The White Media’s Colorless Debates

September 25, 2008

The most anticipated debate of the campaign will take place this week. But there’s something missing in this campaign season where “change” is everything: you, or someone who looks like you, up there asking questions of the candidates. Where are the journalists of color?

Really, it’s not that hard to have a debate that looks like America. I actually moderated one in Los Angeles back in 2003.

Back then, Arianna Huffington wasn’t quite the blog publisher extraordinaire. She was on the other side as candidate Huffington, one in a diverse field taking part in a rather historic debate that September as California searched for a new governor after the recall of Gray Davis.

That Republican front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger was a no-show wasn’t the news. The real headline was us. In a state where the minorities had become the majority, the ethnic media was having a historic coming out party, holding for the first time a major public debate for the highest office in the most populous state in the union.

I was honored to have been chosen the moderator of that debate, which featured ethnic reporters firing off the questions (you can listen to it and read the transcript here: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=c8019e3c9bef564e54ac14f3986049d0 ).

Diversity in Action
What a novel idea for democracy it was! A big-time debate directed by the ethnic media and its multi-cultural audiences.

Since then, one would have hoped for far bolder moves up the food chain, perhaps even to national presidential politics. But five years later, the ethnic media (and even minority reporters in the mainstream) remain marginalized. And this week, when the first person of color nominated by a major party engages in the first official presidential debate of the fall, the official questioners of the candidates will once again look nothing like the new American electorate, and everything like the exclusive white-male dominated media of the past.

Nothing wrong with Bob Schieffer of CBS, Jim Lehrer of PBS and Tom Brokaw of NBC. Mind you, they’ve just asked too many of the same questions already in all the previous debate years, when our concerns were glossed over and ignored.

The Commission on Presidential Debates probably thought that to have a Filipino or someone from the ethnic press moderate a debate would have been way too much surprise in a campaign that features a half-black man and a moose-killer. Perhaps the commission just saw using the traditional high priests of mainstream journalism as comforting and nostalgic. Colonial, even.

Ethnic Media: Good for Democracy
What would it hurt to have a person of color moderating? Bernie Shaw of CNN used to be great when he held court. Why does Gwen Ifill have to do the VP debate? But, those are mainstream journalists. Truly daring would be to have an ethnic media person moderate. Would it hurt democracy if the debates were a little more “authentic”? Would the presence of the ethnic media seem so out of place in a debate discussing relations with some of our homelands? Would a Muslim American journalist asking a question on terrorism be a threat to our democracy?

Oddly, what I found in our gubernatorial ethnic debate is that on the big issues, ethnic journalists’ questions were really no different from what mainstream journalists would have asked. White journalists certainly don’t have the market cornered on good questions on general concerns.

But would the white journalists be sensitive or knowledgeable enough to ask a question on a story as important to our community as say, equity for Filipino vets of World War II? Would a question from them on affirmative action or English-only policies or immigration be seen as having any credibility at all? Or would they look as silly as Sarah Palin answering a question about the Bush Doctrine?

It may not make a difference from the candidates’ perspective who asks the questions, but it does make a difference to audiences. If a moderator and journalists are a proxy for the people, then shouldn’t those debate participants reflect the people as well?

In the end, the virtue of ethnic media representation in any debate is that it wholly encompasses the major difference in American society today. It’s changed so much in how it looks, sounds and thinks that any election forum in this modern democracy demands diversity. It’s more than a gimmick or a good idea. It’s a necessity.

A roster of all-white candidates speaking to an all-white electorate through the questions from an all-white media? Sounds absolutely homogenous and too retro for words.

It certainly doesn’t look much like the changing America we live in.

Will McCain use the bailout to bail out of the first debate? Check out the blog for updates on the Filipino vets struggle, fun with bailouts, and more on the Obama/McCain debate at amok.asianweek.com.

E-mail:emil@amok.com