ABC News has been criticized in the blogosphere for their poor handling of the recent Democratic debate in Pennsylvania. News anchors Charles "Charlie" Gibson and George Stephanopolous have been accused by top critics and fellow journalists of conducting "shoddy" and "yellow" journalism. Some people also believe that ABC political correspondent George Stephanopolous who has been dubbed "George Clintonopolous" for his role as Communications Director in President Bill Clinton's presidential campaign was deliberately focusing on gaffes made by Barack Obama and side issues instead of focusing on the real issues. George Stephanopolous' question about Barack Obama's patriotism and accusations about Obama's refusal to wear a "flag pin" on his lapel was discussed on MSNBC as a "silly issue" to raise during an important political debate. However, host Dan Abrams and his guests did agree that Hillary Clinton admitted to lying about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia.
George Stephanopolous became an advisor at the White House and left after Bill Clinton's first term in office. We recommend viewing of the documentary The War Room directed by Chris Hegedus and DA Pennebaker to see George Stephanopolous' role as Communications Director during Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. The West Wing creator/writer Aaron Sorkin also created a fictional character rumored to have been based on Stephanopolous. The character named Lewis Rothschild was portrayed by Michael J. Fox in the 1992 film "The American President". source video source The Huffington Post
baudelairien left a comment on the Daily Kos blog about George Stephanopolous' role as moderator was an example that the debate was possibly imbalanced.
George Stephanopoulos and James Carville ran Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. He's one of the two main subjects of the "War Room" documentary about that campaign, and he's widely believed to have inspired the Henry Burton character who is the protagonist of Joe Klein's "Primary Colors". When Clinton reached the White House, Stephanopoulos served as communications director and conducted briefings of the White House press corps, even though Dee Dee Myers was the actual press secretary.
Given the depth of Stephanopoulos' experience in shaping Bill Clinton's public image, appointing him as a moderator in a debate including Hillary Clinton is an egregious violation of balance. CNN sidelined Stephanopoulos' "War Room" partner James Carville due to his conflict of interest. What's ABC's problem? source
The LA Times reports that many people are now questioning George Stephanopoulous' journalistic ethics after his appearance on Fox New Correspondent Sean Hannity's radio show. On Tuesday, as a guest on Hannity's radio program, Stephanopoulos said," Well, I'm taking notes now, Sean" when Hannity suggested he raise the topic of Ayers with Obama. Progressives pounced. The real story of this debate,said MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, may be where one of the moderators found his questions. Stephanopoulos dismissed the idea that he was doing Hannity's bidding.
The questions we asked were tough and fair and appropriate and relevant and what you would expect to be asked in a presidential debate at this point,he said. The questions we asked are being debated around the political world every day. By this morning, more than 14,000 viewer comments had been posted on the ABC News website, the overwhelming majority critical of the debate moderators, who spent most of the first hour on what Stephanopoulous called electability questions.
The way we thought about it was, it made sense to hit the electability questions first, then move on, he said. I can see where reasonable people would differ with that. source Click here to listen to George Stephanopolous on Sean Hannity's radio program.
HANNITY: There are two questions that I don't think anybody has asked Barack Obama, and I don't know if this is going to be on your list tomorrow. One is the only time he's ever been asked about his association with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist from the Weather Underground who on 9/11 of all days in the New York Times was saying I don't regret setting bombs. I don't think we did enough. When asked about it by the Politico, David Axelrod said that they have a friendly relationship, and that they had done a number of speeches together and that they sat on a board together. Is that a question you might ask?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, I'm taking notes right now.
HANNITY: September 11, 2001 of all days, there was an article in the New York Times. And there are a number of quotes about Bill Ayers. The Politico had in there the comments from David Axelrod. source
On Tuesday, George Stephanopolous also appeared on WOR radio with Steve Malzberg who suggested debate questions for Stephanopolous to ask both candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the democratic debate on Wednesday. Malzberg raised the William Ayers question during the interview. Stephanopolous replied, "it's a damn good question." Listen to the audio interview below.
- [For Obama] William Ayers is a man who was head of the Weather Underground, a radical group in the 60s and 70s, set bombs at the Capitol, set bombs at the Pentagon, and was quoted in the New York Times oddly enough, ironically on September 11 before obviously the events of that day, saying that he didn't go far enough, and he doesn't regret it at all, and he wished he could have done more. Your campaign has described your relationship with William Ayers as "friendly." How could a man running for the presidency of the United States possibly have anything to do with, or have anything but disdain for a man who did what he has done to this country? Stephanopoulos responsed to the last query: "It's a damn good question." source
ABC received high ratings with almost 11 million viewers but the consensus from blogs and critics is it was an example of how to spend two hours talking about nothing. To date there are almost 20,000 comments from viewers on the ABC website about the Pennsylvania Debate. Read a comment by grannylib:
I know Stephanopolous is no journalist, and apparently, neither is Gibson. What a worthless pair. This was so no-issue oriented, so tabloid, so juvenile, so BLATANT in its disregard for the intelligence of the American people, and for the voters' desire to hear what the candidates have to say on issues that matter. The economy, the plummeting of wages for the middle and working classes, gas prices, the war on Iraq, climate change...the list goes on and on. And of course Senator Clinton is trying to spin this into "Barack is whining about tough questions." No, Senator Obama is frustrated that the media isn't doing its job of asking questions that will help the American public make good decisions at the polls. There certainly is no such thing as "liberal media," and corporate, right-wing bias is rampant in most main-stream media outlets. I'm sad to see ABC join this tacky, tawdry set.Pathetic performance by Stephanopolous and Gibson. They owe the candidates an apology (especially Senator Obama); they owe the viewing public an apology; and so does ABC. source
Here's a rundown of reactions to the debate.
The Washington Post's TV critic says Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos "turned in shoddy, despicable performances."
"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. Some were barely news to begin with," Tom Shales writes.
Time's Joe Klein says he has "slightly--well, a microscopic smidgeon--more sympathy for the gotcha-moderators from ABC than Tom Shales does." He blames the trivial nature of the questions on the trivial nature of the campaign.
Guardian America's deadlineUSA blog issues its verdict with the headline: "Worst. Debate. Ever."
Over at the Huffington Post, Greg Mitchell slams the moderators for focusing on "trivial issues" and says the debate is "perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years."
Andrew Sullivan seems to agree. He slams the Gibson-Stephanopoulos team in The Atlantic's Daily Dish blog. "The loser was ABC News: one of the worst media performances I can remember - petty, shallow, process-obsessed, trivial where substantive, and utterly divorced from the actual issues that Americans want to talk about," he says. "At the end of the debate, it appeared that the crowd was actually heckling Gibson."
Comments