Journalists, reporters, are not trained in oral communication events, as judged by the overriding influence of their journaistic habits evidenced in this “debate” event. The process suffered by that fact. It is a “fact” to those who are knowledgeable in the special nature of debate. Reporters are questioners, and they should have had the understanding of debateable resolutions and direct clash on the issues inherent in the statement of the resolution. Journalistic questions are not policy debate propositions. Journalistic (gotcha) questions derive from muddled news reports and are not germane to the central questions of the campaign. Tim Russert, for whom I have the greatest respect as a digging, probing questioner and journalist, was not right for the “debate” among the three democrats.
Being constructive, I forsee an improved and matured future for this kind of campaign event. The candidates themselves will be asked in advance to prepare the resolutions for the event (“Be it resolved that…….”), adhering to what is generally recognized as the main issues in the campaign. A chairman-moderator will read the resolution and keep the responses to a timed limit. The advocate will speak, followed by the negative sides taken by the opponent candidates. Judges, qualified in the skills of argumentation and debate, will deliver a critique and a rebuttal round will ensue.
Then another proposition will be taken up.
Such a direct clash on the issues will accomplish a more clear-cut understanding of the following aspects of a candidate’s qualifications.
Does the candidate have a vision of the future that can be summarized in a “preamble” type of statement?
How well has the candidate analyzed the problem to be solved in comparison to the other candidates?
How well will the candidate act as a change agent, implementing the changes dictated by the propositions?
Another tack on the debates might be this: Micheal Moore has produced a documentary of the health care issue, “Sicko”. Summarize the main points of the documentary and state how you would resolve the problems. The same could be done with Al Gore’s prize winning documentary on global warming. Other well known treatments of the issues might also be used to stop the tattered and unraveled approach currently taken by “journalists”.
[...] Rudy Sutherland wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptJournalists, reporters, are not trained in oral communication events, as judged by the overriding influence of their journaistic habits evidenced in this “debate” event. The process suffered by that fact. It is a “fact” to those who are knowledgeable in the special nature of debate. Reporters are questioners, and they should have had the understanding of debateable resolutions and direct clash on the issues inherent in the statement of the resolution. Journalistic questions are not policy debate propositions. Journalistic (gotcha) questions derive from muddled news reports and are not germane to the central questions of the campaign. Tim Russert, for whom I have the greatest respect as a digging, probing questioner and journalist, was not right for the “debate” among the three democrats. Being constructive, I forsee an improved and matured future for this kind of campaign event. The candidates themselves will be asked in advance to prepare the resolutions for […] [...]
[...] princessandherpets wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptJournalists, reporters, are not trained in oral communication events, as judged by the overriding influence of their journaistic habits evidenced in this “debate” event. The process suffered by that fact. It is a “fact” to those who are knowledgeable in the special nature of debate. Reporters are questioners, and they should have had the understanding of debateable resolutions and direct clash on the issues inherent in the statement of the resolution. Journalistic questions are not policy debate propositions. Journalistic (gotcha) questions derive from muddled news reports and are not germane to the central questions of the campaign. Tim Russert, for whom I have the greatest respect as a digging, probing questioner and journalist, was not right for the “debate” among the three democrats. Being constructive, I forsee an improved and matured future for this kind of campaign event. The candidates themselves will be asked in advance to prepare the resolutions for […] [...]