Replacing Charles and George with Jay and Conan
I confess to taking a real pleasure in the pounding Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos are getting for their role as moderators in last week’s debate between Senators Obama and Clinton. Even the mainstream media has expressed outrage for the pompous and insubstantial questions posed by Messrs. Gibson and Stephanopoulos, which were clearly intended to provoke rather than elicit intelligent insight. This cartoon best says it all.
So I was understandably taken aback to read Don Hewitt, a veteran broadcaster and the director and producer of the Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960, actually defending Messrs. Gibson and Stephanopoulos. Mr. Hewitt told The New York Times that a debate entails “a big dose of show biz” and “trying to keep an audience”.
“When you’re in television, that’s your job,” he is quoted as saying.
Fair enough. But given that presidential candidates now make the rounds on entertainment talk shows, appear on “Saturday Night Live”, and even do videos for World-Wide Wrestling Entertainment, why bother with the debates if their sole purpose is to simply create some more “show biz”? We get enough of that from them already.
Alternatively, if the debates are merely entertainment, perhaps the networks should consider asking comedians Jay Leno or Conan O’Brien to serve as moderators. Not only would the ratings go up, my guess is so would the level of discourse.