.

“Debates are the only time during a campaign when voters get to see the candidates side by side, unfiltered, and improving that opportunity for the candidates and voters is what brought this group together,” said Anita Dunn, a senior 2012 campaign adviser to President Obama who helped him prepare for debates, and a co-chairwoman of the group.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/17/bipartisan-group-urges-overhaul-of-general-el

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Excerpts:

EXPANDING AND ENRICHING DEBATE CONTENT Increase direct candidate exchanges and otherwise enhance the capacity of candidates to engage each other and communicate views and positions; Reduce candidate “gaming” of time-limited answers and create opportunities to clarify an exchange or respond to an attack; Enlarge the pool of potential moderators to include print journalists, university presidents, retired judges and other experts. Use alternate formats for some of the debates, including a chess clock model that gives each candidate an equal amount of time to draw upon. Expand the role of diverse media outlets and the public in submitting questions for the debates; and Increase the representativeness of audiences and questioners at town hall debates.

BROADENING THE ACCESSIBILITY OF THE DEBATES Embrace social media platforms, which are the primary source of political information for a growing number of Americans, and facilitate creative use of debate content by social media platforms as well as by major networks such as Univision, Telemundo, and BET, by providing unimpeded access to an unedited feed from each of the cameras and a role in framing topics and questions; and Revise the debate timetable to take into account the rise of early voting.

IMPROVING THE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY OF THE DEBATE PROCESS Eliminate on-site audiences for debates other than the town hall and, in the process, reduce the need for major financial sponsors and audiences filled with donors; Publicly release the Memorandum of Understanding governing the debates as soon as it is signed; Require the moderators to be signatories to the MOU to ensure compliance with the agreements about rules and formats; and Clearly articulate the standards required of polls used to determine eligibility for the debates.

EXPANDING AND ENRICHING DEBATE CONTENT The proportion of the electorate viewing debates is substantially lower than it once was (see also Appendix Four). Moreover, debates are not giving voters as substantive an understanding of the candidates as they might. Candidates and their party representatives view them as a hybrid of Sunday morning interviews and gladiatorial clashes, and express frustration with the constraints the joint press conference structure imposes on their ability to communicate their positions, priorities and core political messages, and clarify distinctions between or among the candidates. The Working Group believes that debate formatting needs to be rethought. There are several contributing reasons. Across the past half century of scholarship on debates, scholars have noted how format limitations “have made it difficult for audiences to see the ‘real substance’ of the candidates’ positions and policies”. These same formatting conventions “not only thwart sustained discussion of serious issues, but also encourage one-liners and canned mini-speeches”.

http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/democratizing-the-debates/



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