ABC Debate a Travesty of Modern Media

Tonight's democratic debate was embarrassing. The topics covered in the first half of the debate included:

Clinton's "electability"
Obama's pastor
Clinton's lies about Bosnia
Obama's quotes about guns and church
Clinton's friends
Obama's patriotism

The entire first 40 minutes of the debate revolved around the petty media-made controversies that have circulated like high school rumors over the past weeks. The two moderators seemed fixated on questions of personality that have little or nothing to do with either candidates ability to lead or position on real issues.

This debate seems to me a perfect symbol of the insanity of our modern election coverage and more so a bellweather of our current media system. The media feeds us these tailor made controveries and repeats the same talking points over and over, regurgitating weak assertions and making the kinds of logical leaps designed to push candidates into a corner not foster real dialog on real issue.

This is media consolidation staring us in the face. This is the intersection of media and democracy in its most stark and dangerous. The first forty minutes of this debate were designed to feed the beast - that is, it was designed to resusitate a few dying stories and give the shallow TV pundits a way to keep rehashing the same talking points for at least another week.

I am willing to wager that all the news about this debate will focus on the first half hour. If the debatehad centered on real issues then the big media execs would have to actually pay their journalists to do some investigative reporting instead ofsimply hiring some pundits and recycling YouTube clips.

By the time they got to the first real issue - the war - it was after the 3rd commercial break and nearly an hour through the night. Crap first. Issues second. Welcome to our media system. And it is only set to get worse as it is poised to get bigger. Size matters - we need to remind the people what the media is meant to do.

Help us govern our country, help us make important decision about our lives, our communities, our country. Foster understanding and hold power accountable. Ask hard questions that matter, not hard questions to make a person squirm.

We need a media that matters.