Backlash from 4/16/08 Democratic Primary Debate on ABC

rocketman · #1 (**permalink**) 04-17-2008, 01:23 PM

Looks like the blogosphere is on fire!

An open letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanapoulos | Philadelphia Daily News | 04/17/2008

Quote:

It's hard to know where to begin with this, less than an hour after you signed off from your Democratic presidential debate here in my hometown of Philadelphia, a televised train wreck that my friend and colleague Greg Mitchell has already called, quite accurately, "a shameful night for the U.S. media." It's hard because -- like many other Americans -- I am still angry at what I just witnessed, so angry that it's hard to even type accurately because my hands are shaking. Look, I know that "media criticism" -- especially when it's one journalist speaking to another -- tends to be a genteel, collegial thing, but there's no genteel way to say this.

With your performance tonight -- your focus on issues that were at best trivial wastes of valuable airtime and at worst restatements of right-wing falsehoods, punctuated by inane "issue" questions that in no way resembled the real world concerns of American voters -- you disgraced my profession of journalism, and, by association, me and a lot of hard-working colleagues who do still try to ferret out the truth, rather than worry about who can give us the best deal on our capital gains taxes. But it's even worse than that. By so badly botching arguably the most critical debate of such an important election, in a time of both war and economic misery, you disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself. Indeed, if I were a citizen of one of those nations where America is seeking to "export democracy," and I had watched the debate, I probably would have said, "no thank you." Because that was no way to promote democracy.

The Debate Debacle | Philly | 04/17/2008

Quote:

Thirty six minutes into the debate, my wife says I can turn on the Red Sox game. "They are not asking them anything about anything that matters," she says.

Amen.

We've revisted bitter. We've gone back to Bosnia. We've dragged Rev. Wright back up onto the podium. We've mis-spent this debate by allowing Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos to ask questions that skirt what in my mind is what we need to know now.
What would they do about the mess they'd inherit? The war. Health care. The economy. Stupid.

The Dems Play Trivial Pursuit - TIME

Quote:

Last night at the National Constitution Center, at a Democratic debate that was hyped by ABC as a discussion of serious constitutional issues, America got to see exactly what Obama was complaining about. At a time of foreign wars, economic collapse and environmental peril, the cringe-worthy first half of the debate focused on such crucial matters as Senator Obama's comments about rural bitterness, his former pastor, an obscure sixties radical with whom he was allegedly "friendly," and the burning constitutional question of why he doesn't wear an American flag pin on his lapel - with a single detour into Senator Hillary Clinton's yarn about sniper fire in Tuzla. Apparently, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos ran out of time before they could ask Obama why he's such a lousy bowler.

Greg Mitchell: The ABC Debate: A Shameful Night for the U.S. Media - Politics on The Huffington Post

Quote:

In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent "bitter" gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin -- while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.

BBSNews - Who Lost Tonight's Democrat Debate? ABC News

Quote:

In what was billed as possibly the last debate between Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, the clear loser was ABC News because of the pandering non-issue questions asked by the moderators instead of substantive issue questions. The two Democrats were not asked a substantive question (Iraq) until nearly an hour into the debate.

So many of the issues mentioned here, from American flag lapel pins to Jeremiah Wright, are simply Republican talking points and were more suited to right wing talk radio than a serious debate about the real issues facing the United States.

Why was George Stephanopoulos, who served as Senior Advisor on Policy and Strategy during the Clinton years, even part of the "debate" moderating team? Charles Gibson was not much better.

'BusNative · #2 (**permalink**) 04-17-2008, 01:39 PM

More of the same from the Washington Post

washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines

Quote:

In Pa. Debate, The Clear Loser Is ABC

By Tom Shales
Thursday, April 17, 2008; C01

When Barack Obama met Hillary Clinton for another televised Democratic candidates' debate last night, it was more than a step forward in the 2008 presidential election. It was another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.

For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.

The fact is, cable networks CNN and MSNBC both did better jobs with earlier candidate debates. Also, neither of those cable networks, if memory serves, rushed to a commercial break just five minutes into the proceedings, after giving each candidate a tiny, token moment to make an opening statement. Cable news is indeed taking over from network news, and merely by being competent...

And from the NYTimes:

Blogtalk: Bloggers Turn Up Heat on ABC - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog

Quote:

Blogtalk: Bloggers Turn Up Heat on ABC

By Ariel Alexovich

The major gripe among the blogosphere today: ABC News spent way, way too much time drilling Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama about their stumbles on the campaign trail instead of focusing on policy issues.
Bloggers at the liberal Daily Kos (which has a heavy Obama following) dedicated the most electronic ink against ABC?s Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, the debate moderators.

One of the writers, Hunter, went so far as to say their handling of the debate was ?so deeply embarrassing to the nation that it will be pointed to, in future books and documentary works, as a prime example of the collapse of the American media into utter and complete substanceless, into self-celebrated vapidity, and into a now-complete inability or unwillingness to cover the most important affairs of the nation to any but the most shallow of depths....