New Style of Debates

The role of the mass media regarding politics, in my opinion, is to provide the American people with factual and unbiased information. For the most part they do a decent job of this, but I believe there is still a lot of room to improve. One area in particular that I would like to see improved is how much news anchors press politicians for a straight clean-cut answer. We see too often how a politician will get asked a specific question but will then answer in a way that jumps around a true answer. The anchors or journalists simply just let it go. One area I wish to see this improved is in presidential debates.

One problem I see with current presidential debates, is that the moderators allow the candidates to dodge certain questions. This allows the candidate to not take responsibility for something they have done or something they believe in. They dodge certain questions because they know they could lose potential votes if their true colors came out about a certain issue. It is the media's responsibility to accurately show the American people what policies a candidate believes in, and this can't be properly done if the politician's are constantly dodging questions. This article describes the art of "dodging" and how many people do not notice that it is happening: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/22/opinion/la-oe-rogers-debates-20120923 .

I believe a hindrance on the matter of presidential debates is that the news station relies on profits from commercials. What I would like to see is a non-profit news station take over the debates and clear a five hour window with no commercial breaks. The debate may not take five hours, but I think it should be available if needed. There should then be a moderator that knows what each candidate believes in, and should have a set list of questions to get the ball rolling. It irritates me when I watch a debate to hear the moderator say that Candidate A only has 30 seconds to respond. What? How can you put a time limit on the potential future leader of the most powerful country in the world? Each candidate should be given as much time as they would like to answer and respond to the other candidate. The moderator should only be there to ensure that each candidate fully answers the questions asked. One more note on the moderator: If he/she asks a question such as "What kind of pizza do you prefer?" then that person should be banned from any future debates.

A few people have said that a Lincoln-Douglas style of debating should be implemented. This style of debating involves Candidate A speaking for 1 hour, Candidate B speaking and rebutting for 1 1/2 hours, and Candidate A closing the debate by speaking for 30 minutes. This style of debate involves no questions from anyone and no moderator. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/3/obama-and-romney-should-debate-lincoln-douglas-sty/ . While I think this style would be interesting to see, I would prefer to see each candidate discuss every aspect of their policies and have the candidates battle it out with one another. Maybe instead of having a moderator, have a panel of 3-4 people who's only purpose is to be a fact checker. This would be my Utopia of presidential debates.

Too Much Coverage?

It is undoubtedly true that the media has some sort of influence in the way in which politicians act on a certain issue. One recent example I want to discuss is gun control. One of the more controversial court cases in my lifetime (in terms of gun violence) is the Trayvon Martin shooting case. There is no question that George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin. What was unclear to everyone was whether or not this shooting was in fact justifiable and within the limitations of the law. The case went to court and the jury decided that George Zimmerman acted in self-defense and the shooting was in fact justifiable. What amazed me about this case is the amount of media attention it received and also how many politicians responded to the matter to give their input. 

The one politician that I want to discuss is President Obama. There are thousands of deaths each year due to gun violence, so why did Obama choose this case to speak about? The answer is quite simple: the media couldn’t stop talking about the case. I certainly understand why this story got the nation’s attention; what I do not understand is why we live in a society in which we are glued to the television to see the court discussions of people like OJ Simpson, Casey Anthony, and George Zimmerman. I can understand OJ since he was a professional athlete, but the other two? Why does the media feel the need to make these people celebrities? In my opinion it ruins these peoples’ lives. Although Anthony and Zimmerman were acquitted, there are still thousands of people that want these two people dead because they believe they were wrongly convicted.

Back to Obama. Why did he feel the need to discuss this case? It is because he was in the midst of discussion on gun reform and he found a perfect story to promote his message. Watch the video here to see what he said: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHBdZWbncXI  If you look at 0:35 of the video, Obama says that he wanted to speak on this issue because it has gained a lot of media attention over the past few weeks. This statement affirms my point that the media has a strong influence on what politicians discuss in their speeches. This is obviously a very controversial issue, and one, in my opinion, that Obama should have stayed away from. It is an issue that involves the Judicial Branch, not the Executive. This speech irritates me to watch because Obama, like the media, is making this case based on race. He said that Trayvon Martin could have been him 35 years ago. This is completely unnecessary to say, because this comment only makes people angrier about the situation. Take a look at this page to see what I am talking about: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/27/if-zimmerman-get-off-ima-go-kill-a-white-boy-trayvon-martin-supporters-make-shocking-threats-ahead-of-verdict/ . These people use social media sites to give their opinion about the case. 

Social media, mass media, and politics all go hand in hand with one another. I do, however, believe that the American people and mass media have the upper hand in determining what politicians talk about. These media sites report a story, like the Trayvon Martin case, and people immediately give their opinion on the matter without knowing all of the facts on the matter. The media then discusses this issue nearly every night on air to give people an “update” on the matter. This keeps people involved in these stories, and sometimes makes them so furious when their predicted outcome did not happen. It is as if there is a jury of 50 million people, not just 12 anymore. Once politicians hear that there is a controversial issue, they then decide to speak out on the matter. 

This immediately makes me think of the recent tragedy that happened to a KSU student. http://www.ksusentinel.com/2013/10/15/ksu-student-killed-in-road-rage-shooting/  Kimberly Kilgore was shot in the head by Sparkles Lindsey. Kilgore was white, Lindsey is black. I certainly do not immediately think this was an issue because of race, but what would the media have to say if this story got national attention? Would Obama come out and defend Kilgore while at the same time not even acknowledging Sparkles? 

I believe that the media should give more attention to our fallen troops overseas so that Obama would acknowledge their sacrifice. After all, Obama, being president, is the reason our troops are in danger overseas defending our freedom. I am not saying that Obama does not acknowledge our fallen troops or that the media doesn’t give them attention, I am saying that these men and women do not get nearly the amount of attention that people like Zimmerman and Anthony get. The media has allowed everyone in America to become a lawyer and give their legal advice and opinion about a certain issue. While social media is a great thing to have to express one’s opinion, I do not think it should be used to make violent threats to others. To conclude, I believe that the president has a lot of big responsibilities in keeping our country strong and safe; I do not believe one of his responsibilities should be discussing the legality of a case and further infuriating people by showing that he believes something was done because of race. These are the kinds of things that divide a nation.

Presidential Debates

It fascinates me how the advancement of technology has gotten more people involved in politics. I truly believe that the creation of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are greatly responsible for this. When looking at how social media can impact how people are actively involved in politics, we can look at the Presidential Debates and see how the number of viewers have changed over the past decade.

The 2000 election was between Al Gore and George W. Bush, and it was one of the closest elections of all time. Before I begin with the numbers, I must note that Facebook was not created until 2004 and Twitter until 2006. The presidential debates consists on three different debates spread out by about one week from each other. The first debate, October 3, 2000, had a viewership of 46.6 million people. This number was fairly consistent with the previous election debates. The second debate in the 2000 election brought in 37.5 million people, and the third debate had 37.7 million people. These numbers represent less than 10% of the US population.

Although Facebook was created in 2004, it did not impact the viewership of the debates in a significant manner. However, the first debate had a viewership of 62.4 million people. This spike in numbers could have been due to the fact that we were in the midst of a war, but nevertheless, this number is quite significant. The second debate was significantly lower with 43.5 million viewers, and the third debate had 46.7 million viewers. While these numbers are higher than the 2000 election, it is still hard to see how social media impacts these debates and the election.

The 2008 election was one of the more significant elections in our nation's history because of the fact that the first African-American president was elected. The first debate brought a viewership of 52.4 million people, which is a respectable number. The second debate brought in a whopping 69.9 million people. The third had 63.2 million people. These numbers were rare to have, but it was good for America as more and more people were getting involved. Twitter was up and running for the 2008 debates, but it was still fairly new to a lot of people. For all four debates (including VP debate) the number of tweets sent out totaled 500,000. This is significant in terms of political involvement. http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/04/presidential-debate-most-tweeted-political-event-in-us-history/

The 2012 debates saw similar numbers in terms of viewership. The first brought in 67.2 million; the second had 51.4 million; and the third had 65.6 million. These numbers are significant in the fact that there is still a wide range of people that are getting and staying involved in the political process. What is significant about the 2012 debates is how big of an impact social media had. For the first time, people could tweet their questions to the news station hosting the debate, and some of these questions would be read out loud to the candidates to answer. The number of tweets in the FIRST debate totaled more than 10.3 million...http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/10/presidential-debates-more-than-10-million-tweets-in-less-than-2-hours/ This is significant for america because it shows that people are expressing their opinion more and more, and they aren't afraid of getting involved in the process. The total number of tweets for all three presidential debates was more than 23 million. Try to wrap your head around that for a minute. http://www.newsmax.com/US/Twitter-debate-foreign-policy/2012/10/23/id/461088 . This once again goes to show how big of an impact social media can have on politics. These numbers are certainly optimistic in terms of more people getting involved in the political process.

The numbers I used for number of viewers can be found here: http://www.debates.org/index.php?page=debate-history

Mass Media vs. Politicians

For most of this semester, my Mass Media and Politics class have been talking about how politicians rely on the media just as much as the media rely on politicians. A question I often ask myself is which of these two actually has more power? I believe the answer to this is the mass media. With the advancement in technology, more and more people have immediate access to the latest information available. With social media and cell phones, more young people are involved and voicing their opinions about politics more than ever. Thus being said, I believe the media has far more power compared to politicians. It is transparent that the majority of Americans simply watch the nightly news and take things as fact. These people typically work 9-5 jobs, and they do not really have much extra time to do their own research on every matter. So what happens? News corporations such as CNN or Fox News tells them what and how they should think about a situation, and that is exactly how most people form their opinions. 

While I do believe the media can be good for a politician and his career, I am going to focus on how they can destroy a career simply by putting a politician in a negative spotlight. The first person I am going to focus on is Herman Cain. Cain was a candidate for the Republican Party presidential nomination in the 2012 election. He was actually, at one point, the frontrunner in the race. At some point during the race, the media published a story about a Herman Cain sex scandal while he was working for the NRA. What first bothers me about this is that the media was focusing on this story, and they were not focusing on the policies of the candidates. How is America supposed to advance to prosperity if the people do not know what they are voting for? Once people started hearing endless conversation of the Cain sex scandal, he had no choice but to drop out of the race. The media decided his fate for him. The next thing that bothers me about this story is how it lacked an enormous amount of credibility. More can be read here: http://www.businessinsider.com/unanswered-questions-herman-cain-sexual-harassment-accusations-2011-11 . Whether or not Cain actually did sexually harass someone, the media did not have tangible proof of it and should not have published this story. They should have focused more on his policies, such as his 9-9-9 plan. ABC posted a video of the situation, and they appear to manipulate the story by suggesting he did in fact do something and was lying. Look at it here and form your own opinion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw-TBtI7GAk.

It is humorous to think about how politicians today cannot get away with smoking a cigarette without everyone knowing about it, and looking at what politicians used to do 40+ years ago and what they got away with. This website shows a few politicians that would have been ripped apart by the modern media: http://www.cracked.com/funny-4520-great-leaders-who-would-have-been-destroyed-by-modern-media.

Another recent example that comes to mind is Todd Akin. This situation, unlike Cain's, had legitimacy and proof. Akin was quoted saying: “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” The media had a field day with this. Romney, Obama, and many other high ranked politicians condemned Akin for saying this, and they asked Akin to drop out of the Missouri Senate race. Akin refused and said he was going to continue with the election, and he predicted that he would win. He lost. The media took this story and ran with it. It was on nearly every front page of the newspapers and it was the main story for nightly news for a while. Akin had no chance of winning, especially with how many people got word of this story in a short amount of time. The timeline of events can be seen here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/us/politics/rep-todd-akin-legitimate-rape-statement-and-reaction.html?_r=0 . 

The point I have been trying to make is how much power the media actually has today. They can tell their followers to do something and they will listen most of the time. The media told the American people that Cain was not the right person to be president because he had no morals (they did not directly say this, but that was essentially their message). Akin certainly made a political mistake when he said the rape comment, but the media definitely escalated to a whole new level and gave Akin nearly no chance of winning the election. There are countless stories that are similar to these two, and they all go to show just how much power the media has over politicians. 

Debt Ceiling

It seems like every six months we are having a debate regarding raising the debt ceiling. How is it that spending is this out of control that we have to continue borrowing more and more money? On top of this, our economy is still relatively fragile, and republicans and democrats can't seem to meet in the middle. How many more government run programs can we continue to fund? It amazes me that our government continues to give out blank checks to fund countries overseas on top of handing out blank checks to unnecessary programs here at home. These issues are not even being talked about in these debates. 

What annoys me about this situation is people like Jack Lew, Secretary of Treasury, calling on Members of Congress to pass a "temporary" spending bill? What does this even mean? That a bill should be passed to continue funding government until we run out of money again and will need another debate about the debt ceiling? That is absolutely ridiculous. There needs to be extreme spending changes made if we want to get out of this mess we are in and if we want to be on a more prosperous path in the future. It seems to me that Obama is unwilling to get rid of Obamacare, because that is his legacy and he does not want to be remembered for it not happening. 

In 2006, when Obama was a Senator, he had this to say about the debt ceiling at the time: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better." I could not agree more with this viewpoint; I just wish he still had this mentality as POTUS. 

I say now is a good time to start shutting down programs we don’t need the government to be running. The NSA seems like a good place to start. I would then go to the IRS and dismantle that. The Board of Education seems fitting to defund (I would revert to the 10^th Amendment and let the State’s run their education programs). I would then eliminate the Department of Energy and Department of Commerce. Is this a bit extreme? I do not think so. Something big needs to happen to get us out of this mess; these little cuts each party is trying to make is not going to work.

What bothers me about this whole situation is the mass media promoting these temporary changes. The news anchors for these big stations are pretty much telling both parties that they need to come to an agreement and “compromise”. Really? How has compromising worked out for us in the past? Well we are in this situation now, so it doesn’t seem like it has done too well in the past. I know that what I am proposing is not going to happen. What will happen is the democrats and republicans will reach an agreement to continue to fund all of these departments and will continue to give money to foreign nations. In another six months we will be having the same debate we are having right now. Cheers to our future!