Planning a debate? Here are some tips for getting candidates and their campaigns involved and committed.

Dialing for Candidates

contributed by Andy Moore
Senior News Producer, Wisconsin Public Television

Throw away campaign e-mail addresses. E-mail is your enemy. The only thing worse than sending an e-mail is waiting for a reply&which may or may not come. Its too easy for a campaign to leave e-mail unanswered. And, in their defense, theyre on the road a lot¬ checking e-mail at ports or a desktop.
        E-mail can be somewhat useful in the final days before a debate, to provide specifics on agreed-upon format, etc. But use e-mail during the earlier negotiating phase at your own peril.

Thats why you need to...

Memorize the phone numbers for campaign directors/contacts.

Be honest. Like a romantic interest, its often tempting to tell a campaign what they want to hear. Unless you mean it, dont say it.

Avoid using the word debate. I generally use the words joint appearance. This calms tension, at least a little, almost from the start.

Never assume campaigns understand the debate format until the broadcast is over and youre at home drinking a beer. I recommend a dark, full-bodied micro.

Understanding the rules is different than accepting them. Campaigns will make this distinction (sometimes very late in the game) if you dont early in the process.

Get your request with a date into campaigns as early as possible. Campaigns rarely agree to a date without first agreeing to a format. But you need a date to start the motor. Check in daily on your request. Other stations will lose out on a candidate because they wont be persistent.

Take and keep notes of every conversation you have with a campaign staffer. This is just good journalistic practice. The notes will come in handy down the road when peoples memory gets foggy.

Keep your operations coverage of the candidate out of your conversations about debate events, as best as you can. Its unavoidable that a debate producer will field questions about his or her stations coverage of a campaign. Hand those questions off to an executive producer or news director when you can. Debate negotiations can get cluttered enough without critiquing/defending your news staffs latest story on a candidate.
        If youre the only one who can take those questions, tell the campaign staffer you want to have a separate conversation about that. Tell them their concern about your latest reporting is just too important to tack onto the debate discussion. This will keep your collective focus on the debate.

Candidates will always say yes to everything. Theyre the last people you should negotiate with. But&they need to be in the room for what I call The Closing (final discussion) before the debate.