The Television Debates- A Revolution That Deserves a Future

8/10/2019 The Television Debates- A Revolution That Deserves a Future

1/17

American Association for Public Opinion Research

The Television Debates: A Revolution That Deserves a FutureAuthor(s): Richard S. SalantSource: The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Autumn, 1962), pp. 335-350Published by: Oxford University Presson behalf of the American Association for Public Opinion Research

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2/17

THE TELEVISION

DEBATES:

A REVOLUTION

THAT

DESERVES

A FUTURE

BY RICHARD

S. SALANT

Against the

backgroundof evidence

of the

effectiveness

of

the

presidential

debatesin 1960,a case is here made for

the continuance

of

such

debating

in

futurepresidential

campaigns,

as well

as in other

political

contests.

Richard

S. Salant is President

of CBS

News.

This article

is based on

a

paper

presented

at the 1961

Annual

Meeting of

the

American

Political Science

Association

held

in St. Louis,

Missouri,

September6

to 9, 1961.

N

The

Making of

the President

960,

Theodore

H. White

described

the

first

broadcast debate

between

candidates

for the office

of

the

President

of

the

United

States as

a revolution

in American

presi-

dential

politics

born

of the ceaseless American genius

in

tech-

nology; its sole agent and organizer had been the common American

television

set.

The

revolution,

he

said,

lay

in the

simple

fact

that

television

permitted

the simultaneous

gathering

of all the tribes

of

America to ponder

their choice

between

two chieftains

in

the largest

political

convocation

in

the

history

of

man. '

It

is the

purpose

of

this

paper

to discuss

some

aspects

of this revolu-

tion-its

origin,

its

implications,

its

significance,

and

its

future,

if

any.

As of

now,

the

four

face-to-face

joint

appearances

of Vice President

Nixon

and Senator

Kennedy

must remain as

a

singular

revolution,

with

no subsequent

history

and no

subsequent

evolution. For at

midnight of

Election Day 1960,

the

Federal

law which

made that revolution possible

expired by

its

own terms.

Section

315

of

the

Communications

Act-

the

equal-time

provisions

of

the law-automatically revived.

And so

today, as

the

law

stands,

whenever there

are more than

two

candidates

for

any

office-certainly

when there are

fifteen,

as

there were for

the

office

of

the

Presidency

of the United States

in

1960,

and

thirteen, as

there

were for the office of

Governor of New Jersey

in 196i-this

revolution in the use of broadcasting in campaign politics is ended,

so

impractical

and

unwieldy

as to

be foreclosed

in the

future.

Is this good or bad,

wise or unwise? Would

the democratic

processes

be

better

served

if the

same

American geniuses

who invented

television

I

Theodore H.

White,

The

Making

of

the President

1960,

New

York,

Atheneum,

1962,

p.

279.

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3/17

336

PUBLIC

OPINION QUARTERLY

and

radio could disinvent them altogether-at least for

political pur-

poses?

Or, instead, should there be a new set of Federal

controls and

specifications, a nev set of ground rules so that broadcasting can be

of

greater

benefit to the American voter? Is there

anything

the broad-

casters

themselves can prescribe to govern political use of

their facilities

so

as

to

reduce the dangers of abuse and increase

the

opportunities of

the

voters to make an informed and intelligent choice

among those who

aspire to serve as their political

leaders?

These

questions can, perhaps, be better answered by

reviewing what

we know

about the impact and influence of radio and

television,

what

the

dangers of abuse are, what

the potentials-for good or evil-are,

what was right and what was

wrong with the joint

appearances and

other

uses

of

broadcasting

in

1960,

and what the

future

holds

or

can

hold, given a change in Section

315.

THE ROLE OF

RADIO AND TELEVISION IN

POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING

Communication

is,

of

course,

the

essence of

a

political

campaign.

Candidates

must,

in

one

way

or

another,

communicate with

the citizens

whose vote they seek.

It is a

curious historical footnote

that

political observers

identify

two types of communications at

opposite extremes of

the

spectrum as

having been among the decisive

factors

in the

making

of

the

President

in

1960.

At

one extreme

was

that

most

limited

and focused of all communica-

tions,

the

person-to-person

telephone

call. In

October

1960

Martin

Luther

King was arrested

and

jailed

in

Georgia

for

participating

in

a

sit-in

in a

department

store.

On October

25,

as

Theodore

White

describes it, John Kennedy From his room at the [O'Hare] Inn [at the

International

Airport

in

Chicago],

without

consulting

anyone,

. . .

placed

a

long-distance telephone

call

to

Mrs. Martin Luther

King,

assured

her of his interest

and concern in her

suffering

and,

if

necessary,

his intervention. 2

In

one

of

the rare

cases

of

documented

conversion

in

political

cam-

paigning, White describes

what

happened

as

a

result of

this

communica-

tion: The father

of Martin Luther

King,

.

.

.

who

had

come

out

for

Nixon

a few

weeks

earlier

on

religious grounds,

now

switched.

.

..

Across

the

country,

scores of

Negro leaders, deeply

Protestant

but

even

more

deeply impressed by

Kennedy's action,

followed

suit....93

According

to

White,

this caused

a

swing

of the

Negro

vote in

a number

2

Ibid.,

p.

322.

3

Ibid.,

p.

323.



4/17

THE TELEVISION DEBATES

337

of

key states

which

Kennedy

won

by

a narrow

margin.

Thus one

extreme of communication-a

telephone

call from one

person

to

another-appears to have been a decisive factor which led to the

election

of a

President.

At the other extreme

of communication were the

joint appearances

of the

two candidates on radio

and

television. Here the

communication

was

not

to one person but to over one

hundred million. The

general

consensus is

that these broadcasts, too, were decisive,

that

without

them

Kennedy

would

not

have won.

Many Republicans

are

persuaded

that these

broadcasts were

a

mistake

fatal

to

Nixon.

And

President

Kennedy, after the election, stated,

It

was

TV

more

than

anything

else that turned the tide. 4

The

point here is not to propose a

final

judgment concerning

what

won for

Kennedy

or

lost

for

Nixon,

or

to determine the

precise

influ-

ence of the

broadcast appearances.

Rather,

it

is

to

consider

these

two

extremes of

communication in

juxtaposition, recognizing

the proba-

bility that without either

of

them Nixon would have

won.

These contrasts

in

decisive communications

serve

to

provide

the

perspective

in which

to

consider

the

impact

and influence

of

broad-

casting-to remind us that mass communications, even television, pro-

vide only one means

of communicating,

only

one

means

by

which voters

form or (more

likely)

confirm

their

judgments. Only

if this

is recog-

nized can the

use

of

broadcasting

in

politics

be

sensibly

evaluated.

The critical

issues, then,

are

(i) the reach

and penetration of the

broadcasting media and, once the reach

is

measured, (2) their grasp.

MEASURES OF RADIO

AND

TELEVISION

The reach of

the broadcasting media. The pervasiveness of radio

and

television are well known. Over i68 million radios are in use in the

United

States

today.

Almost

go

per

cent of

American

families-more

than

40

million-have one or more television sets; they use them,

on

the

average,

more than

five

hours

a

day.

In

these

circumstances, it is hardly

surprising that the political

campaigns are followed on radio and

television by tens of millions

of

Americans.

It

is

worth

noting,

if

only parenthetically, that this

great

attention

the

public pays to electronic political

campaigning

comes

about

because

of

the

enormous

attention the

public pays to radio

and

television in

general.

It

is,

after

all,

the

popular entertainment which

motivated the initial

purchase of receivers,

and which keeps the public

in

the

habit of

turning

to their

radios and television sets for political

campaigns.

Tens

of

millions of American citizens do not suddenly begin

4

Ibid.,

p.

294.



5/17

338 PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY

buying the Reporter or the Saturday Review or even

the New York

Times during political campaigns; their

circulation

remains substan-

tially the same. Similarly, because it is their habit, the tens of millions

of citizens turn to radio and television.

How

many tens of millions?

A total of about 115 million people attended, through radio and

television, at least some part of at least one of the four

1960 debates.

The average television audience for all four debates was

71 million.

The

typical family

tuned in

its

television

set to these

debates

for

54

minutes of

every

hour-in

sharp

contrast

to the

high

tune-out

during

paid political broadcasts.

The four debates

attracted television audiences

averaging

2o

per

cent

larger

than the

entertainment

programs

for which

they

were

substi-

tuted. In

contrast,

the

average

half-hour

paid political broadcast

in

1960

attracted

only

70 per cent of the audience of the

program

it

replaced. But,

it

is

to

be

noted,

even

the paid political

programs

aver-

aged

audiences well

in

excess

of

2o

million-a

figure which might

be

compared

with the estimate

of a

total

of

io million

people

who

saw

Nixon

in

person during

his

extended and strenuous

fifty-state

cam-

paign tour in

1960.

Another quantitative measure of the reach of the broadcast media

in

political campaigns

is the extent to which

people rely-or

say they

rely-on

these

media for their

political

information and

impressions.

The

evidence indicates

that

this

reliance

is heavy.

A

survey

conducted in

Wayne County, Michigan,

in

1956

by

Professor

Samuel

Eldersveld of

the

University

of

Michigan

showed

that

38 per

cent

of

the

people

stated

that

they

received most

of

their

political

information from

television, 38 per

cent

from

newspapers, and 9 per

cent

from radio.

University

of

Michigan

studies in

1956

and

1961

and

a

study by

an

advertising agency5 strongly

confirm

this

evidence. A

study

conducted

by

Elmo

Roper

for CBS showed that

93 per

cent

of

those who

followed

the

1960 conventions (69 per cent of the respond-

ents)

did

so through television, 47 per

cent

through

newspapers, and

i6

per

cent

through

radio.6

These

findings indicating the

importance

of

the

broadcast

media,

and

particularly television,

as

a

major

source

of

political information to

voters

are substantially paralleled

by

find-

ings relating to British voters.7

5

Television and the Political

Candidate,

New

York,

Cunningham & Walsh,

1959.

6

Elmo

Roper, Election

Study II: Concerning Issues

and

Candidates, October

1960,

unpublished.

7

Joseph

Trenaman and Denis McQuail,

Television

and the Political Image, Lon-

don,

Methuen, 1961, Chap.

V.



6/17

THE TELEVISION

DEBATES 339

The

impact

and

influence

of the

broadcasting

media. These

several

findings, then, serve to establish

that the

reach

of the broadcast

media

is long indeed; they have come to serve as the major source of political

information

and impressions

during campaign periods.

But does

their

grasp

match their reach: to

what extent,

if

any,

do

they

influence

and

persuade, or

affect

voting

behavior?

Here we are on slippery

ground,

a

probe

of

the

minds

(or

deeply

set

emotions

and

instincts)

of

millions of

men

and women

to

discover

why

they

vote

as

they do. This

is an

exercise

in

mass

analysis;

it

concerns

ethnics, history, parental

relationships,

the influence

of

peers (and

the

determination

of

who are

peers), interpersonal

relationships-the

whole

congeries of factors whose influence

has

been so

difficult

to

isolate.

Nevertheless, there seems

to

be

a

strong

consensus

among

the

social

scientists

on

the answers to these questions.

While

their conclusions

appear to contradict the claims

of some

broadcasters

(and

the

charges

of some critics

of

broadcasting)

that

television

can

indeed mold

men's

minds like clay, they seem

eminently reasonable.8

Briefly,

the

social

scientists conclude that

the mass media play

only

a

relatively

small

part

in

persuading the voter to

vote differently

from

the way

all

the

other,

deeper influences would have led him to vote.

Klapper,

in

The Effects

of Mass Communications, comments on

the

plethora of relevant but

inconclusive and at times seemingly

contra-

dictory

findings, yet he proposes that social

scientists now

know

con-

siderably more about

communication than

they thought they did.9

By

combining the results of research surveys

and the

considered con-

jecture of reputable and

acute thinkers, a remarkably clear

picture

of

the

effect of the media

emerges. Klapper

confirms Lazarsfeld's classic

1940 findings in The People's Choice that mass communications are

far

more likely to

reinforce convictions than change them.

He also

concludes, as did

Trenaman and McQuail,l1

that there is a barrier

between communications

and the political

attitudes and opinions of the

electorate, and he notes that these

ego-involved attitudes are peculiarly

resistant to conversion by mass

communication.

Berelson summed it up

somewhat moodily, but perhaps as

accurately

as

possible when dealing in

general terms, that

some kinds of communi-

cation

on some kinds of issues, brought to the

attention of some

kinds of

8

See

Raymond

A.

and Alice

H.

Bauer, America, 'Mass

Society'

and

Mass

Media,

Journal

of Social

Issues,

Vol.

16,

No.

3,

1960,

pp.

3-66.

9

Joseph

Klapper,

The

Effects of

Mass

Communications, New

York,

Free

Press of

Glencoe,

196o,

p.

3.

10

Op.cit.

11

Klapper,

op.cit.,

p.

45.



7/17

340

PUBLIC

OPINION QUARTERLY

people

under some kinds of conditions, have some kinds

of effects. '2

Mass

media-even television-are likely to have the

least effect, in

terms of persuasion and conversion, in the areas of deeply held beliefs,

among

which must be numbered politics. It is here that

the distinction

must be

drawn between ideas,

such as political beliefs, and products

and

merchandise. There can be little question that

television is an

enormously

effective

merchandising medium;

it

sells

products.

But

there is a sharp distinction

between goods and beliefs.

Television can

persuade

a

viewer to buy a refrigerator or a toothpaste

or

an

electric

shaver if

he is about ready to buy one and is on the

verge of making a

choice

among products which serve the same purpose

and differ from

one another

in

only

a few

characteristics. The

general public

normally

does not

have deeply held beliefs about the relative

merits

of

one

cigarette over another, and so

many cigarette buyers are

most certainly

persuadable

over

a

period of time. The situation differs

for most voters

and

political beliefs. The trends, the influences, the

directions are

deep-seated

and to

a

considerable degree fixed. Persuasion

and conver-

sion

are far rarer and

more difficult

in this field.

Why,

then,

are

legislators deeply

concerned about

equal

time,

and

why do politicians wage elaborate television campaigns? One answer

is that television is important to

candidates even if it does

not convert.

Torchlight parades, motor

cavalcades, political

rallies in Main

Street

and in Madison Square Garden

do not convert either,

but

they

do

inspirit the faithful, raise their

flagging hopes, provide

them with the

fervor

and

rationalizations

to serve their cause. Paid

political

rallies

on

television serve the same

purpose

of reinforcement.

Republicans

still must reach

Republicans,

and

Democrats,

Democrats.

Television

rallies are

a

quick

and effective means

to

serve that

purpose,

for

we

know that the vast majority of those tuning in to Republican television

broadcasts are

Republicans, and

to Democratic

broadcasts,

Democrats.

More

than

this,

as

both

Berelson

and Klapper have

said,

in

some

circumstances,

on

some

issues,

television will

have some influence

on

some

people.

While

quantification

is

a

dangerous

business

here,

we have

some

evidence that some

people

are

converted to some

extent-or

think

they

are.

In

its

study

of the

1958

New

York

gubernatorial

campaign, Cunning-

ham and Walsh reported 56 cases of switching out of a total sample

of

537-people

who said that

they

voted for a different candidate

from

the

one for whom

they

had

expected

to vote.13

Two to three

times the

12

Bernard Berelson,

Communications and

Public Opinion,

in

Wilbur

Schramm,

Communications in Modern Society, Urbana,

University of Illinois Press, 1948, p. 184.

13

Television and the

Political Candidate, pp. 27-28.



8/17

THE TELEVISION

DEBATES

341

number of

voters among these 56 switched

from Harriman to Rocke-

feller

than

vice versa. A few of these

switchers

said

they

changed

because of the candidates' television appearances, which included at

least one

joint appearance.

A

more comprehensive indication of

persuasion

and

possible

con-

version is

provided by Elmo Roper's

surveys for CBS

News

during

the

last campaign.14

In one of these surveys, which went into the field

after

the

fourth debate and before Election

Day,

interviewers asked

whether

the interviewees had watched the

candidates on television,

and

whether

they had watched the debates. Roper

reported that 44 per

cent

of

the

respondents who voted said that

the debates

had influenced

their

decision. About 5 per

cent-projecting to 3,400,000

voters-ascribed

their final

voting decision to the debates alone. Of these

3,400,000

voters, 884,000

(26 per cent) voted

for Nixon and 2,448,ooo (72 per

cent) voted for Kennedy (2 per cent

did not reveal their

vote).

The

debates,

according to these figures, yielded Kennedy a net

gain

of

1,564,000

votes-over 13 times

greater than his winning margin

of

about 113,000.

The

Cunningham and Walsh and Roper surveys are not, of

course,

final proof of persuasion or conversion by television. They indicate

only

that some number-in

the case of

the i960 presidential

cam-

paign, a decisive number-think, or

say, that certain television

broad-

casts were the

critical factor in their voting decision. Even so,

taking

the

responses

in the Roper study at their face value, the net

change

caused

by the debates was only 2 per cent

of

the

total vote.

In

any event, the figures may well be

inapplicable to ordinary

politi-

cal

broadcasting and apply only to

these unique debates, in which,

according to all surveys, one of the

participants had a

decisive edge.

It

may be-although the evidence

surely is inconclusive-that

debates,

involving as

they do joint appearances

and face-to-face arguments, have

a

greater impact and produce more

conversions than single, set

appear-

ances controlled by the candidate.

TELEVISION

AND

POLITICS-ABUSES

AND

USES

It

thus

appears

that

we

know

that

(1) television's reach is enormous-

through it, a

candidate

can

reach

almost all

Americans, and, given

the

proper programming and chemistry, as in the case of the debates, hold

their

attention;

and

(2) by

a

large

margin,

television's

grasp

is

exceeded

by

its reach

(even

if

television's

ability

to

convert is

limited,

however,

it

may

be

a

decisive

factor).

With these

facts,

television's

dangers

and

14

Roper,

op.cit.



9/17

342 PUBLIC

OPINION QUARTERLY

promises as an instrument of

democratic processes

can

be more mean-

ingfully judged.

The dangers. Many have considered television a dangerous medium-

in

politics as in other fields. After the Second World War, when

tele-

vision began to grow

rapidly, its enormous potential

alarmed

many

thoughtful observers and writers. With the

union

of television

and

advertising, it was felt that

candidates would eventually

be sold like

soap; that only those with

pleasing television personalities

would be

selected as

candidates;

and

that

charlatans

with

acting talent,

backed

by make-up men,

ghostwriters, and teleprompters, could

be

elected

to

the highest office

in

the land.15

Over the years, fears of television

were to some extent dispelled.

Television was, as we have

seen, becoming the most important

source

of

information

to the

voter,

yet

there

was an

extremely high

tune-out

of

sets during paid political

broadcasts. It also became apparent

to

politicians that there was a

point beyond which candidates

saturated

the

airwaves at

their own

risk. In

1952,

after

pre-empting prime

evening

time,

Governor

Stevenson received the now famous wire: I like Ike

and I

love Lucy. Drop dead

(an example,

it

may

be

noted,

of the

reinforcement of which social scientists write).

Psychologists pointed out

that with

political advertising there is

a

built-in

safety valve. When

people begin to feel

that

their freedom

is

being

threatened

by

a

massive

political advertising campaign, they

are

likely

to

react so

violently

that

the campaign

can be

a

serious

liability to

the candidate it means

to promote.

Further,

television

can

be a

probing and revealing medium. As John

Crosby

has

noted,

it throws

a

merciless white

light

on

phoniness.

The

candidate

had

better know what

he

is

talking

about....

It is

not

his

looks that television puts under scrutiny; it is his ability. Or as Walter

Cronkite observed

in his

article

in

Theatre

Arts,

Television has an

eerie

ability

to

X-ray

the

soul.

I

think it can detect

insincerity as

quickly

as

a

more orthodox

X-ray

can

detect a broken bone.

A

second major danger

which has disturbed some observers is

that

television

gives

an

enormous

advantage to the candidate, and the

party,

with

the

largest purse. Television's costs are enormous-over

$1oo,ooo

for

time alone (exclusive of

program and production costs) for

an

evening hour on a network.

To

guard against

that

danger,

it

has

been

suggested

that

broadcasters

be compelled to give

a

certain

number of hours of free time to

candi-

15

See,

for

example,

John

G.

Schneider,

The Golden

Kazoo,

New

York,

Rinehart,

1956;

and

Government

by

Hooper

Rating,

Theater Arts

Magazine,

November

1952,

p. 30.



10/17

THE

TELEVISION

DEBATES

343

dates

for office. Aside from

the

fact

that this

ignores

the

enormous

number of national and

local

candidates

in an

election

year,

and that

television might become nothing but an election medium if it were

forced to grant

them all free

time,

this

provision

hardly

seems

fair.

Nobody has yet suggested

that

a

newspaper

or

a

magazine,

in

return

for the

second-class mailing privilege, offer the

candidates

free adver-

tising space;

nobody

has

suggested

that the airlines

transport

candidates

free-although they are

licensed

to use

segments

of the nation's

limited

airspace, just

as

television stations

are licensed

to

use a

portion

of

the

electromagnetic

spectrum.

The

fact

is that

compulsory

free time

is

an

artificial

remedy

for

an

artificially

created

problem.

In

campaigns

prior

to

1960,

candidates

had

limited

access to

free

television

time

because

of

Section

315. For,

under

that

provision,

free time

to any

candidate meant

free

time to all his

opponents

for

the same office. Faced with

campaigns

with a

dozen

or

more candidates

for

a

single office,

broadcasters

were driven to

adopt

a

policy

of

selling

rather than

giving

time.

Ironically,

Section

315

is

satisfied

if time

is offered

for

sale

equally;

the section

is

indifferent

to the

unequal ability to

buy.

Before the

1960

campaign, this problem was alleviated by a number

of amendments

to

Section

315.

In

1959

Congress

permanently

amended

Section

315 to exempt

from the

equal-time

requirements

regularly

scheduled

newscasts,

on-the-spot coverage

of news

events (such

as

acceptance speeches

at

conventions),

and

regularly scheduled

news

interview

programs such

as Washington

Conversation and

Meet

the Press.

And,

of

course,

of even

greater

significance,

on the

eve of the

i960

campaign Congress temporarily suspended the application of Section

315

to

presidential

and vice

presidential

campaigns, making the

debates

and

a

number of other

radio and

television programs possible

during

the campaign.

Thus, for

the presidential campaign

in 1960 the

danger of the long

purse was

minimized. For,

not counting the regularly

scheduled news-

casts, the

CBS Radio and Television

Networks

devoted a total of 16?

hours

to

personal appearances of the

Democratic

and Republican

candidates

in 1960, at no

charge to them. In addition,

in i1960, 16

hours

were devoted, free to the parties, to supporters of the major candidates.

The

monetary value of

these 1960 broadcasts

exceeded $2

million.

Additional

time offered

by CBS to the candidates

but not

accepted

amounted to

$700,000.

The

clearest and most

direct protection, then,

against the

danger



11/17

344

PUBLIC OPINION

QUARTERLY

of a bought election by obliterative purchase of television time is to

repeal Section 315, thus assuring to all significant candidates free time

in

quantities apparently beyond

their desires.

It is therefore apparent that the

major dangers

attributed

to political

broadcasting-the phony candidate

and excessive costs-are, in fact,

not grave at all and can be

minimized.

The benefits.The benefits to democratic processes that television can

bring, and has in a measure already

brought, far outweigh the real or

imagined dangers.

One of

the problems in our

expanding

and

increasingly complex

democratic

society is remoteness,

lack

of

citizen

participation, apathy

and

indifference born of the absence of direct communication between

candidates and most of the voters. Radio and television have con-

siderably closed

these

gaps. They

have

provided

a

direct

link

between

politician and public; they have

permitted voters to see

and hear

for

themselves first-hand, without having to rely on the filter of a news-

paper reporter whose selection of

what

and how

to report, whose

impressions and choice of words,

are necessarily his own.

After the

1952

Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Philip

Hamburger wrote

in

the

New

Yorker:

Television, covering affairs of

this

sort,

makes the viewer a

member of a

community vastly larger

than his

own without

demanding

that he

sacrifice

any

of

his

individuality.

It does not

require

him

to

judge,

nor

does it

judge

him-a

nightmare envisioned by

Orwell and

mercifully

not

in

prospect....

In

a sense, television coverage of a national convention turns the entire nation

into

a

huge town meeting...

16

Mr.

Hamburger

concluded that the

proceedings

themselves were

irre-

sistible, being a manifestation of the right of every delegate-and, by

extension, every citizen-to

take

a direct

part

in the

choosing

of

his

President.

In

1952, the Saturday Review put it another way when it stated:

That vast

public which is too untutored

or too indifferent to apply

itself

with

assiduity

to

evolving

a clear

conception of a candidate from

his

speeches

as

reported

in the

press,

is

now able to follow his

course through political events

with the least

possible effort

over

television.

.

.

. The

America of

150,000,000

souls

is

nearer

today to

the

era

when

politicians

and

people met face to face

than in many a long decade.17

16

Philip

Hamburger, Television:

Back to

Chicago,

New

Yorker,

Aug.

2,

1952,

p.

38.

17

Amy

Loveman,

Town

Meeting by

Oscillation,

Saturday

Review,

Aug. 9,

1952,

p.

20.



12/17

THE

TELEVISION DEBATES

345

THE CHANGING USE

OF

TELEVISION-THE NEAR PAST

AND

THE FUTURE

It

was not,

however, until the i960

campaign,

when

broadcasters

were

able to

operate

under the

1959

amendments

to Section

315

and

its

temporary suspension as far as

presidential

and vice

presidential

candi-

dates

were

concerned, that the real potential

of

television

began

to

be

realized. For the first time,

the political

diet

in

television

was

not

the

set

speeches by

the

candidates,

the

carefully staged

rallies,

the

screened

and rehearsed

telethons,

but

rather the more

meaningful

beginnings

of

a national

dialogue

and

a

systematic

portrait

of

the nature of

the

candidates.

Under

the 1959

amendments,

as

noted,

it was

possible

for

the

first

time

to present

the

candidates on

press

interview

broadcasts.

James

Reston

of

the

New York

Times has described

press panel

broadcasts

such

as these as

important

antidotes

to

one-way

campaigns ;

he

has

urged

their

use

to

offset the

candidates' reliance

on

what he

calls the

techniques

of modern

salesmanship.

Programs of this

nature

proved effective

and

revealing

in

1960.

They

will doubtless be

more

widely

utilized in future

campaigns

if the

re-

quirement in the 1959 amendments that they be permitted only if part

of

regularly

scheduled

series do not

prove

too

limiting,

as

they

might.

A

second and

important new

technique, developed

under the

tempo-

rary

suspension of

Section 315 (and so

unavailable

in the future with-

out

further

Congressional action), was the

informal conversation with

the

candidate. In

Person to Person

and

Presidential Countdown

on

CBS,

and

in

The

Campaign

and

the Candidates

on NBC,

there

were

unrehearsed

conversations, quiet

and often

revealing, between a

newsman and the candidate, dealing less with the immediate issues

than

with the

nature of the man, his

philosophy, his

background, and

his

character.

In

the

excitement over the debates,

these

portraits have too often

been

overlooked. Yet they

proved to be

an effective use of

television,

affording the voter the all

too rare opportunity to

learn for

himself

what

manner of men these

were who sought to lead

this nation.

They

provided

some rare insights.

The third new

technique,

of course, was the

debates. Before

these

joint

appearances

were possible, Stanley

Kelley, Jr.,

presented a per-

suasive

case for debates

among

candidates as an important

technique

for

quickening the election

pro-cesses.18

he campaign discussion,

Kelley

18

Stanley

Kelley,

Jr.,

Political

Campaigning,

Washington,

D.C.,

The

Brookings

Institution,

1960.



13/17

346

PUBLIC OPINION

QUARTERLY

wrote, should help voters make rational

voting

decisions.

A rational

voter must have

discerned what is at

stake

in an

election, and (he

quotes from John Stuart Mill), the only way in which a human being

can make some

approach to knowing

the whole of

a

subject is by

hearing what can be said about it

by persons of

every variety of

opinion (italics

mine).

Unfortunately,

Kelley pointed out,

the

political

campaign

has

degen-

erated into a kind of

adversary

proceeding. Each side puts its best foot

forward and distorts

the efforts of the

opposition. Under such condi-

tions the ability of

the individual voter to get

an accurate

picture

of

the

views and records

of parties and candidates will

depend

.

.

.

on

whether or not he

is

exposed to

the

communications of both

sides. '9

Kelley observed

that

argument elevates

the observer

(if

not

neces-

sarily

the

participants); that debates promote rational

discussion;

that

audiences

for rival

candidates are

usually separate,

each

group seeking

to

reinforce its

own

convictions;

that

the political

rally fosters

this

partisanship,

celebrating unity, while

the old-time face-to-face argu-

ments

enabled

the

audience

to

grasp

the

arguments

for

both

sides.

In

the senatorial

debates between Jacob

Javits

and

Robert

Wagner

in

1956, Kelley points out, the stands of the two parties [on the issues of

civil

rights and

foreign policy]

were

less

distorted

than

they

were in

the

Eisenhower-Stevenson

speeches.

In

other words,

the

issue

was

joined-as it rarely

is in political campaigns-and

the result was

greater clarity.

The

case

is summarized

in

a

quotation

from

a

veteran

Southern

politician, discussing,

in

1889, the

demise of

the

political

campaign

debates:

Forty years ago constant practice had made

our

public

speakers so

skillful

in

debate

that

every question

was made clear.

...

For the last 2o years this practical union between politician and people

has

not

existed.

Only

one party

is allowed

to speak

and

the leaders of

that

party

no

longer debate, they

simply

declaim and denounce.

Upon

this

crude and

windy diet, the once

robust and sturdy political con-

victions

of

our

people

have dwindled

into

leanness

and

decay. 20

The debates in

1960,

with all

their

faults, thus provided the most

important changes

in

the use of television in

campaign politics.

Walter

Lippmann

called the four

debates a bold innovation which

is bound

to be carried forward into future campaigns and could not now be

abandoned.

James

Reston

described the

debates

as a

great

improve-

ment

over

the frantic

rushing

about

the nation, roaring at

great howl-

ing

mobs at

airports

and

memorial

halls. Roscoe

Drummond

called

19

Ibid.,

p.

14.

20

Ibid.,

p.

153-



14/17

THE TELEVISION DEBATES

347

them an invaluable innovation..

.

. Even without any

changes,

I

vote

for their continuance. Marquis Childs wrote that they

added

a

new

dimension to politics, and President Kennedy called the debates a

significant advance in American politics.

But there were some dissenters. Among those who

rejected the

debates altogether were Max Ascoli of the Reporter, who wrote that

the very fact of arousing the interest of the millions

further lowers

the

level of the campaign oratory. 21 Another critic

was

the

noted

historian Henry Steele Commager. In an article entitled Washington

Would

Have Lost a TV Debate, Professor Commager

called

the

debates televised press conferences

[which]

in future

campaigns

could

be a disaster. Lincoln, Professor Commager says, was

not quick

in

the

give and take of politics. . . . Indeed, of our major

Presidents,

probably only Franklin D. Roosevelt had the wit, the resourcefulness,

the

self-assurance, to do well in such televised press interviews.'22

I

disagree with both these critics. I disagree with Ascoli because

I

believe the American voter neither wants platitudes nor

is

deceived

by them. I believe he wants facts and conflict, wants to

be shown a

real

difference of opinion between the candidates, so that he

can make

an

intelligent choice between them. The high interest in the debates, and

the

low

interest in paid political speeches (in which,

as Reston

has

noted, nobody has a chance to answer back), is evidence

that this

is

true.

Fundamentally, Ascoli's quarrel seems to be with

democracy itself.

If

arousing the interest of the millions can be achieved only at the

expense

of

the

intellectual,

the

philosopher, and other minority groups,

then that

is one

of

the prices we must pay for democracy. As Tocqueville

noted in 1835, the very essence of democratic

government consists

in

the absolute sovereignty of the majority.... No

obstacles exist which

can impede or even retard its progress, so as to heed the complaints of

those whom it crushes

upon its path.

We would

all

prefer

to

have the

candidates

sit

down

with

us

in

small

groups and go into the issues in detail, or even talk

to us in town

meetings.

But

this is

no

longer possible. Nixon estimated that

on

his

grueling fifty-state campaign he may have been seen in person by

lo

million

people,

about

one-seventh

of the total number of people

who

voted,

but more than

75

million

people

watched

the

first

debate

and almost as many watched the last. Their interest was sustained not

only throughout

each

debate,

but

throughout

all

four

debates. Cer-

tainly

the candidates aimed

their

remarks

at what

they

felt

was the

21

Max Ascoli, Reporter, Nov.

io, 1960,

p.

i8.

22

Henry

Steele

Commager, Washington Would

Have

Lost a TV Debate, New

York Times Magazine, Oct. 3o, 1960, pp. 13, 79.



15/17

348 PUBLIC

OPINIONQUARTERLY

largest common

denominator of the electorate, but they

nevertheless

sustained the interest

of the many

minority groups that made up the

majority.

Commager does

little to support his own argument about

the major

Presidents' ineptitude

at debate by pointing

out that Lincoln, in seven

stirring

debates

with

Douglas,

succeeded in educating

not only the

voters of

Illinois, but posterity as well. 23My own view

is that Lincoln

would

have been

magnificent in debates-on or off

television;

I

join

President

Kennedy, who wrote before the election that

the quiet

dignity of

Lincoln..

. would have been tremendously effective

on TV.

So, too, it is not unreasonable to suppose that Washington, despite his

methodical manner and false teeth, would have

had

the

appeal of an

Eisenhower. To

believe that the people

would have rejected Washing-

ton

is to criticize,

not television, but

the people.

A third

critic,

Norman Cousins, wrote in the Saturday

Review that

the debates

put

a

premium

on

superficiality

and failed

to reveal the

inner nature of

the candidates. He

criticized the debates as running

counter to the

educational process.

They require that a man keep

his mouth moving

whether he has

something to say or not.

It is

made

to appear that the worst thing that could happen to a candidate is to

be caught without an instant answer

to a complex question.

Thoughtful

silence is made

to appear

a

confession of ignorance. 2'

Theodore

White

made this

same point,

in

The

Making of

a President

I960, commenting

on

the snap replies

required of the

candidates.

I

agree that the

format of the debates was imperfect. CBS,

as well as

the other network organizations, preferred

a

more

traditional

debating

format in which

the candidates would be allowed to

question

each

other. Indeed, CBS proposed these joint appearances as only a part of

a more

comprehensive

plan

of

eight

hours

of

broadcast,

the first

and

last

(on

the eve of the election)

of

which would

have been divided

between

the candidates

for their own

uninterrupted

arguments

and

summaries,

and the

remaining

six of which

would have

included direct

debates as well

as

press

interviews

and

portraits.

But the candidates

themselves

would not

agree

to these

arrangements.

Time

to

complete

arrangements

was

short. It was

important

to

make

a start, to begin the evolution of a political tradition which, we are

sure,

will

make

even

more

significant

contributions in the

campaigns

to

come. The

format

which

was

used, therefore,

was the

result

of

23

Ibid., p.

8o.

24

Norman Cousins,

Presidents

Don't Have to

Be

Quiz Champions, Saturday

Review,

Nov.

5,

1960, p.

34.



16/17

THE TELEVISION DEBATES 349

compromise; without agreement

between

the networks and the

candi-

dates, there could have been no joint appearances

at

all.

Nevertheless, the view is mistaken

that

a

format

that

requires con-

stant mouth moving or permits only snap replies

is

necessarily

bad.

As Nixon pointed out at the time, Whoever

is President

is

going

to

have to make some decisions very speedily

at

times,

so

that the

people

at least get a chance to see how both of us react

under

fire.

And,

actually, nothing in the programs or their

format

required

that the

candidates shoot from the hip or

answer

a

particular question

with-

out deliberation.

Perhaps each

candidate

came to

the conclusion

that

he was compelled to do so, but if he did he underestimated the Ameri-

can people. One can doubt that the candidates would

have been

censured-indeed, they might have

been

more

appreciated-by

the

audience had they taken the time carefully to consider

an

answer.

While

no one knows

in what

form

the debate

format will come to

maturity, we may some day see candidates pausing, reflecting,

and

taking the time to make considered answers to questions.

Cousins also

felt

that the

debates did not

really

show what

manner

of

man

the

candidates

were,

that

the

battle

station

atmosphere

did

not lend itself to the kind of question that should have been asked.

On the

other hand,

it

is reasonable

to

conclude

that

the confronta-

tions

showed qualities of the candidates that might not

have been so

apparent under less demanding circumstances. I am

sure that most

people thought them more revealing than carefully

planned and

rehearsed political speeches, where the audience reaction

is carefully

cued

and the speech itself is a product of half a dozen skillful

minds-

not

necessarily including the candidate's. This manufactured image

certainly may bear little relationship to the inner man.

More than that, there were in fact, as we have noted, a number of

broadcasts other than the joint appearances which were designed to

meet

the objective Cousins emphasized-to shed light

on the kind of

man

the candidate was.

CONCLUSION

In sum, it would seem that the press interview broadcasts, the

conversational self-portraits, and the debates, in combination,

provided

significant advances in the use of television in campaign politics. In

1960, to a greater extent than in any other campaign

in American

history, the broadcast media afforded the voter the opportunity-only

partially realized, but still the opportunity-to know the

men and the

issues at first hand.



17/17

350

PUBLIC

OPINIONQUARTERLY

But,

indeed, it was

only a beginning. Much

is left to be done. Section

315 must be

repealed so that these

new

techniques can be continued,

improved, and applied to all

levels of elective

office. Broadcasters must

sharpen

their techniques and

experiment with more direct

debates, with

less

confining

formats, and with other kinds of

programs.

As

we

broadcasters feel surer of

our ground,

as we mature, we must

insist on

high

standards in politics, just as we

must in all

other kinds

of

programming.

We must

devise

fair but clear

rules to prevent-or

force

disclosure of-rehearsed

political

interviews and actors who play

the

part of

men-in-the-street

questioners-steps which CBS

News has

already

taken.

We

must

guard against

the

practice

by political parties

of buying time simultaneously on all networks, thus depriving the

public of any

choice-another step CBS News

has taken.

We must use

all our

persuasive powers

to

avoid the

curtailment

of

debates

during

the last

two

weeks before

Election

Day-as

happened

in

1960

at

the

insistence

of one

of

the

candidates, who wanted

to

control

his appear-

ances

during the crucial two weeks

before

November 8.

We

must

con-

sider

imposing

our

own limits on the

amount

of

time that

may

be

purchased

in

the

final

days of the campaign,

so as to avoid

the

dangers

of

a

last-minute

one-sided

saturation,

when

it is

too

late to

answer

arguments and charges.

Above all, we

broadcasters

must

conscientiously

use

our tools to

implement the democratic

process, having

as

our

only

criterion not

what

candidate or

party

the

new

techniques may help

but whether

these

techniques

will

better inform

the

public,

enabling

them to make

more

intelligently

that most vital

of

all

public

decisions,

the choice

of

their

leaders.

Partly

because

of

Section

315,

television has

barely begun

to

play

its

full and responsible role in the complicated and critical process of

selecting

and

electing

political

candidates. It has

the

duty,

and

surely

it

has

earned

the

right,

to

go

forward free

of Section

315

to fulfill

its

enormous

potential

as

an instrument

of

democracy

in

the

vital

business

of

politics.

Documents

The Television Debates- A Revolution That Deserves a Future