For as long as there have been politicians, there has been political debate. It hasn’t mattered that technology and social media now make it easier to get in front of a camera or sit at a keyboard and issue screeds based more on ideology than facts.
Debates among local, state and federal election candidates remain the most direct ways that politicians can hold each other accountable for spreading dubious campaign rhetoric in real time, before an audience of potential voters.
That is what Arizona viewers anticipated in this fall’s close and highly contentious race for the governor’s chair. Arizona PBS, following recent tradition, planned a debate in partnership with a state-sponsored commission. Following a set of established rules, the debate was to be moderated by and aired on Arizona PBS.
There is no amount of underscoring I can add to the fact that live debates are among the few opportunities for civic dialogues left in today’s hypercharged political atmosphere. And having a PBS or public broadcasting imprimatur on the event has usually provided a stamp of trust and non-partisanship.
That tradition is vital – where it is still observed. We’re a long time past the days of civil and civic discourse. Our politicians have learned that hyping a catchy campaign line – even a false one – in slick TV commercials can fire up election-day support better than a stump speech before The League of Women Voters. Today there are “alternative facts” and seemingly bulletproof political narratives that defy all manner of finger-wagging from polite fact checkers whose only enforcement tool against lies, big and small, seems to be an emoji of a pair of pants on fire.
That’s why broadcast debates remain important: Voters can see how politicians, and their positions and promises, actually stand up in live, side-by-side comparisons.
This is why a recent debate debacle in Arizona is noteworthy. Arizona is a crucial swing state, where campaigns for governor and a United States Senate seat loom as vital markers for a 2024 presidential election. And it’s why so many viewers (and not just among those from Arizona) were moved to write to me recently, complaining of how Arizona PBS handled – many said mishandled – a planned debate between gubernatorial candidates, Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Katie Hobbs.
“I am disgusted with your handling of the Karie Lake/ Katie Hobbs Debate that never happened. Why is a broadcasting network funded by taxpayer money, taking sides and providing time to a candidate that cannot muster the courage to debate for the people of Arizona, unless of course you’re in bed with said candidate?!? And you call yourselves a journalistic station with integrity? … By the way… I’m an independent… not a Republican if you think I’m being harsh on you. I have lost all respect for your reporting.
– Melissa Perez, San Antonio
“I am appalled that after taking a position regarding Katie Hobbs not debating Kari Lake, you did a complete turnaround and offered her 30 minutes of FREE airtime. Where is the FREE airtime for Kari Lake. And, why support someone who is running for the highest office in the state (and) is too chicken to debate her opponent.”
– Debbie Carleton, Scottsdale, Ariz.
Why I’m writing this
It’s important to pause here and explain why I was convinced I needed to ask a few questions about a debate that wasn’t.
First, many of the complaining viewers mistakenly took the Public Broadcasting Service to task for allowing debate planning to stumble, and for the subsequent programming of a one-on-one interview with just one candidate to ultimately air. A reminder to those folks: PBS did not plan the Arizona debate and it did not make the decision to air a solo interview with Hobbs.
PBS is, fundamentally, a broadcasting platform that airs programming from a global community of journalists and entertainment creatives. On that platform, stations nationwide are run by local broadcasters, and in some places they operate under the auspices of colleges and universities, producing and airing local news and public affairs shows and documentaries. These local broadcasters have the autonomy to mostly air what they want.
The Lake-Hobbs debate, originally scheduled for Oct. 12, was being produced by Arizona PBS and the Arizona state government’s Citizens Clean Elections Commission, an election season partnership that stretches back more than a decade.
Arizona PBS is operated by a professional staff under a broadcast license issued to Arizona State University and its Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
The school’s state-of-the-art studios in downtown Phoenix is where debate planning took place, and where questionable judgment overruled what was supposed to be an orderly – and prescribed – follow-up to one candidate’s decision to skip the live debate.
A missed opportunity
It’s a shame the debate fell apart. Today, since politics is so polarized and many tend to trust only the media that echo hard-held beliefs, live debates stand as a reliable way for voters to evaluate politicians, and for candidates to challenge each other’s positions and statements.
Even if some politicians doubt their own oratory abilities, or fear being outwitted by a silver-tongued opponent, they can just stand there and question the veracity of a campaign speech or a broadcast ad.
In the race for the Arizona governor’s office, a televised debate was probably the one good opportunity for Hobbs to directly challenge Lake’s campaign cornerstone – her misguided conviction that the presidential election of 2020 was stolen from incumbent Donald Trump. That false claim, which has been repeated many times by Trump himself and candidates aligned with him, and debunked, sparked the insurrection on January 6, 2021 that resulted in several deaths and put members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence in harm’s way. Propagation of that huge lie threatens to break apart our democracy, with cracks appearing on our television screens as masked, armed men hovering menacingly near early-voting drop-off stations – self-appointed poll “monitors” looking for who-knows-what kind of ballot manipulation.
Hobbs balked, though, saying that Lake would verbally bob and weave and use her years of experience as a television broadcaster to redirect arguments and verbally bully her way to air-time dominance.
Really? That excuse assumed Arizona PBS’ on-air moderators would allow Lake to run the debate table.
And, what would have been so hard about simply asking Lake: “Do you believe the last presidential election was rigged? If so, what’s your proof? And, will you respect the results of an election your supporters are so closely monitoring?”
I can’t imagine that, in a live debate, even the slickest politician could have avoided answering, especially with a moderator like the veteran journalist Ted Simons policing the discourse for Arizona PBS, as he had, with distinction, in 15 previous years.
After what would have likely been a lively back-and-forth over that one topic, Hobbs could have simply suggested, to the camera, that since Lake is lying about the 2020 presidential election, how can Arizonans trust she’d be straight with them?
Instead, Lake turned Hobbs’ refusal to debate into an effective campaign sledge hammer. She became a victim, pinning blame for the failed debate on a conspiracy between Democrats and PBS, another false claim.
" … PBS has unilaterally caved to Katie Hobbs' demands and bailed her out from the consequences of her cowardly decision to avoid debating me on stage," Lake said in a published statement after the debate was canceled. “As the (Clean Elections Commission’s) broadcast partner, PBS' actions are a slap in the face to the commissioners … and a betrayal of their efforts to put on an actual debate."
What really happened?
In recent days I’ve had conversations with a number of individuals at Arizona State University, Arizona PBS and the Cronkite School. I don’t like using anonymous sources. But this is a real-time, live-wire controversy with few people authorized to make public statements. So I turned to people I know I could trust to share an honest assessment of what happened to the debate that wasn’t, and allow them to speak to me on background.
From that, what I gleaned is this:
When Hobbs declined an official invitation to debate from the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, it triggered a contractual next step: Lake would appear in a solo town hall on Arizona PBS. It seems, however, that Cronkite School officials lobbied for equal time for Hobbs – her own solo interview. Trouble is, Arizona PBS – whose general manager currently is on leave – did not consult the elections commission in its plans to air the Hobbs interview. Upon hearing of the surprise Hobbs one-on-one with Simons, Lake backed out of the scheduled town hall.
But the Hobbs interview was aired, and became more of a campaign stump speech; reporters were not allowed to ask questions, and Hobbs left the studio immediately after her chat with Simons.
As politically equitable as university officials may have wanted the airing of two individual interviews to be, the decision was inappropriate based on what was an agreed-upon debate protocol.
The blowback was stiff. Lake cried foul and conspiracy. The Citizens Clean Election Commission members criticized Arizona PBS’ decision to air a Hobbs interview, and station staffers privately suggested to Cronkite School officials that the televised conversation was ill-advised.
Everyone involved in the debate planning, from Hobbs and her political advisers to the folks running the Cronkite School, should have known that granting Lake solo air time was going to be the price Hobbs would have to pay for refusing a live parlé before the cameras and Arizona voters. Arizona PBS was under no obligation to grant Hobbs her own interview. She would be left to challenge Lake in paid ads and broadcast news interviews (which she did anyway).
So the bonus points went to Lake and her supporters, who turned the episode into another example of Big Liberal Media versus the people. That narrative resonated, even though it’s as false as their notion that Joe Biden is not really President of the United States.