For many questions the correct answer would be: “This is a difficult question which no easy answer, I would have to spent a few hours thinking about the issue and then come back with an answer that doesn’t fit into the 1 minute time slot that the debate gives me to address the point.”
I don’t think that deep and meaningful debate happens in a hour of TV. It’s the job of journalists to ask candidates and their parties questions on issues. If a New York Times reporter asks for an on-the-record answer and doesn’t get one in a day he should simply write in his article: “John Smith from the Green party had to say X while nobody from the Blue party was willing answer the question on-the-record.”
If that would be the standard of the way New York Times reporters write their stories it wouldn’t take long till they would nearly always get answers. Even if the Green party would generally answer and the Blue party wouldn’t, that would be important information for voters.
The hours of thought should have occurred before the debate. Its not like the debater has been chosen at random from the audience.
The New York Times has published many articles where they have a comment from one and state they could get no comment from the other. There is nothing new here and any change that was going to happen because the NYT was going to do this has already occurred.
ALL political debate and interview is presentation of ideas, not the place where ideas are born and develop in real time. Any candidate who is evolving his response in real time is unprepared, and if she is any good at all, will be prepared every time after that that she is asked about this same issue.
The New York Times has published many articles where they have a comment from one and state they could get no comment from the other.
The New York Times frequently mentions party position without quoting an on-the-record source by name. They generally try to provide both sides the story even when one side isn’t willing to give a on-the-record answer.
Whenever you read in a New York Times article: “A senior democrat told us XY about policy Z”, that democrat asked the journalist to treat his statement as off-the-record in the sense that he doesn’t want to be publically on record with voicing the opinion he gave the journalist.
What I’m suggesting is a heavy breach with the way things are done at the moment, if you think it’s not new, you might to pay more attention at the way things currently work.
The heart of my objection is the idea that you can change the world by changing the new york times. Especially now, but not even back when newspapers mattered do I think that would work in a lasting way.
The New York Times isn’t/wasn’t the paper-of-record that gets to decide how everybody will get their news. They are/were a paper with certain journalistic standards and practices that rose in the marketplace of ideas to a level of trust and importance. When the NYT changes what it does, in some short run it is likely influential, but in a longer run if the change is not appealing to its audience, the audience loses faith in the NYT. If NYT articles became somewhat consistently one-sided because they were no longer publishing only partially-attributable information, would the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Huff Post, NPR, NBC, etc etc etc follow suit? Or would they instead aggressively market the stories they were able to cover that the NYT could not because of its policy?
We may or may not get the quality of new that we deserve. We absolutely get the quality of news that we are willing to pay attention to. And shifting the tastes of the public is not as simple as an editorial decision.
The hours of thought should have occurred before the debate. Its not like the debater has been chosen at random from the audience.
They did spent hours of thoughts and prepare to answer specific questions. Then they answer the questions that they prepared to answer regardless of the question that the moderator gives them.
You argue that they should actually answer the question they are given by the moderator. That logically means that they can’t rely on hours of preparations because they can’t prepare for every possible question.
You argue that they should actually answer the question they are given by the moderator. That logically means that they can’t rely on hours of preparations because they can’t prepare for every possible question.
For years I took exams in college and graduate school courses, as have millions of other people. I couldn’t, and didn’t know the questions before I took the exams, again similarly to millions of other people. And yet, not only did most of us millions of students spend a lot of time preparing for the exams, I have not heard of anyone who disagrees that preparation for these exams, for answering these unpredicted questions. was not central to our success in answering them.
And yet, not only did most of us millions of students spend a lot of time preparing for the exams, I have not heard of anyone who disagrees that preparation for these exams, for answering these unpredicted questions. was not central to our success in answering them.
And yet if I wanted to know the position of a student on a particular issue of philosophy I would rather read a 1 week homework assignment than a answer that’s written in 2 hours without access to outside sources.
I also would think that even in an exam most student would spent a minute about exactly what argument they want to make before starting to write the argument.
We also don’t have debates for the purpose that politicians spend a lot of time preparing for debates. If debate preparation is central for success in debates that’s not a feature but a bug.
We want that the positions that politicans argue during the debate informs the viewer of the sort of policy that the politician wants to put into place should he be elected.
If asked for a policy on issue XY towards which the politician hasn’t put much attention a good politician shouldn’t make up an idea of a policy on the spot. If forced to do so, the politicians is likely to make promises about policy that he won’t hold.
We might win the debate by making up a policy on the spot that sounds nice to the audience but that’s not what you want to encourage.
and the rebuttals are given to the candidates in advance… and the rebuttals to the rebuttals are given to the candidates in advance… and so on and so on.
In fact, the candidates have pretty good ideas what the positions of their opponents are, and the nicest thing about the debates are that when candidates mischaracterize their opponents on purpose they are responded to in real time.
Hmm. What if the candidates were given the questions in advance, so they only needed to present their answers?
That’s not that far from what happens today. If a politician is asked a question toward which he didn’t prepare he just answer question towards which he did prepare.
For many questions the correct answer would be: “This is a difficult question which no easy answer, I would have to spent a few hours thinking about the issue and then come back with an answer that doesn’t fit into the 1 minute time slot that the debate gives me to address the point.”
I don’t think that deep and meaningful debate happens in a hour of TV. It’s the job of journalists to ask candidates and their parties questions on issues. If a New York Times reporter asks for an on-the-record answer and doesn’t get one in a day he should simply write in his article: “John Smith from the Green party had to say X while nobody from the Blue party was willing answer the question on-the-record.”
If that would be the standard of the way New York Times reporters write their stories it wouldn’t take long till they would nearly always get answers. Even if the Green party would generally answer and the Blue party wouldn’t, that would be important information for voters.
The hours of thought should have occurred before the debate. Its not like the debater has been chosen at random from the audience.
The New York Times has published many articles where they have a comment from one and state they could get no comment from the other. There is nothing new here and any change that was going to happen because the NYT was going to do this has already occurred.
ALL political debate and interview is presentation of ideas, not the place where ideas are born and develop in real time. Any candidate who is evolving his response in real time is unprepared, and if she is any good at all, will be prepared every time after that that she is asked about this same issue.
The New York Times frequently mentions party position without quoting an on-the-record source by name. They generally try to provide both sides the story even when one side isn’t willing to give a on-the-record answer.
Whenever you read in a New York Times article: “A senior democrat told us XY about policy Z”, that democrat asked the journalist to treat his statement as off-the-record in the sense that he doesn’t want to be publically on record with voicing the opinion he gave the journalist.
What I’m suggesting is a heavy breach with the way things are done at the moment, if you think it’s not new, you might to pay more attention at the way things currently work.
The heart of my objection is the idea that you can change the world by changing the new york times. Especially now, but not even back when newspapers mattered do I think that would work in a lasting way.
The New York Times isn’t/wasn’t the paper-of-record that gets to decide how everybody will get their news. They are/were a paper with certain journalistic standards and practices that rose in the marketplace of ideas to a level of trust and importance. When the NYT changes what it does, in some short run it is likely influential, but in a longer run if the change is not appealing to its audience, the audience loses faith in the NYT. If NYT articles became somewhat consistently one-sided because they were no longer publishing only partially-attributable information, would the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Huff Post, NPR, NBC, etc etc etc follow suit? Or would they instead aggressively market the stories they were able to cover that the NYT could not because of its policy?
We may or may not get the quality of new that we deserve. We absolutely get the quality of news that we are willing to pay attention to. And shifting the tastes of the public is not as simple as an editorial decision.
They did spent hours of thoughts and prepare to answer specific questions. Then they answer the questions that they prepared to answer regardless of the question that the moderator gives them.
You argue that they should actually answer the question they are given by the moderator. That logically means that they can’t rely on hours of preparations because they can’t prepare for every possible question.
For years I took exams in college and graduate school courses, as have millions of other people. I couldn’t, and didn’t know the questions before I took the exams, again similarly to millions of other people. And yet, not only did most of us millions of students spend a lot of time preparing for the exams, I have not heard of anyone who disagrees that preparation for these exams, for answering these unpredicted questions. was not central to our success in answering them.
And yet if I wanted to know the position of a student on a particular issue of philosophy I would rather read a 1 week homework assignment than a answer that’s written in 2 hours without access to outside sources.
I also would think that even in an exam most student would spent a minute about exactly what argument they want to make before starting to write the argument.
We also don’t have debates for the purpose that politicians spend a lot of time preparing for debates. If debate preparation is central for success in debates that’s not a feature but a bug.
We want that the positions that politicans argue during the debate informs the viewer of the sort of policy that the politician wants to put into place should he be elected.
If asked for a policy on issue XY towards which the politician hasn’t put much attention a good politician shouldn’t make up an idea of a policy on the spot. If forced to do so, the politicians is likely to make promises about policy that he won’t hold.
We might win the debate by making up a policy on the spot that sounds nice to the audience but that’s not what you want to encourage.
Hmm. What if the candidates were given the questions in advance, so they only needed to present their answers?
And their answers are given to the opponents before airing so the rebuttals can be prepared at length as well?
and the rebuttals are given to the candidates in advance… and the rebuttals to the rebuttals are given to the candidates in advance… and so on and so on.
In fact, the candidates have pretty good ideas what the positions of their opponents are, and the nicest thing about the debates are that when candidates mischaracterize their opponents on purpose they are responded to in real time.
Your second paragraph explains why the events in your first paragraph are not needed.
That’s not that far from what happens today. If a politician is asked a question toward which he didn’t prepare he just answer question towards which he did prepare.
Well, we’d get some control over what questions they answer.