CNN painfully demonstrated this week why we need independently run presidential debates. With its ESPN-like introductions to the candidates, and its insistence on questions that pit candidates against each other, CNN took an approach to the debates more befitting a football game than an exercise in democracy.
The CNN hosts moderated as if they weren’t even listening to what candidates were saying, inflexibly cutting them off after the inevitably too-short 30-to-60-second time limit—in order to offer another, often seemingly randomly selected, candidate the generic prompt, “Your response?” At times, these followed on each other so many times it was unclear what the candidate was even supposed to respond to, or why.
CNN started its first debate (7/30/19) by challenging Bernie Sanders to respond to an attack on Medicare for All from Rep. John Delaney.
But worse than the entirely unhelpful format was the heavy reliance on right-wing assumptions and talking points to frame the questions. Over the two nights, healthcare dominated the debates; the first night (7/30/19), CNN‘s Jake Tapper kicked off the questions with one to Sen. Bernie Sanders:
You support Medicare for All, which would eventually take private health insurance away from more than 150 million Americans, in exchange for government-sponsored healthcare for everyone. Congressman Delaney just referred to it as bad policy. And previously, he has called the idea “political suicide that will just get President Trump re-elected.” What do you say to Congressman Delaney?
Debate moderators will typically start with top-polling contenders and challenge them to defend their positions. Doing so with attacks from a contender polling below 1%, however, would seem unusual—except that in this case, the candidate unpopular with the public voiced an opinion very popular in corporate media.
The second night of the Detroit debates (7/31/19) also started out with CNN attacking Medicare for All—this time forcing Kamala Harris to respond to criticism from Joe Biden.
It was a particularly noteworthy tactic, given that the next night (7/31/19), which also started off with healthcare, CNN lobbed the first challenge to Kamala Harris (polling around fourth place) in the form of an attack on her version of Medicare for All from the top-polling Biden campaign—letting the front-runner start off on the offensive.
Tapper queried multiple candidates the first night about raising taxes on “middle-class Americans” to pay for Medicare for All, and when the floor came back to Sanders, he rebuked Tapper: “By the way, the healthcare industry will be advertising tonight, on this program, with that talking point.”
Tapper quickly cut him off, but CNN‘s commercial breaks that night, as observers pointed out, indeed featured healthcare industry ads. In one, the Partnership for America’s Healthcare Future—an industry group—ran an ad talking about how Medicare for All or the public option means “higher taxes or higher premiums; lower-quality care.”
In other words, CNN debate viewers got industry talking points on healthcare from CNN moderators, bottom-tier industry-friendly candidates given outsized speaking time, and industry advertisements.
Meanwhile, on the first night, CNN asked more non-policy questions (17)—primarily about whether some Democratic candidates were “moving too far to the left to win the White House”—than questions about the climate crisis (15). Across both nights, the 31 non-policy questions overwhelmed questions on important issues like gun control (11) and women’s rights (7).
The second round of debates may not have enlightened the public much about the candidates, but they made one thing clear: We desperately need serious, independently run debates, not over-the-top industry-friendly spectacles of the sort put on by CNN—and endorsed and gate-kept by the major parties.
Messages to CNN can be sent to here (or via Twitter @CNN). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.
“Jeopardy!” for our democracy
Good one Doug, all they needed is Alex Trebek–” Kamela, you control the board, “I’ll take stupid questions for 400 which won’t mean diddly squat”.
Great article!! The truth!!
I just sent a comment to CNN taking them to task for staging a “Chautaqua -lite” event.
Oh CNN, look back prior to debates when journalists had great questions and candidates had time to explain their ideas. The League of Women Voters did a good job—but sadly CNN, you did a poor job, as many of the questions seemed designed to make the one asking to seem clever—-a big fail on that method. It also seemed as if cutting people off was an admired action—but this was truly a ridiculous way to treat the candidates. Did those asking the questions actually listen to the candidates responses?
Bring back the League of Women Voters to run the debates.
Re: ‘ bring back the League of Women Voters’
Yes, I entirely agree with WW & EH’s above sentiment —- then I MIGHT(?) even consider watching the debates (currently they’re more akin to the professional wrestling of politics, a spectacle ‘full of sound and fury signifying nothing’). The trouble is that years ago the Dems & Reps colluded and formed their own organization to run the debates and dropped the LoWV because they wouldn’t go along with their new rules. The networks were too timid/money-hungry to resist, and the US public too disinterested to mount a boycott, so here we are…
I wish all the candidates would call the moderators out for their clearly corporate driven questions, and “debate” format.
Many viewers may not understand the game being played.
To be more explicit, commercial media like CNN would lose major advertising moneys if health care becomes a public responsibility. Don’t expect fair treatment from any profit-medium. Not on that, and not on the war machine.
“…commercial media like CNN..” Exactly right. This isn’t even PBS who would at least make a half-hearted effort to be neutral/objective and would have fewer off-limits topics, this is one of the corporations that depends on advertising revenue for probably 90+% of their operating budget, so you don’t even have to be a ‘wild-eyed socialist commie’ like we FAIR readers to believe that a big corporation is going to be highly protective of its bigger customers — it’s standard business procedure for successful companies. The only difference I can see here is that —- due to the historically unstructured nature of debates —- the format requires a little openness, so the networks control that by having questioners who will reliably skew the debate in acceptable directions.
Make them REAL debates. bring in John Donvan of IQ2!
So, aside from taking Real Murikan’s trucks, guns & stuff; to give to illegals, super preditors & jihadists. When you killed our little baby Jesus singing This Land is MY Land with Castro… in Russia, with your shiksa wife?
My comment on CNN’s feedback page.
Voters determining the present and future of our republic is NOT a game. Vetting candidates is NOT a sporting event. The League of Women Voters served the needs of our democracy quite well for many years. CNN is serving only the needs of its stockholders, overpaid execs and on screen “talent”.
You’re not “fake news”, you’re worse than that. You’re happily profiting from the destruction of intelligent and reasoned political discourse while our nation descends into fascism from which it may never recover, and the planet burns.
Somewhere in Newscaster Heaven, Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow are weeping.
And why does Jake Tapper get paid $4 million, 100X the average American income? Is that how much it costs to be shameless? https://www.cnn.com/feedback/
Thank you for raising these points. This is exactly why I turned it off 15 minutes into the first night. The Republicans have exactly what they want a format to make the Democrats look bad. your synopsis is correct they need independent forums.
Noam Chomsky & Ed Herman warned us of this years ago… See Manufacturing consent. Ty
Excellent book, I too strongly recommend it to anyone who wants an honest perspective on the MSM. Although it was written in ~1988, it contains structural truths about our media institutions that are timeless, and it’s written in a very accessible style.
The MSNBC & CNN “debates”:
Why are these “anchor” clowns the ones asking the questions? Cuz they work for MSNBC & CNN? Who writes these slanted limited questions for them to read? Why do the candidates only get a few tiny minutes to respond to huge topics? Why are these so called “debates” not broadcast live on ALL major media, including C-Span, NPR and PBS without COMMERCIALS? Why should MSNBC & CNN be making money using the public owned airwaves to air OUR so called “free election debates”? Why do voters have to be in a “financial race” to generate money to BUY IN to being ALLOWED their candidates in a “free election”? This is NOT a democracy.
Au Contraire to what you opine in your last paragraph, not alone did the second night’s Debate cast very considerable light on a few of the Candidates, something that happened quite by accident when Tapper allowed Tulsi Gabbard in to the private conversation being conducted with and between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but, that accidental request for passing comment from Tulsi Gabbard led to her taking down M/z Harris in a manner utterly befitting a combat veteran and clearly shocking to both Tapper and Kamala, with the latter toppling from her preening First Tier and plunging through into the Basement level car-park from where she can be usefully excluded from any further consideration by Democrats and/or America.
Thank you for reporting and analysis. But you missed out the mast important issue. What are we going to do to hold a fair and unbiased debate
Of course debates should be provided as a public service and of course they should be focused on policies. Better to do a few topics well each time that to do many poorly.