I was 6 years old when The Joan Shorenstein (Barone) Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (with Marvin Kalb as founding director) released a study/proposal which called for the press to take more seriously their responsibility in the presidential elections.
The proposal called for two 90-minute debates between presidential candidates, and one such debate between vice presidential candidates. It also urged five sets of 30-to40-minute interviews with Presidential candidates discussing the same issues with moderators and experts, and finally paired 15-to-30-minute addresses to the nation by the Presidential candidates on the Sunday before election day. ( Study Calls for More TV Time for ‘92 Candidates, By ADAM CLYMER,
Published: September 4, 1991 - NYT)
Called the “Nine Sundays” proposal because of the nine Sundays which run from traditional Labor Day beginning of a campaign and Election Day the author’s of the study also suggested that no commercials interrupt these broadcasts. According to the study American democracy had been trivialized by photo opportunities, advertising, polls and sound bites.
If Mr. Kalb were dead he’d be rolling over in his grave at what the press has become to presidential elections, how little the public demands, and how the candidates allow the media to define them. He isn’t dead of course, I listened to him just this afternoon on Kojo - which is where I got reacquainted with Nine Sunday’s.
In 1991 Mr Kalb wanted to insure a “a serious textured tone to overall news coverage of a Presidential campaign.” He said it would also give “voters regular, predictable access to the candidates, over a sustained period of time” and would set “a framework for constructive televised exposure to the issues.”
That was then, and this is now. A change of scenario is more critical than ever. The public is ready for it, begging for it even.
What could be better than nine days of single subject discussions in which the candidates are not asked if they married for love or money, what their favorite sports team is, and no one has to bowl, or drink beer.
Last March Newt Gingrich called Current Debates ‘Lunacy’. Last May Mr. Kalb called the candidates out in a NYT op-ed “Nine Ways to Elect a President”. Gingrich proposed the “Nine Nineties in Nine” pledge asking the presidential candidates, should they become their parties’ nominees in 2008, to take part in nine, 90-minute “dialogues” in the nine weeks running from Labor Day to the general election. Last summer Gingrich and Kalb overnighted a copy of the pledge to each presidential candidate.
Nine weeks of serious competition discussion after which each candidate is allowed ten minutes to tell the public why they should not be voted off be the next President of the United States.
Then America votes.
The media gets their reality show, voting and all.
America is a sucker for reality shows.
One more thing:
Please, not on Sundays. No one watches television on Sundays. Greek prostitutes don’t work on Sundays. Our candidates shouldn’t either.
I’ll be back around tomorrow, tough week here, end of term.
