Rhetorical Citizenship and Public Deliberation

Chapter 16: Presidential Primary Debate as a Genre of Journalistic Discourse: How can We Put Debate into the Debates?

16 presidential primary debate as a genre of journalistic discourse: how can we put debate into the debates? John Adams and Stephen West During presidential primary election campaigns in the United States, news organizations televise what they call “debates.” These so-called debates follow various formats, but most frequently journalists direct questions to panels of candidates. As the primary campaigns wear on and the number of candidates drops, the field is typically reduced to the two candidates most likely to win the primary elections. Recent election cycles have seen “losing” candidates wait longer and longer to concede and make room for emerging winners, which sometimes leads to a very extensive and prolonged series of debates. At any rate, the debates are advertised as a means of enabling the electorate to become properly informed about the candidates’ perspectives on the issues raised by journalist-moderators during the debates. Although there have been complaints about the relevance of the questions addressed to candidates at these debates, little attention has been focused on whether the events actually are debates. This chapter argues that they are a genre of discourse that is called debate but is motivated by the communicative form and culture of interview-based, information-seeking journalistic discourse, rather than the rhetorical form and culture of deliberative or argumentative discourse—that is, discourse induced by policy propositions where respondents’ debatable differences are paramount, announced in advance, and persuasively settled through the genre of academic debate, as pursued in educational forums that stage parliamentary-style debates.1 Accordingly, we argue that presidential debates should be keyed to preannounced policy issues, be moderated by nonjournalists, and follow a form of discourse more suitable to setting, vetting, and settling conflicted positions .2 As such, they would (1) dissociate debates from news broadcasts and their attendant journalistic aims, (2) clarify candidates’ differences and pointedly test their deliberative capabilities, (3) afford the electorate lead time to prepare to act as judges, and (4) provide accessible public forums for deliberatively settling representative democracy’s foremost question: which candidate deserves my vote? As a practical extension of this argument, we also advocate a revised format for presidential primary debates, intended to illustrate how an improved format may more effectively position audience members as judges. The format prompts candidate responses to pertinent policy questions, thereby affording distinctions between candidates’ positions and grounds for voters’ decisions. It illustrates the central importance of procedural norms to public debate by deliberatively framing and rhetorically enabling well-considered citizen decision making. Background As a genre of discourse, debate has been practiced in Western civilization as a way of negotiating differences where certain knowledge cannot be achieved—where opinion prevails and differences of opinion are seen as legitimate. In contemporary democracies, these differences may be rhetorically negotiated by citizens who communally form decisions by weighing the pros and cons of publicly voiced arguments, achieving a level of consensus sufficient to merit a given position’s acceptance by the majority. In elections, candidates stand as bearers of conflicted positions. The differences in their positions and their conduct during debates may enable the electorate to choose the candidate who most effectively persuades the majority that his opinions represent the best judgment. His positions are therefore taken to represent the will of the majority. In contrast to debate, an overriding interest of journalist discourse lies in seeking and communicating as much accurate information as possible. Journalists do not pit viewpoints against one another in a contest where pointcounterpoint dominates the flow of genuine debate, and respondents address one another by making constructive opening arguments, rebutting each other ’s claims, and making constructive closing arguments. To be sure, there are so-called news programs that traffic in acrimonious exchanges between panelists , but again, play is undertaken in the guise of information seeking. Interviewees present their opinions on questions posed by the host. Procedurally and substantively, these are not debates. Rather, they often play out as quarrels 268 toward better deliberative practices dominated by interruptions and respondents talking over one another, so that none of what is said is intelligible. There is a difference between wellstructured interchanges between opponents and face-to-face “flaming,” which may have rhetorical appeal as entertainment—the oral counterpart of professional wrestling—but not the rhetorical efficacy of a deliberative political discourse aimed at promoting a wise decision about a contested proposition. A number of the so-called debates between Hillary Clinton and...