Media Criticism

Most Americans probably didn’t see the Des Moines Register Republican debates this afternoon because they were at work. Since the final date of the Iowa caucuses was not determined until recently, the newspaper and the candidates for the Republicans and the Democrats weren’t able to finalize a date for the debate. The compromise for everyone involved was 1:00pm Central time on a Tuesday. If you haven’t seen clips from the debates yet, you don’t need to worry too much since there was little of substance that came from the debate.

You can blame two factors on the failure to get much out of the Register’s debate: the moderator and the format. Carolyn Washburn, the editor of the Des Moines Register, acted as moderator for a field of candidates including professional presidential candidate Alan Keyes. Washburn alternated between the weaknesses of past moderators like Anderson Cooper and an overly zealous approach to watching the clock when lesser known candidates were speaking. I am not a huge Fred Thompson fan but I loved it when he snapped back at Washburn for asking a question that asked grown men to raise their hands. Senator Thompson should be lauded for challenging this ridiculous trend in political debates. Ideas should be bandied about instead of relegated to silent nods and hand waving.

The format has been blamed by some pundits for encouraging sound bite responses by all the candidates. You could have any format in a political debate and have it fail miserably. If you give a politician 30 seconds and a microphone, prepare to hear an abbreviation of their stump speech. I like the format’s limitations on direct confrontations since civil discourse often turns into one-upsmanship.

There were a few good things that came out of Tuesday’s debate. Alan Keyes shows what a true 1990s family values conservative looks like and I can’t imagine more than a dozen voters will like the cut of his jib. Mike Huckabee’s frontrunner status finally exposes him to some criticism and critical analysis. I think the winner in this debate was Fred Thompson because he gave off the presidential vibe that many primary voters look for. You should all check back tomorrow for my look at the Democratic debate and a comparison to the management of the debate by the Des Moines Register.