Newsplaining

By: 
Ethan Stoetzer

Moderators are the enemy of debates
     If it’s one thing that anyone can agree upon as we weather the last month of the 2016 election cycle, it’s that debate moderators have been terrible at keeping these nationally televised programs in check.
     Or have they?
     If you’ve merely had the debates on in the background of your dwelling, or have simply kept up with the sound bites on social media, it has been plain to see that candidates from both the Democrat and Republican parties have had their way with moderators, via dodging questions, pandering to the Russians or that defeating ISIS and sexual assault are in the same vein, policy wise. In three straight debates, talking time has been pretty much equal, but what has actually been said by these candidates. More importantly, what questions have been asked of these candidates.
     Amidst scandal after scandal, these candidates have been coming out, swinging to the fences, seeing who can coax the other to say something they can’t take back, and the moderators have been seemingly allowing it.
     Matt Lauer botched the simple job of any journalist, letting Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump get away with saying he never supported the Iraq war, when it is widely well known that he did on the Howard Stern show.
     Lester Holt attempted to hold Trump accountable for his support of the war, but Trump’s persistence dragged the conversation to the formation of ISIS and why its formation is the fault of Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Holt never asked Clinton if the Obama Administration perceived that ISIS would form in the vacuum that the US left. Instead, the questions remained vague and his control of the candidates yielded meme after meme of the candidates’ policy-vacant banter.
     Elaine Quijano was practically missing from the Vice Presidential debate, as both Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence dogged it out, talking over her. Quijano never corrected Pence that Trump did name-call women, did praise Vladimir Putin and insulted an American General, and prisoner of war (John McCain). She never asked Kaine to stop interrupting, and never asked either of them what policies their party wants to implement. Regardless of how unimportant the VP debates are in the election cycle — they rarely decide elections — that debate was a fist fight by men in suits on national television.
     I watched these debates and prayed that one of the moderators would say something, anything to keep the debates in check. I was waiting for both candidates’ noses to be held to the grind stone, forced to defend their policies. My only hope was put in CNN’s Anderson Cooper. I’d seen him do that to Clinton and Bernie Sanders in the primary debate. Cooper is a solid journalist and isn’t afraid to be an antagonist. I thought this was going to be the time.
     At the second presidential debate, hyped up by the firestorm of Trump’s sexual assault comments and Clinton’s leaked speeches to Wall Street banks, both Cooper and CBS’ Martha Raddatz did their best, I guess, with what they had to work with, forcing candidates to defend their scandals, and allowing both of them to pander to ISIS and Russia, and subsequently allowing Trump to interrupt Clinton 18 times as to Clinton’s once, and allowing his authoritarian threat to jail Clinton to go unanswered (for perspective, former  Soviet Union leader Joesph Stalin imprisoned political figures for disagreeing with him and usurping state agencies to “erase” people and jail them for life. Putin practices the same methods). Trump should have had to explain those comments. Clinton should have had to defend her private life comments, but wasn’t asked to.
     What I had thought would be the savior of the debates wound up being one of the biggest enablers. Cooper failed me.
     But maybe this is my fault in thinking that the debates are something that they aren’t. In the cable news era of our democracy, and the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, I expected things to stay the same. In the 1960s, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon sat on wooden chairs, with a moderator standing between them at a small podium. There was no audience, just two politicians talking politics. A boring event.
     The concept of debates is centered around a dialogue of facts used to form cohesive arguments based on true principles. Do you see that in any of these debates? All I’ve heard are slanders and pandering. There are no discussions on policy from either candidate. No one has had to explain what health care plan they want to implement. No one has had to explain how the US will follow Paris treaty talks on curtailing pollution. No one has had to explain anything. High school debate teams provide me with more facts and cohesive arguments than these candidates, whose job it is to form coherent arguments.
     The Commission for Presidential Debates is a non-profit, non-partisan entity that schedules debates and establishes their format. They make no money from advertisements or sponsors, and get no help from the federal government. I watched the organizers of this organization pat themselves on the back at the second presidential debate, for doing a good job of handling the debates, and after that debate, I thought they had nerve.
     The only thing these debates do are create sound bite after sound bite, that replay on the news programs — where the moderators come from — and set up a coliseum-like environment where these gladiator-like politicians create zings and one liners to drag their opponents through the mud. The debates are currently designed for ratings and Facebook shares, rather than debating fine policy adjustments, of which, none have been talked about.
     I’m not saying that candidates should be held accountable for their conduct; Trump and Clinton should be held accountable by the cable news, but debates are supposed to be about policy decisions that will help the country. Yes, both campaigns have websites that are loaded with political jargon that the average person does not understand. Debate moderators should be the explainers of these policies, asking the candidates to explain why it will work and what problems it might have.
     Until that happens, these debates are reality shows; and Trump was right. I’d much rather be watching football. 

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