Consider This from NPR - Should the presidential debate moderators hold candidates accountable?

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

After days of back and forth, both presidential campaigns finally agreed on the rules for Tuesday night's debate. But what are the rules for moderators? Just ask questions? Fact check in real time? A Colorado newscaster went viral for his moderation style. He wishes more journalists would try it.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

That excitement in the air, it is not about the start of the NFL season. Okay, well, not only about that. In the world of politics, the event of the week is the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. It wasn't the debate either candidate expected months ago, but it's shaping up to be the most anticipated event to date in the 2024 contest. On Tuesday night, the former president and current vice president will face off in Philadelphia for perhaps the only time before November's election, and since Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance back in June upended the race. The candidates' microphones will be muted when it

is not their turn to speak. They will not be allowed to question each other, and they will not be allowed to have any notes with them. Those are the rules for the debaters. But what about the rules for the moderators? On paper, they're just asking the questions. But many pundits, many viewers think moderators should take a bigger role in wrangling debaters, especially a debater as volatile and prone to spreading falsehoods as Trump. That's what we're talking about. All right, that's the end of the segment. We're moving on.

He didn't take them. Vice President. Can I be honest? Chris Wallace, then at Fox News, faced criticism for being unable to control the two debaters. That is absolutely not true. You're going to have... Gentlemen. While in the final 2020 debate, NBC's Kristen Welker received praise for how she controlled both speakers and kept them to time.

We were not going to have a steel industry. Okay. And now we have a steel industry. Okay. Vice President Biden, your response, please. Even Trump himself complimented her. By the way, so far, I respect very much the way you're handling this. I have to say.

Consider this. Tuesday night's debate is a high-stakes moment for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and the debate moderators. What do they need to do to make sure it is an informative moment for the American people. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. It's Consider This from NPR. We are on the eve of the presidential debate, the second of this presidential campaign season, but the first between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. There are a lot of opinions about how the candidates will perform, also a lot of opinions about how the journalists who moderate should perform. Should they fact check in real time, cut off candidates who ramble

or dodge questions? Well, they might take a cue or two from Kyle Clark. He's a local anchor in Colorado at Denver's Nine News. And this summer, he went viral for how he moderated a debate with six Republican candidates for Colorado's fourth congressional district, including Lauren Boebert. As you referenced, you introduced articles of impeachment against the president for his handling of the border. That move was blocked by Republican House leadership. They sent it to committees and said, pardon me, please. The inquiry was sent to committee. It was not blocked. It was blocked by sending it to committee, so you didn't get the full House vote that you wanted. No, I didn't get a full House vote, and it was sent to committee.

This is going to be a long evening if you speak over the facts. Okay. So a question for everybody. A taste there of the Kyle Clark approach to moderating a debate. And he is with us now. Kyle Clark, welcome. Thank you so much. So you earned a lot of praise. You also earned a lot of pushback for how you ran that debate. And I want to start with how you see the role of moderator. I mean, as journalists, we're asking questions to elicit information that informs the public. Do you feel like in that debate, you succeeded? You know, I think we did at times, certainly. The candidates for any office have all kinds of forums where they can go and present their talking points in standard fashion and not get any push back necessarily from their opponents or

from the question askers. And our goal with the debates is to probe a little bit to see if people can defend the weak spots in their positions, can sort out when they've been on both sides of an issue or haven't been clear about something. And our goal is to bring some light to that and also not to waste the viewer's time, which means if we give somebody 60 seconds to talk about something and they ramble off in another direction, we're going to try to politely redirect them back to the topic at hand. And as people heard there, your approach was very much to fact check in real time. I mean, different debates are going to have different ground rules, but to you, you see value in doing that in real time. I do. And this is not to say that I think

that journalists need to be fact-checking every little detail that comes up during a debate. But if the basic premise on which a candidate is basing their answer is based in a falsehood, I think it's worthwhile for the journalist to point that out and then redirect the question, hoping to get at the truth of it. I also understand the school of thought that says it should be up to the opponent to do the fact-checking. But then you have to ask, so we're putting the onus on the opponent to fact-check the other candidate who is not being truthful so that other candidate then has to spend their time on it as opposed to putting forth their own ideas for the listener or the viewer? That doesn't necessarily seem fair either. So I do think that there's a role for journalists

in respectfully fact-checking to keep things within the realm of reality. How do you prep? I have a running note in my phone that I keep tabs on all the politicians in Colorado. Whenever I see or hear them do something interesting or noteworthy, or I'll hear a quote and say, well, that doesn't sound consistent with what they've said before, I'll drop it in there. And then as I'm getting ready to interview them or to have them come in for a debate, then I start to flesh those things out. And I'm also looking to see what are the questions that they've already answered and where might we break some new ground. But at the heart of things, I'm looking to distill down what is the best criticism of their point of view, wrap it in a question and ask them to speak to it. Because hopefully anybody who's considering

elected office should be able to do that, which is speak to a fair criticism of their point of view. I want to ask about a line of questioning that you put to one of the candidates in that congressional debate. This is Richard Holthorff. It's had to do with his use of offensive language. And it's language I won't repeat here, but sounds like it might have been quite a long list in your phone. A whole list of comments that seem designed to offend women and people of color and people with disabilities. Here's what you asked Holtorf. Do you regret saying any of those things? And why do you talk to people like that?

Kyle Clark, why is that kind of question, calling out a candidate for the language they use, why is that important to ask? Why is it important for voters to hear? I think it speaks to their character. And in the situation that you just described there, that's a state legislator who makes a habit of saying offensive things about people and seems to revel in it. He's kind of made it his personality. And I knew that I wanted to ask about that, but I didn't know how to phrase the question. I wrote down the litany of offensive statements, and I stared at it for a good 20 minutes, trying to workshop a good question.

And finally, out of exasperation, I just wrote on my page, why do you talk to people like that? And that ended up being the question that we asked at the debate. I couldn't come up with a better way to say it. And that was, at the end of the day, what I wanted to know and what I think some Coloradans want to know. Why does this man speak to so many people disrespectfully? Yeah, it's the classic, if you're trying to figure out what the question is, you're probably

overthinking it. Just ask what you actually want to know. Would a question along those lines be appropriate tomorrow night? I think so. I think that Americans would find it refreshing. I've seen where you have been asked if you wish you were moderating the upcoming presidential debate. And I saw one response where you said, and I'm quoting you, it might be a little shock to the system for folks at the national level to receive that direct of an approach. Why? Well, because I think that the presidential debates have been run the same way for a long time with a bit of deviation here and there. And even the slightest bit of fact-checking draws an uproar. I mean I remember when CNN's Candy Crowley did it and people were aghast at the idea that she would run our debates at Nine News in Denver for a lot of years is that we do fact check and that we do expect direct answers to questions and that somebody can't just take their time to speak about an unrelated topic.

We will redirect them. So they come into our debates with a level of expectation that that's what they and every other candidate is going to receive. And I think it would be a shock to the system for the presidential candidates to receive direct questioning like that just because it's not what they're expecting. But like anything else, if it's in the ground rules, they should come prepared. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like what you're saying is it's less about that there's a lack of direct questions, but that what you hear is a lack of pushback when politicians don't answer that direct question. Do I have that right? That's absolutely correct.

And to me, it's an issue of respect. It's an issue of respect for the office, for your opponent, for the moderators, but most importantly, for the viewers and listeners. Have the respect to them for them to answer directly. Have the respect to tell the truth. Have the respect to answer the questions to the best of your ability. Because again, most folks are not political junkies like the two of us. There are folks who dip in and out of politics, and this might be their one chance to hear from the candidates, and they should hear direct, respectful answers to questions. If you were moderating Tuesday night, is there a top question or two that you would love to

hear put to Donald Trump and or Kamala Harris? You know, the way that I do my debate prep, I spend a lot of time coming up with questions that I feel are direct and respectful and will bear fruit. I have not sat down and put that kind of time into questions for a presidential debate that I would be moderating only in my head. So I have not done that. But more than anything, certainly the journalists from ABC will have very good questions. I would just love to see the follow up and the redirect when the obvious answer is coming back to you. And it's dancing around the topic to go back in to try again, because then at least the viewers will see there was an attempt made on my behalf on behalf of the public to get me something of value there. Kyle Clark of Nine News in Denver, Colorado. Thanks so much. This has been fun. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. This episode was produced by Mark Rivers and Elena Burnett with audio engineering by Neil T. Vault. It was edited by Jeanette Woods and Courtney Dourning. Our executive producer is

Sammy Yenigan. And one more thing before we go, you can now enjoy the Consider This newsletter. We still help you break down a major story of the day, and you will also get to know our producers and hosts and some moments of joy from the All Things Considered team. You can sign up at npr. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.