The already discredited television networks are sticking their biased noses in the debate plans:
Although the Bush and Kerry camps have meticulously crafted an agreement on the rules for this year’s presidential debates, the television networks broadcasting them refuse to go along with the plans.
Specifically, the networks object to provisions in the agreement that place limits on their cameras, including prohibitions on shots of one candidate while the other is answering questions.
The candidates are right here. The camera can be the nastiest and most distorting of editors. We’ve known that for almost a hundred years. At the beginning of the 20th Century, the Russian director Alexander Dovzhenko broke the rules of continuity editing to show how emotions can be manipulated through image juxtaposition. Later, the French auteur theorists spoke of “le camera stylo” – the camera as pen. [Aren't you going a little over the heads of these network execs? They don't have the background of you bloggers.-ed. Sorry. Forgot.]
Anyway, my real point is that the debates should not be shown on the networks. They should be on CSPAN only where an attempt, at least, can be made for impartiality (with the camera, it’s difficult). Then all the networks could chime in afterwards to tell us unwashed what to think. This would also have the bonus effect of alerting many to CSPAN who were not already aware of it. It’s an American treasure.
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25 Comments
1. Tim:Roger, I often agree with what you post here, but I think news organizations are absolutely correct to try to break through the restrictions placed by the agreements between the candidates.
By allowing only a locked-down camera on the speaker, the “debate” rules prevent the entire viewing audience (with the exception of those lucky enough to be in the room) from a wider context.
Yes reaction shots can be very biased. But they can be incredibly informative as well.
Sep 29, 2004 - 9:05 am 2. FredRum:And let’s not forget that Dan Rather is still on deck to anchor the CBS coverage of the debates. Amazing!
Sep 29, 2004 - 9:06 am 3. Roger:Tim, even a relative tyro director or producer can radically distort a debate through shot selection. Sit in a control room sometime, if you haven’t, and you’ll see.
Sep 29, 2004 - 9:19 am 4. David Thomson:ìYes reaction shots can be very biased. But they can be incredibly informative as well.î
Oh gosh, it appears that someone desires to give the MSM the benefit of the doubt. Iím not buying this line of reasoning. The MSM is pro-Kerry and this is the likely reason for the requested changes. The foreign policy debate tomorrow evening may be John Kerryís last chance for victory. So much so, Mike Murphyís article on The Weekly Standard entitled ìSurge Protectorî should ne read by all:
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/694ipstv.asp
The MSM is seeking to assist the Kerry campaign. You can take that to the bank. Thereís no reason to trust them. They long ago opted to be collaborators with the Democratic Party of Terry McAuliffe. And no, one is not being a mean spirited and nasty person to reach this rational conclusion.
Sep 29, 2004 - 9:21 am 5. Zak braverman:I’m kind of glad I’ll be in Japan for the debates, which means I won’t be tempted to see them.
I did watch the ones last time, and they were so embarrassing for our country. Basically, the stooge referree asks a question which the candidates spend one sentence on before going off on a mainly unrelated tangent.
Just imagine how wonderful it would be to have a referree who was empowered to interrupt a candidate and say “You are not answering the question, sir. Answer it now or your next answer is forfeit.”
Ah, wouldn’t that be nice! We can dream…
Sep 29, 2004 - 9:26 am 6. chuck:A picture is worth a thousand lies.
I think that about sums it up. Look how real the alien became on the screen, and there is no such animal — I hope. The MSM routinely crops photos to disguise crowd size and reach for dramatic effect. This is fine for make believe entertainment, but I want my information presented in closer to raw form.
Sep 29, 2004 - 9:37 am 7. David Thomson:The MSM has no right to expect our trust. They are not similar to the choir boy possessing a perfectly clean police record. No, these folks are instead comparable to the repeat felon who has a criminal record a mile long. The latter individual should never be given the benefit of the doubt.
Sep 29, 2004 - 9:45 am 8. AlanC:Am I being paranoid and/or cynical to wonder if Kerry’s sudden orangeness is part of a debate plot?
I mean, he looks orange so the cameras (don’t know the tech terms) are tuned to make him look normal and therefore Bush looks ????dead??????
Sep 29, 2004 - 9:47 am 9. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):I’m with Roger. Don’t trust the bastards because they can indeed change so much by selective choice of shots.
Sep 29, 2004 - 10:10 am 10. RogerA:This is really great time to stiff the MSM–I am not a fan of debates in the first place. They are a kabuki dance designed to give media pundits more time to navel gaze. The candidate’s positions are known and debates are nothing more than a way to play gotcha.
This is also a great time to for either or both candidates to stiff the MSM. I think the media is really overplaying its weak hand.
Finally, there IS a thing called radio that eliminates the visuals.
Screw the MSM.
Sep 29, 2004 - 10:11 am 11. Dave:What’s wrong with a single, locked shot that shows both candidates’ faces throughout the debate? Do we need to see the moderator or something?
Sep 29, 2004 - 10:35 am 12. CERDIP:One camera, with both candidates in the shot. Static. That’s it. Camerama can go for a cupla brewskis while he waits.
Or two cameras, one for each, then static split screen. Brewskis for two, please.
Sep 29, 2004 - 10:43 am 13. Piranha:It’s real synchronicity, isn’t it? First Charles Johnson is able to analyze the fonts used in the bogus CBS memos because, as it happens, he has wsorked in graphic design for decades.
Now you, as an oscar-nominated screenwriter, are able to identify the potential for bias in camera manipulation.
The world of weblogs is practically a closed system. The self-important mainstream media’s smarmy apologists no longer can hide behind the curtain and assert their assumptions as incontrovertible fact. Doubtless there is a blogger who is an interior designer to find them, and a blogger who is a tailor, who will show that they have no clothes.
Sep 29, 2004 - 10:50 am 14. Byron00:The problem with the networks is not so much what they do during the debate, but what they do later. Many people will not watch the debates, or will only watch for a few minutes. What they know about what went on will be based on the excerpts that the networks choose to show on later newscasts. The possibilities for bias and manipulation through picking and choosing snipets are very large. Just show Kerry’s best moments, and Bush’s worst.
Sep 29, 2004 - 11:17 am 15. gb_in_ga:FredRum:
On Dan Blather being on for the Presidential Debates, I’d say that isn’t really such a big thing. First, he really can’t lie about something that you are watching or have just watched live. Not and get away with it, that is. If he distorts anything, he just makes himself look even more foolish than he already is. And, you can always ignore him. That’s what I already do, all he is doing is just making noise, there’s no usefull content there. And there hasn’t been for as far back as I care to remember.
Of course, there’s still the issue of those who haven’t been exposed to the great fact checking that has been done on him up to this point, and his blather may influence some of them. But let’s not ignore the countering influence that if he distorts what the viewers have just seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears, he’ll just convince a whole ‘nother group that he’s a lying scumbag, and that’s a good thing.
Sep 29, 2004 - 11:19 am 16. Michael B:“… my real point is that the debates should not be shown on the networks. They should be on CSPAN only where an attempt, at least, can be made for impartiality (with the camera, it’s difficult). Then all the networks could chime in afterwards to tell us unwashed what to think.”
A great idea whose time has come. There is little or no reason at all to invest any trust in the MSM’s technological/informational complex, equal to or even exceeding the power, in its own way, of Eisenhower’s military/industrial complex.
Trust, whether consciously or unconsciously committed to, is always an investment. The MSM hasn’t earned it, very much to the contrary.
Sep 29, 2004 - 11:22 am 17. gb_in_ga:RogerA:
Kabuki Dance: Yep, my sentiments exactly. There’s nothing either candidate can say or do that will convince me to swing my vote. Well, unless GW starts doing a Dr. Strangelove thing, and all that’ll do is convince me to stay home. Of course, the chance of that happening are about the same as the chance of my stepping out the door to get the paper and getting hit by a meteorite. MUCH less of a chance even than getting hit by lightning.
Sep 29, 2004 - 11:25 am 18. jdwill:This is buried in a WAPO article on FLA
Bush Urges Supporters to Help Floridians
Channel Ann Coulter for your snappy cynicsm here:
Sep 29, 2004 - 11:47 am 19. thibaud:I’d like to see Roger, Glenn, Mickey Kaus and others get together to host a unified blog offering rapid response, fisking and fact-checking against MSM spin. Put a stake in them before the next day’s spin cycle is set.
Sep 29, 2004 - 11:49 am 20. gb_in_ga:Thibaud:
Stephen Green at VodkaPundit will be drunkblogging it:
http://vodkapundit.com/archives/006780.php
Now, whether or not he’ll be in any condition to do any sort of fast fisking or fact checking afterwards remains to be seen…
Sep 29, 2004 - 12:37 pm 21. Knucklehead:I’ll add to the “screw the MSM” sentiment. Put it on radio. Better yet, have the candidates participate in a moderated IRC chat with some sort of “credentialed” questioners and observers to make sure it is the candidate who answers (I don’t care who does the typing) the questions. Then blast the questions and answers out to websites and mirrors.
JMO, but I think we worry way too much about what candidates look like – being teeveegenic is too important to people. Half our best presidents wouldn’t be elected today ’cause they were too funky looking or had crappy speaking voices or odd mannerisms. Kerry isn’t a jerkweed because he looks like Lurch and speaks like Thurston Howell, he’s a jerkweed because he’s a jerkweed.
Sep 29, 2004 - 1:11 pm 22. gb_in_ga:Knucklehead:
On being telegenic:
I’m with you on that account.
Let’s use one famous example: Abraham Lincoln. I mean, that guy was tall and gangly — he had Marfan Syndrome, after all. This guy was NOT telegenic, in other words. So, if they had TV back in 1860, would he have been elected? Maybe, and maybe not.
More on Marfan:
http://www.marfan.org/nmf/index.jsp
Personally, being a son of the South, with most of my ancestors being in the South at the time, I would have to say that whether or not he was telegenic or not wouldn’t have mattered much. Slavery would have been a wash — my ancestors weren’t slave owners (that I know of) and neither would I have been, so it wouldn’t have been a PERSONAL issue to me. It wasn’t for most of the Southern voters of that time, either — most voters didn’t own slaves, anyway. I just can’t see myself supporting something like that, even then. I suspect that I would have voted against him anyway, but not because he wasn’t telegenic or because of his stance on slavery. I would have voted against him because of his stance on States’ Rights, and I would have voted against him because of his policies on export taxation and domestic spending.
Sep 29, 2004 - 2:28 pm 23. Catherine:Christopher Caldwell says the same thing about the Super Bowl.
Time to put the thing on C-Span.
Sep 29, 2004 - 5:21 pm 24. Terrye:I watched the RNC on CSpan.
Everybody else was just yak yak yak. I am not stupid I don’t them telling me what I just heard.
Sep 29, 2004 - 6:08 pm 25. Kieran Lyons:Roger,
The problem with CSPAN is audience exposure. CSPAN is a cable/satellite channel, not a broadcast channel. Even in this day, millions of households do not have cable.
Additionally, there is no way in hell the networks, their OnO’s, or many of their independent affiliates would agree to simulcast CSPAN. Ain’t gonna happen.
Sep 29, 2004 - 8:17 pm