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