European Reaction to ABC Debate on April 16

"readers had left more than 12,300 comments on the ABC News website, most of them attacking the programme."

US network faces backlash after Democratic debate

The Guardian - London
April 17, 2008
David Nasaw

American television network ABC was accused of bias and triviality today in the wake of the latest debate between Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

American television viewers and media commentators lashed out at the network, decrying the format of the debate, which they complained amounted to a venue for the candidates to reiterate political attacks rather than delve into substantive policy disagreements.

The network was also criticised for a perceived slant against Illinois senator Barack Obama, particularly because moderator George Stephanopoulos worked in President Bill Clinton's White House as an adviser and aide.

By mid-morning today, readers had left more than 12,300 comments on the ABC News website, most of them attacking the programme.

"This debate should have been shown on E! or MTV," wrote one viewer named Dave_Gee.

"ABC was the obvious loser of last night's debate," wrote another, dubbed SFG07. "How shameful to operate from the gutter when there's so many important policy issues that could have been addressed. Your news team was appalling."

The network was lambasted for Stephanopoulos and co-moderator Charlie Gibson's focus for virtually the first half of the program on Obama's recent missteps and his association with his former pastor Jeremiah Wright.

After brief opening statements and a question about vice-presidential picks, Gibson leapt at Obama on comments he made at a San Francisco fundraiser earlier this month.

Obama described denizens of economically depressed small towns as "bitter" voters who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations".

His rival, Senator Hillary Clinton, had spent the past several days attacking him on the remarks and seeking to portray Obama as an elitist and out of touch. In raising the remarks, Gibson was seen last night as creating an opening for Clinton once again to attack Obama. She obliged.

Gibson then raised the Illinois senator's relationship with Wright, whose incendiary remarks on race relations in the US were seen by many as anti-American.

Obama has distanced himself from the Chicago preacher, and largely defused the matter with a well-received speech in Philadelphia last month.

A spokesman for media monitoring organisation Media Matters said the network missed an opportunity to "offer the American people a frank discussion of the issues that we all face and how these candidates plan on tackling them.

"Instead, those that tuned in saw a veteran news team clearly out of touch and more interested, frankly, in gaffes and gotchas than health care, the war in Iraq, and our failing economy," said the spokesman, Karl Frisch.

"For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news," Washington Post television critic Tom Shales wrote this morning.

link to article

ABC committed Seppuku last night

Someone at ABC must not like Obama - and wanted to make sure that every minute negative about his personality and performance in the campaign would be not only capitalized, but also enlarged.

The performance of Stephanopoulos and Gibson was so outrageous that Gibson was booed at the end of the debate.

Why would this happen, when these two men are usually competent journalists?

here are a few possibilities

1. A high level administrator at ABC wants to make sure that Hillary gets the nomination.

2. Another high level administrator at ABC doesn't want an African American to be president.

3. Dick Cheney threatened to have Charlie and George knocked off if they didn't blast Obama.

4. CNN or Fox paid them money to do it.

5. Charles Gibson is really Mel Gibson and has watched too many of his own movies.

5. Millions of television viewers were hallucinating - it didn't really happen.

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The ABC Debate: A Shameful Night for the U.S. Media
George Mitchell
Huffington Post
April 16, 2008



In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent "bitter" gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin -- while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.

Then it was back to Obama to defend his slim association with a former '60s radical -- a question that came out of right-wing talk radio and Sean Hannity on TV, but was delivered by former Bill Clinton aide Stephanopoulos. This approach led to a claim that Clinton's husband pardoned two other '60s radicals. And so on. The travesty continued.

More time was spent on all of this than segments on getting out of Iraq and keeping people from losing their homes and -- you name it. Gibson only got excited complaining that someone might raise his capital gains tax. Yet neither candidate had the courage to ask the moderators to turn to those far more important issues. Talking heads on other networks followed up by not pressing that point either. The crowd booed Gibson near the end. Why didn't every other responsible journalist on TV?

To top it off, here is David Brooks' review at the New York Times: "I thought the questions were excellent." He gives ABC an "A." Of course, "A" can stand for many things.


detail of cartoon:
http://www.getintoon.com/images/ITPCeleb-CGibson.jpg

Stopping immigration raids in the new presidential administration?

Tonight, in the Texas debate between Obama and Clinton, Univision newscaster Jorge Ramos asked the two candidates if they would stop immigration raids. Neither clearly said they would stop the raids. Clinton mentioned the problem of babies left without caretakers when their mother's were detained. Obama said that protecting the borders was primary (as did Clinton) but he did not respond to Ramos' question about stopping the raids.

Some advice for both of the campaigns. If you really want the Latino vote, you need to be very clear that the raids would stop.