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So the aftermath of ABC's Philadelphia debate was undercovered on the network newscasts. They punted when it came to assessing the validity of Obama's complaints. Sure, he went on his "45-minute" rant about ABC's lack of substance during the first battery of questions: "45 minutes before we heard about healthcare; 45 minutes before we heard about Iraq; 45 minutes before we heard about jobs…" but that soundbite carries little weight. It amounts to nothing more than special pleading since those 45 minutes made him look so bad.
"The consensus is that Barack Obama had a rough night," summarized ABC's David Wright. CBS' Dean Reynolds saw him on the "defensive…a series of questions that aides say left him dispirited." NBC anchor Brian Williams introduced Ron Allen's coverage by calling it "bruising." Allen saw Hillary Rodham Clinton do "everything she could to put Obama on his heels."
The fact is that Obama's description of ABC News' questioning strategy is accurate. It was indeed 45 minutes before public policy issues were raised. CBS' Reynolds summarized the range of non-issue topics from his "controversial preacher" to "the radical urban terrorists who used to be his neighbors" to his "past statements" to his choice to wear a "flag pin or lack thereof." In other words, those initial questions by Gibson and Stephanopoulos focused on guilt by association, loyalty tests and verbal gaffes.
The point is: so what?
Surely the networks should have interrogated Obama's complaints and those of the "thousands of angry viewers," as ABC's Wright called them, e-mailing abcnews.com, to see if this line of questioning was journalistically sound or not. Wright quoted from a couple of e-mails, one denouncing the questions as "shoddy journalism" another asking rhetorically: "Folks. If he cannot deal with the hostile questions from George and Charlie, how do you expect him to deal with McCain & Co in the fall?" On ABC's newscast, anchor Gibson declined to account for himself, merely noting that "the debate over the debate has been heated" as if his role ended as soon as the questions left his mouth.
As McCarthyite as questions concerning the words of one's associates and the absence of ostentatious displays of patriotism might be, there were nevertheless a couple of journalistic justifications for this line of questioning implied, but not explored in the debate coverage.
The first is the substantive argument. That 45 minutes of questioning would have been appropriate if ABC News sincerely believed that the failure to wear a flag in one's lapel can be a legitimate disqualification from office, or attending the Trinity United Church, or serving on a board with a onetime Weatherman, or describing downtrodden small town voters as bitter and clinging.
The second is the vetting argument implied in the "McCain & Co" e-mail ABC's Wright quoted. This justification belongs to the style of campaign reporting that we have dubbed Reality Gameshow Journalism. It sees the political reporter's job as subjecting candidates to a series of ordeals, to test how they react under pressure, as a way to measure their qualifications for the job--just as a winning contestant on Survivor has to weather the conspiracies of all others in order to emerge triumphant.
In this vetting model, it matters not whether Gibson or Stephanopoulos sincerely believe that the questions are appropriate tests of Obama's Presidential mettle; only whether they anticipate that they are going to be asked by someone or other eventually--by Rodham Clinton herself or by McCain or by other journalists or by ideological activists.
My suspicion is that Reality Gameshow Journalism informed ABC's choice of questions, not sincerely held civic beliefs.
The failure in the initial reporting on the debate lies not only in ABC's reluctance--and that of its rivals--to interrogate the underlying political judgment informing those questions. Actually it would have been highly unusual if campaign reporters had been that introspective. A less excusable oversight lies in their failure to get Rodham Clinton on the record on these issues.
We were left with guesswork: CBS' Jeff Greenfield seemed certain that she was in the vetting camp not that of substance: "She used all the critiques of Obama that the moderators used, to say: 'Well, you know, I would not say those things but we know how the Republicans behave so that is why it is relevant." NBC's Allen took a different view: "Clinton said everything was fair game," he reported. And her rival seemed to think so too: "Obama noted how much his opponent seemed to enjoy the evening," CBS' Reynolds observed.
So if reporters choose not to ask Gibson and Stephanopoulos, at least they can ask Rodham Clinton. Is it fair game to use a clumsy extemporaneous locution to criticize a rival or should he be entitled to retract and restate? Is using the words of associates against him fair game? Can the choice of church for worship be a disqualification or is that an unConstitutional religious test for office? Are loyalty tests on the absence or presence of flags fair game?
Were ABC News' questions legitimate? Or were they illegitimate yet inevitable? Her answer would be more interesting than those self-serving soundbites of Obama's "45 minutes" complaints.
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