On Friday (October 30th), RNC chairman Reince Priebus sent a letter to NBC News chairman Andrew Lack on Friday explaining that the GOP is suspending NBC's Republican debate in February because the CNBC debate last week had been conducted by the moderators "in bad faith." Priebus stated that the questions posed by the moderators in last week's debate were petty and mean-spirited, meant to embarrass the candidates on a personal level. Even though Priebus agreed that tough questions should be asked towards the candidates during debates, he believes that CNBC went to far during their debate on Wednesday and that their questions were not aimed towards policy or issues. CNBC disagreed and said the questions were meant to challenge and put pressure on the candidates to help viewers decide which candidate they wanted to support.
Even though NBC and CNBC are separate news stations, the GOP will suspend the NBC debate in February due to CNBC's actions in the debate, stating to NBC that CNBC 'is an arm of your organization, and we need to ensure there is not a repeat performance of last Wednesday's debate."
Questions:
1. What questions do you think moderators should be allowed to ask during debates? Should they be allowed to ask personal, tough questions to pressure candidates or should they stick to policy-based questions?
2. Was it right for the GOP to suspend the NBC debate over CNBC's own debating methods? Why or why not?
I think that during debates moderators should stick to questions that are based on the issues and policy, because when the moderators start asking personal, ridiculous questions towards the candidates it becomes more of a political reality show of 'which candidate can insult the others most' than a political debate. Last Wednesday's Republican debate, I personally thought, was childish and the moderators caused much of the drama with their choice of questions. Even though CNBC says the personal questions were meant to challenge candidates, most of them were just petty, idiotic, and were not focused on the issues. I think the GOP did the right thing to suspend NBC's involvement in the February Republican debate to ensure that it'll be more civilized, for even though NBC and CNBC are different news stations they are both still tightly connected and are very similar.
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Replies
Excellent job!! Not sure why more people didn't reply. Perhaps they are tired of politics??
I think that it's okay to ask difficult questions for the presidential candidates because if they can't answer a hard question concerning their opinion, how do you expect them to answer a hard question concerning a state of our country. I understand that things can get touchy, but that's when you find out who your truthful candidates are.
I agree that candidates should be asked difficult questions concerning their policies, but I feel it goes against the purpose of the debates for the moderators to attack candidates with personal, petty questions that don't include issues and shouldn't determine the next president. I believe that the American people watching the debate would much rather watch a debate that talks about issues and candidates major platforms instead of one where the moderator's cause unnecessary drama with ridiculous questions to attack the candidates, which is what the CNBC debate was like.