WHY JOURNALISTS SHOULD NOT MODERATE DEBATES.

WHY JOURNALISTS SHOULD NOT MODERATE DEBATES. I have posted several times, including here and here, that Presidential debates are spoiled by journalists who get in the way of discussions between the candidates. This article by Michael Schaffer in The New Republic, with the subtitle “Why journalists are so bad at running presidential debates”, supports my position. Schaffer praises the recent debate between Obama and McCain which was moderated by Rick Warren, the minister. The key: Warren “asked the candidates to walk through their positions.” For example, he “lobbed” a question “about where the balance between security and freedom lies.” The result was, apparently, “an interesting conversation.” Scheffer points out that reporters are looking for scoops with the result that “something billed as a debate, an opportunity to watch aspirants explain or criticize one another’s important positions …[morphs]… into parallel grillings or desperate searches for “gotcha.”