Live from Detroit: Presidential debates as game show
| Washington
The latest installment of 鈥淲ho Wants To Be The President?鈥� returns this week, as 20 contenders for the Democratic nomination take the debate stage Tuesday and Wednesday in Detroit.聽
Bars across the country are promoting debate watch parties, complete with drink specials and HD screens. Pundits are touting top match-ups: Will former Vice President Joe Biden punch back against California Sen. Kamala Harris? Will Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders stake his claim against Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as the favorite of the liberal left?聽
Lower-tier candidates are already scrambling to secure spots on the next debate stage 鈥� which will require meeting a higher threshold of 130,000 donors and 2% standing in the polls 鈥� by trying to manufacture viral moments online with strategies that border on the bizarre.聽
Why We Wrote This
The presidential race is more and more a reality TV show: punchy digs at debates and sought-after viral moments. In the age of Trump, is there any alternative but to play this game?
Thus we have New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (with water) to try to entice donors to give $1 to her campaign, and Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan offering the chance to in exchange for a $3 donation.聽Entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Yang drew hundreds of thousands of new followers when he offered $1,000 a month for a year to a lucky Twitter fan who retweeted and followed him before July 4.
Former Texas Rep. Beto O鈥橰ourke has yet to reclaim the viral success he enjoyed during the midterms, when he came remarkably close to taking incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz鈥檚 seat. Recently, Mr. O鈥橰ourke has taken to challenging his staff to at airports and live-streaming dinner-table conversations with families in Flint, Michigan.
鈥淥ur presidential nomination system looks to be a mash up of 鈥楽urvivor,鈥� where you鈥檙e voting people off the island, and March Madness basketball brackets,鈥� says Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and author of multiple books on presidential communication.聽
In some ways, it鈥檚 the same substance-versus-style dilemma that politics and media have struggled with for decades: Either focus on cut-and-dried issues and risk losing your audience, or amp up the entertainment value and risk turning the political process into some distorted version of 鈥淭he Bachelor.鈥澛�
Yet with a president who literally spent years working in reality television 鈥� and whose divisive style is nothing if not attention-grabbing 鈥� that dilemma seems more pronounced than ever. And what鈥檚 at stake now may be not just who gets to lead the country, but the dignity of the process itself.
鈥淚t鈥檚 all gotten more gamefied, more silly, more outrageous, more outlandish 鈥� and much more deadly serious, all at once,鈥� says Regina Lawrence, director of the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon in Portland, where she specializes in political communication.聽
But is this really the only avenue left in politics? In the age of Trump and ever-shortening attention spans, is the only choice to take part in the spectacle?聽
Make some noise
On the surface, the answer seems to be yes. The rise of 24-hour cable news, the success of partisan talk radio, and the advent of social media are all mile markers on the road to the 2020 reality competition.聽
In 2018,聽, newspaper circulation hit its lowest point in nearly 80 years, local TV network audiences continued shrinking, and even online news sites saw traffic plateau, as more Americans said they rely on social media for their news. But Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC saw their combined revenue grow by 4% from the previous year 鈥� a total increase of about a third since 2015.
CNN, which is hosting this week鈥檚 debates, aired an hour-long live lottery that breathlessly revealed the lineup for the two-night event. Along with the聽live drawing, the special featured game-show music, a panel of commentators, and multiple camera angles for every name pulled out of the box.聽
The apparent lesson: 鈥淵ou have to make some noise or you won鈥檛 be viable for much longer,鈥� Professor Farnsworth says.聽
Yet noise doesn鈥檛 provide voters with what they need to make an informed decision about the issues that drive an election, or who is best suited to lead the country. And it often fails to leave a lasting impression: Mr. O鈥橰ourke, Senator Gillibrand, and Mr. Yang have yet to break through in the polls, and despite 鈥淭he Draw,鈥� CNN that night still聽聽behind Fox News鈥檚 Tucker Carlson and MSNBC.
During the first round of debates, some candidates tried to stand out by showing off their language skills. But all that ignited was a meme of New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker鈥檚 as Mr. O鈥橰ourke said his first words in Spanish. It was Senator Harris鈥檚 obviously practiced attack against Mr. Biden on the issue of race and busing that led to a bump in the polls.
News consumers might tune in to, and even enjoy, the candidates鈥� ceaseless hunt for the perfect viral moment, says Joy Mayer, founder of Trusting News, a nonprofit that aims to revive public trust in journalism. (Note: 海角大神 has previously partnered with Trusting News.)聽All that does, however, is contribute to the cynical sense that all politics is theater, and that journalists are either theater critics 鈥� or part of the show, she says.聽
鈥淚f you were to put 20 people in a room and ask them to develop a nomination system that gave us people most capable of being president, it would look nothing like this,鈥� says Professor Farnsworth, who spent 10 years as a working journalist. 鈥淲e are all the poorer as citizens as a result.鈥澛�
Doritos vs. a salad
There鈥檚 some good news. For one, there鈥檚 between what the public wants the news media to do and what journalists think their role is, according to 2018 surveys by the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Accuracy and fairness top the list; making the news entertaining, not so much.聽
鈥淚n theory, there鈥檚 real hunger for coverage that makes [audiences] smarter and that feels fair and contextual and deep,鈥� Ms. Mayer says.聽
Trusting News exists because they believe in that appetite and have partnered with other groups to innovate in alternative coverage. There鈥檚 growing momentum, for instance, behind community-style journalism that directly asks the public what they鈥檙e interested in and structures reporting around their answers聽鈥� what media critic Jay Rosen calls a 鈥溾�� model of campaign coverage. Some local news outlets have experimented with in a bid to help staff be transparent with audiences about what they cover and why.聽
Some critics say the town halls that Fox News and CNN have hosted with primary candidates are just PR-generated 鈥溾�� that play into the reality-show farce that is 2020. Still, they also give candidates 鈥� both top-tier and lesser-known 鈥� a chance to get airtime they wouldn鈥檛 otherwise have, says Democratic strategist Dan Kanninen.
鈥淭hey have an opportunity to make their claim and stake a vision out about where they want to take the country,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a core function of this primary field in a way that wasn鈥檛 always the case.鈥�
There鈥檚 no denying that the political circus, and the search for viral relevance, takes precedence in a majority of 2020 coverage, especially at this stage. But more optimistic political observers say it doesn鈥檛 have to be this way forever.聽
鈥溾�楴obody鈥� is a fallacy journalists fall into: 鈥楴o one wants [substantive] coverage. We do that and nobody pays attention,鈥欌�� says Professor Lawrence at the University of Oregon. 鈥淏ut when we put our citizen hat back on, a lot of us in the public do want something more.鈥�
鈥淭here鈥檚 always going to be a disconnect between what people say they want and what they consume,鈥� Ms. Mayer adds. 鈥淚f there鈥檚 a bag of Doritos on the counter, it鈥檚 real hard to resist if you like Doritos. But that doesn鈥檛 mean that if there鈥檚 a salad there that鈥檚 prepared and delicious, that people won鈥檛 eat it.鈥�
