Debating Debates

contributed by Bill Hanley
Executive Vice President of Content, Twin Cities Public Television, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota

We remind producers every two years that political candidates have an obligation to debate. We dont need to apologize or negotiate formats. In fact, debates require that producers (and their general managers) be direct, fair and tough. If you blink, the campaigns will roll you. At Twin Cities Public Television we have no strict rules governing political debates (our lawyers advise against this). We do, however, have standard practices, some written guidelines, and a bunch of random hunches that have proven useful over the years.

Why (we think) people watch
We believe debates are about a lot more than comparing candidates opinions and positions. Every day, people make their decisions about other people by watching the way they act (and react) under a variety of circumstances. Therefore, our goal is to provide viewers with the chance to see candidates under real world conditions.

General format approach
In our experience debate sponsors too often over-produce these events, feeling that this is important so we need to carefully plan every moment. In the course of this they often miss the chance to create the kind of memorable spontaneous exchanges that are so memorable. We believe the most valuable experience for viewers is often achieved by creating very loose, very conversational debates during which candidates are encouraged to interrupt each other just as they would in real life. This is the opposite of the type of podium-and-stopwatch debates conducted by lots of other groups. This sort of loose approach absolutely appalls (and terrifies) our more cautious friends at the League of Women Voters, but in 15 years we have never had a complaint about style or fairness.

When we debate
We try to hold debates both very early in campaigns and very late, under the theory that early debates help people do broad evaluation of candidates and late debates are a final check-in for many public television viewers.

Whe gets in (everyones favorite issue)
In a purely theoretical world, most of us would prefer to be inclusive. But because of limitations inherent in any debate format, the presence of candidates who enter races simply to attract publicity and our desire to provide a meaningful service to citizens, rules for inclusion need to be set and clearly articulated.

A. Early campaign debates
In early campaign debates we err on the side of inclusiveness, since this is the time when most people have just begun forming opinions. In order to increase interest and accommodate larger numbers of candidates we have sometimes used unusual formats and gimmicks in these early debates.

B. Late campaign debates
In late campaign debates we more strictly limit participants to candidates with a realistic chance of actually being elected (even though this phrase uniformly infuriates everyone except the front-runners). We use one simple rule: we will include all candidates that poll at least 5% in any recognized independent poll at any point during that same campaign.

C. Four-seat limit
In general, we limit debates to no more than four simultaneous participants (with more you create real confusion). If we have more candidates we arbitrarily split the crowd into two groups.

D. Everyone gets a web interview
The web has become a useful tool to deal with inclusiveness issues. We now invite all candidates for major offices to come down to our studio and tape their answers to the same five or six questions. We archive, stream and heavily promote these interviews.

E. Three Strikes and Youre Out
Every debate sponsor faces the issue of perennial candidates. Our approach is that if a candidate is polling below 5% and has tried and failed to reach at least 5% in three consecutive elections we reserve the right to exclude them from even our most inclusive debates.

F. Gimmicks Galore
At TPT, we never shy away from a good gimmick. They keep the candidates off-center and the audience interested (and sometimes they generate collateral press attention). [see Putting Their Money Where Their Mouth(s) Is (Are)]

G. NEVER Cancel:
We NEVER cancel a debate because a candidate refuses to participate. Never. We are also not afraid to label candidates as declining to debate when they seem clearly to be avoiding our invitations. We give their opponent(s) all of the broadcast time.

What we tell candidates

A. Invite early
We try to issue invitations as early as possible to deny candidates any easy excuse for saying no. Everything is in writing and we keep good notes on who responds. We ask for written confirmation from the campaign manager. Campaign press contacts can change frequently and many of them seem prone to LCML (Late Campaign Memory Loss).

B. Keep your mouth shut
Participants have the right to know the date, time and length of debate. Other than that, we try not to discuss specifics with candidates or handlers, especially elements which could change on short notice. Above all it is important to treat all candidates equally so, again, communicate in writing and keep good records.

Citizen participation
Cast citizens as agenda-setters not questioners. After many years using many different citizen-participation formats, we have chosen during the past few years to incorporate citizens only in three or four pretaped agenda-setting discussion segments during each debate. These discussion segments are really helpful in setting (and resetting) the direction of any debate. They also allow citizens to express natural feelings and frustrations without asking them to become mini-journalists which almost never works. We encourage hosts to back-reference the citizen comments frequently.

Free candidate time
Nope. A bad idea from day one. General managers often like this idea because it is cheap and controversy-free. It also looks good to the Chamber of Commerce. But it is rarely much of a public service. First off, ALL our candidate time is FREE candidate time. Second, without a tough questioner, candidates just repeat their canned lines. Third, the offer of free time makes it more likely that they will pass on our debates.