October 09, 2004, 9:51 a.m.
Fair and Balanced!
Why can’t all debates have such good questions?

By Tim Graham

What does a critic of liberal media bias do when liberal media bias pretty much fails to occur? Cheer, or say, "Man, now I don't have anything to write about?" On Friday morning, ABC's Charles Gibson explained that he would have the power to select which "uncommitted" voters collected by Gallup would ask questions of Bush and Kerry. "We will eliminate some that seem, you know, superfluous or seem redundant, or whatever. And then I simply pick some at random, trying to cover the subjects that I think are important to voters."

That was not a comforting sentence. In 2000, debate moderator Jim Lehrer approved mostly liberal questions from the "uncommitted." Eight questions came from a liberal viewpoint, only two could be counted as conservative, and five were requests for information without an ideological tone. (Several were harsh personal jabs at Bush, including one suggesting he was "really, really proud" of Texas leading the nation in executions.)

This was a leftward shift from the first town-hall meetings, from the look I gave old debate transcripts. At the infamous 1992 debate in Richmond, I scored eight audience questions as straightforward requests for information, four liberal questions, and no conservative questions. In the 1996 debate in San Diego, I scored ten questions as straightforward requests for information, five liberal questions, and three conservative questions. All together, these three "town hall" debates included 23 informational questions, 17 liberal questions, and six from the right.

Friday night, Gibson returned the format to a more traditional tone with ten questions with an informational tone, three with a liberal viewpoint, and five from a conservative viewpoint. The liberal questions were the ones about Bush needing to "repair" alliances (a fat pitch for Kerry); the unhappiness about delaying the reimportation of American drugs through Canada to cut the prices; and the complaint that the Patriot Act "weakens" our liberties. By contrast, President Bush was challenged from the right about having failed to veto a single spending bill. Wow. Kerry was challenged on choosing a trial lawyer for his ticket who "made millions" suing medical professionals. Kerry was challenged to say read my lips, no new taxes on anyone making under $200,000 a year, and he said read my lips into the camera. Grover Norquist was doing the moonwalk with that video clip. On MSNBC, Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert were horrified.

But perhaps the most surprising question was one insisting that adult-stem-cell research has healed people, while embryonic-stem-cell research has not. I cannot believe Charles Gibson let that question pass, since the media almost never admit that adult-stem-cell research could be promising. (On Nightline, Gibson said the twist of the question intrigued him as new and different.) The other surprise was the question about how Kerry would talk to a voter who felt abortion was murder and didn't want their tax dollars going to it. Kerry really did a political polka, starting with how he's a Catholic and his faith "leads him today," but he's for taxpayer-funded abortions. He was perhaps untypically clear: "You don't deny a poor person the right to be able to have whatever the constitution affords them if they can't afford it otherwise."

Gibson not only selected the questions, but the order of the questions. The two pro-life questions were Kerry's last two questions, which was interesting. Kerry fans probably didn't like the first question being hey, you're Mr. Wishy-Washy. Bush fans didn't like the last question challenging Bush to list mistakes. That, Mr. Gibson, is neither new nor different, but a repeated White House reporter line of questioning. They like how it makes Bush look stubborn. But they don't try that line on Kerry. Perhaps he can't list recognizable mistakes when he's on both sides of most issues.

All that said, Bush should have been prepared to answer that kind of question better than "I appointed a few losers, but let's not name them." (I heard "Paul O'Neill" and "Christie Whitman.") Clearly, Bush calculates that stubbornness is less of a hazard than reevaluating O'Neill or bad-mouthing his steel tariffs to Pennsylvania. It makes him look less decisive.

These town-hall questioners should have left an important impression on viewers last night: Why can't the media elite ask questions this way, soliciting information with brief, unshowy inquiries that don't carry a bucketful of political calculation? One man asked: "Mr. President, how would you rate yourself as an environmentalist? What specifically has your administration done to improve the condition of our nation's air and water supply?" It's simple, straightforward, and probably had the Sierra Club tearing their long hairs out. Doesn't this guy know that any environmental question to a conservative is supposed to imply darkly that he favors oil spills and eats spotted owls for breakfast?

The other sad subject that emerges from the debate is that much of this material might seem shiny and new because the broadcast TV news loves the daily spin and doesn't do much digging. It hasn't told viewers about John Edwards's lawsuits against medical professionals. It hasn't really explored adult-stem-cell research. It hasn't done much of the basic research into evaluating the Kerry Senate record and the Bush presidency with any dedication or precision like a civic-minded, nonpartisan media elite should.

Instead, the TV-news stars ride shotgun with political consultants and go wherever the polls and the pundits take the horse-race analysis. In short, they lose faith that the common people like last night's questioners have any desire to learn about both sides of the issues. They feel their audience would rather hear about which perfumed soaps arrived in a box for Martha Stewart at prison. Who is letting these citizens down, the candidates or the everyday TV questioners?

— Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the href="http://www.mediaresearch.org">Media Research Center and an NRO
contributor.

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