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Good Letter, Wrong Address
Mark Thoma has an An Open Letter to ABC about the Presidential Debate signed by Brad DeLong, Kevin Drum, Henry Farrell, Eric Alterman and many others.
The debate was a revolting descent into tabloid journalism and a gross disservice to Americans concerned about the great issues facing the nation and the world.... For 53 minutes, we heard no question about public policy from either moderator. ABC seemed less interested in provoking serious discussion than in trying to generate cheap shot sound-bites for later rebroadcast. The questions asked by Mr. Stephanopoulos and Mr. Gibson were a disgrace...
I agree. The only thing the signatories got wrong was where to send the letter. The letter should have been addressed to the American public. After all, this debate, which came in the flurry of all the tabloid journalism of the past several weeks, was the most-watched of the 2008 presidential campaign. The public got what it wanted.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on April 18, 2008 at 01:30 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
Despite whether I agree with your conclusion, it's hardly fair to say that the public got what it wanted. The public had no idea what questions were going to be asked at the debate or that the content would be so base. Indeed, it would be more interesting to see time-coded ratings throughout the debate rather than the Nielsen rating. An equally possible explanation is that many people feel that the Pennsylvania primary is make-or-break time for Hillary and were interested to see if she would pull a rabbit out of a hat to remain in the race. Another possible explanation is that the debate is the last between the two candidates. And so on and so on.
Posted by: Trey at Apr 18, 2008 1:34:45 PM
Even though I have been gradually joining the "elite" class in terms of
socio-economic status and outlook, occasionally stuff like this reminds me of why
the average Joe has little but disdain for the pronouncements of the elite class.
Posted by: Jim Clay at Apr 18, 2008 1:38:59 PM
Trey, maybe but in the last several weeks the media have pushed the "bitter" comment, Obama's reverend story, and the Bosnia story repeatedly - thus Gibson and Stephanopoulos simply pushed what the rest of the media pushed. Do you really think the media doesn't know what sells?
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Apr 18, 2008 1:43:52 PM
This post is unsupported by any evidence, and your response to Trey is extremely unconvincing.
Posted by: Algernon at Apr 18, 2008 1:51:16 PM
"The public got what it wanted."
In order for that to be true, wouldn't the public had to have known before tuning in that the debate would be a farce?
And how would they have known that? This wasn't Fox or CNBC.
Posted by: save_the_rustbelt at Apr 18, 2008 1:52:17 PM
Agree with StR. What's your foundation for "The public got what it wanted"? There was no poll, call in, survey, etc. to get the top ten questions of the public. You are taking the efficient market idea too far.
Posted by: David Zetland at Apr 18, 2008 1:57:36 PM
Read the letter "trying to generate cheap shot sound-bites for later rebroadcast." Hmmm... now who would want to rebroadcast something the public didn't want?
Everyone complaining should explain why the media focused on the trash talk to begin with.
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Apr 18, 2008 2:03:59 PM
Alex: You are assuming an informed public that keeps up with the day-to-day inside-baseball aspects of the campaign. It is equally plausible that interest in the campaigns peaks around the time of primaries; since there have been no primaries for a month or so, many people may have tuned in to see if anything new had developed. Obviously, I have equally little data to prove this point. I am merely suggesting that individuals may use the debate to obtain new information about the candidates rather than to see responses to existing information.
Posted by: Trey at Apr 18, 2008 2:04:36 PM
Don Hewitt, the director and producer of the Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960, said ABC’s structuring of the questions was an acknowledgment that a debate entails “a big dose of show biz” and “trying to keep an audience.”
“When you’re in television,” Mr. Hewitt said, “that’s your job.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/us/politics/18moderator.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Apr 18, 2008 2:10:32 PM
The questions finally did get to policy and I have not seen one clip or read one story about what either of them said on any public policy issue. Critics of the debate are doing the same thing that the moderators did, but with a different spin. After all only 13 million people watch the debate and there are over a 100 million voters that they could inform on those issues that they think are important, rather than spending all there time covering the even less important topic of the debate format.
Posted by: Joan at Apr 18, 2008 2:12:28 PM
"The public got what it wanted."
As an economist, don't you study things like the consumer's lack of access to information on the product to be consumed? Some people paid money to see
"Manos, the Hands of Fate." Were they really signalling Hollywood, "More like this, please?"
Posted by: L2P at Apr 18, 2008 2:12:53 PM
Joan nails it!
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Apr 18, 2008 2:15:30 PM
Alex,
I agree with your premise that ABC and the two moderators are trying to deliver a product that appeals to their audience.
The mistake you are making is to therefore assume that the product they delivered did indeed achieve that goal - that is indeed taking "efficient market thinking" several light-years too far. There are no arbitrageurs here pushing debates closer to their "optimal design", there are no competing products allowing consumers to switch to other debate designs, and so on. All ABS has is some bad market research, experience based on very few data points in a fast-changing environment, and the moderators' and producers' gut feeling for what people might want. Thus the forces pushing us closer to an "efficient" product are somewhere between weak and non-existent, and what we get in the end is almost entirely based on the perceptions and preferences of the moderators and producers. Letting them know ex-post that their product sucked is entirely appropriate.
Posted by: Commenterlein at Apr 18, 2008 2:21:38 PM
Sorry, but Joan is just as lost as you are.
Both candidates are spending too much time parrying bs dirt that the media is unearthing and propogating through this sisyphusian series of "news cycles."
Posted by: meter at Apr 18, 2008 2:25:35 PM
Let me add that you may well be right - probably the debate design was exactly what the audience wanted. But there seems to be little evidence either for or against this claim, which seems based on your prior about people's preferences and an excessively strong belief in the power of competitive forces. On the other hand, all evidence we have so far indicates that a substantial subset of the audience hated it.
Posted by: Commenterlein at Apr 18, 2008 2:26:05 PM
Agree with other commenter, Tyler. You are confusing two conclusions; the first, that ABC knew what the public wanted and did a good job at marketing the debate as such, and second, that ABC actually delivered the product that they promised in their marketing promotions. The two aren't very highly correlated.
The level of outrage would be much lower if the debate on ABC were aligned with people's expectations, either because a) people want to watch petty commentary of this type or b) people expect petty commentary like this from the medai anad are not very surprised by it. I strongly suspect that if b) were the case, ratings would have been very low, so you are basically making the argument that a) is the case, but nevertheless lots of people are upset about it.
Posted by: Patrick Minton at Apr 18, 2008 2:26:27 PM
Alex, just out of curiosity, what do you make of the WSJ's take on the Gibson/Obama exchange regarding the cap gains tax? Is this an outlier from the rest of the debate, do you think it was based on such a faulty premise that it's useless, or do you have some other account for it?
WSJ's take here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120847505709424727.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
Jonah Goldberg's much shorter summary: "He conceded the premise that revenues go up when you cut capital gains taxes. But he said it would be worthwhile to raise them nonetheless as an issue of "fairness" because some people are making too much money."
Posted by: Jon Boguth at Apr 18, 2008 2:53:15 PM
Or maybe, just maybe, the public is on to something.
Maybe it really does matter whether somebody can't tell the truth about easily verifiable matters of her own life.
Maybe it really does matter that somebody either 1. likes racist tirades, or 2. can't tell that they are occurring while sitting in front of them for two decades.
Policy-wise they are barely distinguishable anyway.
Posted by: holmegm at Apr 18, 2008 2:57:15 PM
"facing the nation and the *world*"
Is that a US presidential election or did I missed something?
Posted by: G at Apr 18, 2008 2:59:05 PM
Charlie Gibson was the best moderator this primary season, by a wide margin. In a prior debate he allowed candidates of both parties to give long answers and respond to attacks without time limits. He allowed candidates to engage in genuine debate as well—I remember a sequence in which the Republican candidates debated illegal immigration for several minutes without Charlie Gibson feeling the need to butt in.
What is the substantive policy difference between Obama and Hillary anyway?
Posted by: 8 at Apr 18, 2008 3:10:13 PM
Assume for a moment that you are a producer at ABC, you've been given some air time and told to produce a debate. As you begin you keep in mind that ABC’s main goal is to make money, today and indefinitely into the future. So far they have been pretty good about doing this so there’s a decent amount for you to play with. In order to ensure that your debate will satisfy current advertisers and attract future advertisers you hire some fancy; commentators, set designers, make-people, light people, and all the rest that actually do the show. Now it seems as though many of you would stop there. You’ve got George; you’ve got the fancy set; so let’s just shoot from the hip when it comes to the questions. It also seems like many of you would not last very long as producers. Some of you however would say ok, I’ve got George, I’ve got the set, the make-up will be perfect and the lighting will wow them, but people watch a debate for….. the debate, so let’s make sure we’ve got something that will keep them, and bring them back. Surveys are cheap, I’ll take a thousand, focus groups are a little more expensive, I’ll take a hundred. Now I know what America wants, I will do my very best to deliver; if I don’t people won’t be back to ABC for the next debate and I won’t be ask to produce it, or anything else.
So for those of you who doubt that competitive forces are at work, I guess you’ll be watching the next debate, you certainly deserve it.
Now letting the studio know after the fact that the debate they produces was horrific is not without its merits. However I’d guess that upwards of 99.9% of the 13 million that watched send no letters because they were pleased / not so displeased that they’d write about it.
If you want to make a difference in what you get before the fact, take the 10 minutes to do the surveys when the telemarketer calls.
Posted by: Mason at Apr 18, 2008 3:10:32 PM
Alex,
First, I apologize for my earlier unkind comment.
You requested that "everyone complaining should explain why the media focused on the trash talk to begin with". I like holmegm's answer, and would have a hard time stating it any better. I would add one thing- even though I plan to vote for McCain, I would think that Democrats would want to go through this before the general election, because Stephanopoulos was right- this kind of thing is going to heavily affect their electability. Policy talk is also, in my opinion, overrated among the intelligentsia. Often the candidates either do not intend to even try to implement the policy (e.g. Obama and NAFTA), or they will try and will not succeed. Very few of their policy positions will ever see the light of day. I am not saying that talking policy isn't valuable, just that it isn't as valuable, relative to other topics like "character", as many people believe.
Posted by: Jim Clay at Apr 18, 2008 3:17:55 PM
The public got what it wanted? Not hardly. Not even close.
Posted by: bill at Apr 18, 2008 3:22:14 PM
So for those of you who doubt that competitive forces are at work, I guess you’ll be watching the next debate, you certainly deserve it.
Who was doubting that competitive forces are at work?
What I doubt is that the outcome is as self-evidently negative as many here seem to think that it is.
Posted by: holmegm at Apr 18, 2008 3:22:37 PM
The whole thing is a farce. The public are sheep and politicians are corrupt looters. If only we could speed up evolution.
Posted by: Chairman Mao at Apr 18, 2008 3:34:39 PM
