Author Name: Fairness and Accuracy in Media.
(C) Fairness and Accuracy in Media - FAIR.
This unaltered story originally appeared on FAIR.org[1][2]
In Ohio Debate, Media Stuck to an Increasingly Rigid Script
Date: 2019-10-17 22:34:37+00:00
By ['Julie Hollar', 'Noel Wauchope']
This week’s Democratic presidential debate, hosted in Westerville, Ohio, by CNN and the New York Times, confirmed that media are stuck in a fairly rigid debate script that elevates questions about healthcare and the economy above all else, and leaves many pressing topics deeply underexplored.
The October 15 debate focused heavily on the economy, which made up 30% of all the questions. The next most frequent topic? Non-policy issues (17%), which in this case consisted of questions about electability along with the closing question to every candidate, which challenged them to describe a “different” friendship they had that might be similar to the one Ellen DeGeneres recently defended having with George W. Bush.
Certainly, questions concerning things like jobs, inequality and tech monopolies can be serious and helpful to voters. (The same can’t be said of the non-policy questions.) And with 12 candidates on the stage, covering every topic of interest to voters would be impossible. But together, economic and non-policy questions accounted for nearly half the night’s questions. Questions about abortion rights, raised for the first time since the initial round of debates in September, were not even given to every candidate. The climate emergency was completely ignored, as were issues about race, LGBTQ issues and even immigration—until now, a frequent debate topic.
By all appearances, CNN and the Times read their mandate as targeting a local suburban Ohio audience they perceived as straight, white and male, and unconcerned about issues of civil rights, social justice or the long-term existence of life as we know it on our planet. (Meanwhile, CNN anchor John King underscored the evening’s extremely white perspective when he wondered in post-debate commentary—10/15/19—whether new endorsements from congressmembers Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib indicate that Bernie Sanders’ support is “too urban.”)
The Democratic nomination race has now had six nights of broadcast debates, with over 500 questions asked by journalists from NBC, CNN, ABC and the New York Times. The most heavily covered topic has been healthcare, with 117 questions; non-healthcare economy-related questions come in a close second, at 106. After that, there’s a rather precipitous drop to the next tier, which encompasses international/foreign policy questions (76), non-policy questions (68) and immigration (61). No other issue breaks the 10% bar, according to our count.
Education has been the subject of 2% of questions (12 total). LGBTQ issues have been raised in exactly two questions so far, voting rights in none.
Some outlets have held town halls on individual issues, like MSNBC‘s (9/19–20/19) and CNN‘s (9/4/19) climate town halls, and CNN‘s LGBTQ town hall (10/10/19). While these have offered in-depth, one-on-one questioning of candidates on these issues, the debate media hosts seem to have taken them as passes to get out of addressing those issues in the much more widely viewed debates. Things like climate disruption, LGBTQ issues, education, race and abortion aren’t boutique issues—they’re essential policy areas that are currently under grave threat from the Trump administration and the conservative-packed courts. If debate hosts won’t give them the time they deserve, the DNC must allow single-issue debates.
Methodology: FAIR counted all questions except for requests for opening or closing statements, interjections, clarifications and follow-ups to the same candidate on the same subject. Some questions were classified as belonging to more than one category, so total percentages exceed 100%.
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