Having watched the tv news shows with a moderator and panels mostly of journalists, we should hold as suspect this major source of information and analysis. Why suspect? Its depth of deliberative discussion is probably, from a journalistic perspective, not of the highest quality.
I do not know how many people watch such “talking heads” programs. If they have some impact on the outcome of the election of a president, then the analysis and discussion might be better if the moderators chose those panel members who have the depth of book-length expertise, those who can be seen on C-SPAN’s Book TV programs. Those author’s usually appear in solo performances. It might make better programs if the journalist-moderators put together those scholars in one session and had them interact for the benefit of the citizen-voters.
I did see on one presentation on C-SPAN an author who was the worst public speaker I have heard in a very long time. But his message is essential for understanding his topic, “Children of the Jihad”, and I looked beyond the verbal static and thunderstorm twister in his manner of presentation to get what he had to say. I did so because I had been thinking along the same lines. There was a good book behind him. So I guess a powerful message trumps delivery.
Most authors of serious non-fiction are not so “cursed” in the delivery area. They should become the panel members, they and other scholar-specialists, instead of, or in addition to the journalist-columnists.
For instance, Randall Robinson spoke on the story of “An Unbroken Agony” in his book of that title, Haiti and the kidnapping of Pres. Aristide by the U.S. Have you ever heard Randall Robinson? I did, just before I saw the speaker described above, back to back. In Randall Robinson I heard a speaker in the opposite extreme. I have seldom heard a speaker of such high quality, fluency, articulateness, intelligence, eloquence, erudition, wisdom, all in one person in the service of a story that should be taken to heart by all U.S. citizens. How much the Haitians did with so little in their revolution which was hi-jacked by France and the U.S. How the U.S. does so little with so much. You don’t tear upthe constitution and overturn the checkerboard if you don’t like the person you’ve got. You go from election to election until you do get the leader you want and should have.
After that action of the Bush administration, it is essential to ask, what does America (U.S.) know about democracy. Our acts in the world against democracies, like Haiti had, indicate that the answer to the question is “Nothing!”
