No Latinos among debate monitors?

To most politically aware people who are giving thought to presidential debates, the issue at question these days is whether or not there should even be a debate in the near future.

Republican John McCain is saying he won’t show up at the University of Mississippi on Friday for the first scheduled debate, claiming he wants to focus his concern on the financial crisis that confronts our nation.

BUT THERE IS one group that is concerned with the structure of the debates, whenever they finally take place – UNITY, a group promoting the interests of minority journalists in this country, says it is disappointed those debates will not be moderated by anyone other than a white man.

This is not a new trend. UNITY goes so far as to note only two of all the general election presidential debates of the past two decades were hosted by non-white males. And one of those, Bernard Shaw of CNN, worked his way into political notoriety by asking former Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Dukakis how he’d feel about the death penalty if his wife were raped, or killed.

Now this is a bit of a distortion, because it limits the discussion purely to the general election debates – which are usually more formal and fewer in number than what takes place in primary elections.

There have been greater numbers of non-white guys who helped set the boundaries for those debates that helped get us to the point where we are at now – where McCain will attempt to derail Democrat Barack Obama’s attempt at creating a moment in U.S. history.

THIS MIGHT VERY well have been the perfect year to get a non-white guy helping in the debates, primarily because race has the potential to become a factor. A recent Associated Press story indicated that 6 percent of the electorate could be inspired to vote against Obama because of his bi-racial background, which is enough to cost him an otherwise close election.

Will Anglo moderators be inclined to downplay the issue, or ignore it altogether out of fear they will say something stupid about race and become the story – instead of Obama or McCain?

There’s also the fact that someone other than the usual cast of characters will bring different news priorities as to what will be asked. For the perfect example of what I’m talking about, take the Democratic debate held prior to the Texas primary earlier this year.

I still remember the performance of Jorge Ramos, the anchorman for Univision’s national newscast, who helped moderate that debate. While CNN’s on-air talent tried to dominate the evening with their confrontational questions, Ramos wound up coming off as the one moderator who was literally trying to get information from either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.

WHEN HE GOT the two to differentiate themselves on their attitudes toward Cuba, that debate wound up “making some news,” so to speak.

So I can see why it could be of interest to include news types other than the “aging Anglos” among their ranks. There are some stories of interest that might not otherwise get attention – even though that should not be taken as a slight against the professional abilities of Jim Lehrer, Tom Brokaw or Bob Schieffer.

Those are the three men who will be moderating the various debates that have been scheduled for Campaign ’08 – with Lehrer of PBS scheduled to take his crack at making some news on Friday when the two major presidential candidates are scheduled to meet at the University of Mississippi.

“The journalists who were selected as moderators this year are outstanding, respective members of the profession,” UNITY president Karen Lincoln Michel, said in a prepared statement. “It is a glaring oversight, however, to have such a lack of diversity in a nation and an election where race, gender and age play such significant roles.”

A GOOD PART of the problem is that these debates usually look for established names in the ranks of political reporting, which means the aging white guys are the first to come up for consideration.

That should mean that the future Latino media star is developing his (or her) career somewhere and will someday be in these prominent roles.

The only problem with that logic is that recent rounds of staffing cuts at newsgathering organizations often single out for layoffs those younger or mid-level reporter-types. UNITY earlier this year released a study finding a disproportionate share of reporters who were laid off from their jobs are from racial or ethnic minorities.

There even were people criticizing the Chicago Tribune newspaper earlier this summer when they did a series of layoffs and buyouts so as to reduce their editorial staff budget for letting go of too many Latino reporter types, even though newspaper management claims ethnicity was not a factor at all when they decided who could stay, and who needed to leave.

OF COURSE, ALL of this debate discussion could be a moot point if McCain’s refusal to participate in the event is allowed to derail the flow of the Campaign ’08 season. It might also bring up the point that the ethnicity of a reporter-type might not be key when the primary issue is the struggling economy.

I’d like to think any debate moderator would realize this is a priority issue, particularly when hammering away at McCain as to his past support for allowing less regulation of the financial entities that are now asking the federal government to bail them out to the tune of $700 billion for their past mistakes.

Hearing McCain say he doesn’t want to debate now sounds too much like he wants to avoid having to answer that question, instead of his official campaign spin that he wants to focus attention on finding a solution.

At the very least, I don’t ever want to hear McCain complain about the lack of town hall-format hearings between the candidates when he’s trying to get out of the first debate.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: Would a reporter-type person of Latin American ethnic background be able (http://www.hispanicprwire.com/news.php?l=in&id=12588&cha=10) to ask questions during a debate more reflective of the interests of the general public?

Will there even be debates between the major presidential hopefuls? Not if John McCain (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/us/politics/25mccain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin) were to have his way.

Did the Chicago Tribune inadvertently hurt themselves by letting go of too many ethnic minority (http://www.mije.org/richardprince/newsroom-diversity-connection) reporters and editors?