{"id":2296,"date":"2008-04-18T11:38:25","date_gmt":"2008-04-18T15:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2008\/04\/abc_debate_expo\/"},"modified":"2008-04-18T11:38:25","modified_gmt":"2008-04-18T15:38:25","slug":"abc_debate_expo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2008\/04\/abc_debate_expo\/","title":{"rendered":"ABC Debate Exposes The Problem With The National News Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

I only caught the last half hour or so of the ABC debate the other night in Philadelphia. At the time, I thought it very curious that the questioners only allowed a minute to discuss high gasoline prices. After all, that’s one of the primary issues you hear most people complaining about these days. Shouldn’t the topic be given a greater emphasis than a throw-away question near the end of the evening?
\nTurns I actually caught the more substantive part of the debate. Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos wasted most of the evening focusing on what D.C. pundits are chattering about rather than what American voters are talking about.
\nEarlier<\/a> I criticized the candidates for wasting time talking about silly, non-issues rather than the big problems America faces. And it’s true that the campaigns have been pushing these type of stories.
\nBut what I neglected to mention, and what was evidently and painfully on display Wednesday, was the national news media’s responsibility in dumbing down our electoral process.
\nLet’s face it, candidates, being “rational” actors, are going to respond to media coverage which they believe is giving them a competitive advantage. If there’s a story out that a candidate believes is hurting his or her opponent, that candidate has an incentive to keep it alive as long as the news is going to keep talking about it.
\nHow has the main-stream media been handling its responsibility of shaping the electoral conversation? Just look Wednesday night. In an era of teetering financial institutions, falling home values, rising energy costs, and a fiasco in Iraq, could a debate host come up with a lamer issue than a flag pin? You’d have to try to come up with a stupider question than that.
\nAnd yet these are the things the beltway pundit class apparently believes our elections should turn on.
\nUPDATE: Jon Stewart, quoted at Crooks and Liars<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The first hour of last night’s debate was a 60 minute master class in questions that elevate out-of-context remarks and trivial, insipid miscues into subjects of natural discourse…which is my job! Stop doing my job! That’s what I’m here for! I’m the silly man!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kidding aside, I suspect Stewart could have done a better job than the “serious” news people who were running the show Wednesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I only caught the last half hour or so of the ABC debate the other night in Philadelphia. At the time, I thought it very curious that the questioners only allowed a minute to discuss high gasoline prices. After all, that’s one of the primary issues you hear most people complaining about these days. Shouldn’t […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}