Ernie: " Impressive! I wish somebody at CNN would learn from them as well." My sentiments, exactly. Fox formerly had one show, Hannity and Colmes, which had a Left vs Right format, lots of sometimes good debates, but the trouble was --for my vantage-- the party hack weakness of Colmes on the Left, and the inch deep shallowness of Hannity on the Right. That show is fini, however. Fox does have "Special Report," which uses a 3 person discussion format, plus "neutral" moderator, the 3 guests different each show, so that over the course of a week you get approx the same number of Libs and Conservs, with an occasional Libtar or "other." ABC with George Stephanopolous and Fox with Mike Wallace ( both on Sunday mornings ) use a 4 person format, ideally 2 Left and 2 Right, which is also quite good, but this is about it -except for elections. Even MSNBC uses a version of this kind of format every 4 years. But, yeah, what about issues other than MSM-approved topics ? Nothing at all that I know about. Zilch. Al Jazeera pioneered with hard hitting serious debates and now several other Arab TV services use it also. I ( very much ) like the idea. Will we ever see it on American TV ? Don't hold your breath. Billy ====================================== In a message dated 9/16/2009 10:30:37 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Hi Billy, On Sep 16, 2009, at 8:48 AM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: There's no better place to see the impact of The Doha Debates than Yamamah University, a private college in Riyadh's sprawling desert outskirts. Seated in his campus office, Asaad said that when he decided to teach debating his only model was Arabic TV shows, where discussions "turn into more of a rooster fight than an actual debate." Initially, his students "were shouting at each other or answering a question with a question," Asaad recounted. "I said, 'Hey guys, we ... should be doing some things in a different way. There should be some quality. There should be some research. We should go a little bit deeper beyond what people say in the coffee shops or the bus stops.' " Then Asaad found The Doha Debates website. "As a teacher, it provided me with everything I needed," including the ability to download past debates and read transcripts. "We discussed the format, the role of the moderator, and I said, 'Fine, can we try a debate like this?' " Impressive! I wish somebody at CNN would learn from them as well. :-P -- Ernie P. = _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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