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Dec

10

How to analyze a candidate debate


Roy Peter Clark provides these tips and back-up (in the form of a classic column about the Nixon-Kennedy debate) in the Poynteronline.com Writing Tools section. Obviously, viewers as well as writers can benefit from his suggestions, which, for me, explain why I like transcripts and face-to-face opportunities so much when I’m trying to understand what makes someone tick.

The tips:

We reprint “Kennedy Owes a Debt to TV” [in the Poynter piece] because it offers a lasting blueprint for how to cover and analyze a political debate.  Here are some of the lessons to be drawn from Gene’s column:

  • It helps to experience the debate in more than one medium.
  • It is important to compare and contrast what the candidates say with how they say it and how they look saying it.
  • It is only fair to recognize that a particular debate format or medium may naturally favor one candidate over another.
  • That standing up to the rigors of a debate may prove something about a candidate, but not everything that is important.
  • That telegenic presence may overshadow substance — which is a danger.
  • That you can use tough and interesting language without descending into snarky incivility.
  • That you can accomplish all of this on deadline in about 600 words.
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By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:12 am December 10th, 2007 in Campaigning, Elections, Media, Politics, Writing 

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One Response to “How to analyze a candidate debate”

  1. 1 WHAT THEY SAID… on December 10th, 2007 11:06 am

    [...] and face-to-face opportunities so much when I’m trying to understand what makes someone tick. Jill Miller Zimon digg_url=”http://havecoffeewillwrite.com/?p=5855″; digg_skin = [...]

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