ABC - ABC SWAMPED BY COMPLAINTS ABOUT DEBATE MODERATORS

ABC SWAMPED BY COMPLAINTS ABOUT DEBATE MODERATORS

ABC's switchboard and website were flooded with thousands of complaints from viewers about the network's handling of the Clinton-Obama debate on Wednesday. The Associated Press reported that the ABC website had posted nearly 17,000 complaints by Thursday. Like numerous columnists, most of the callers and bloggers expressed outrage that many of the questions from moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos appeared aimed at drawing more heat than light. Gibson himself reported about the "debate over the debate" on his World News newscast Thursday night, while Stephanopoulos told the Associated Press, "We wanted to focus at first on the issues that were not focused on during the last debates." Speaking at a rally in North Carolina, Obama declared, "Last night I think we set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people." In an editorial appearing in today's (Friday) Sacramento Bee, the debate was compared to an episode of the Jerry Springer Show. "The questions were set up to demean the candidates and to bait them into small-minded mudslinging," the newspaper said. Columnist Will Bunch in the Philadelphia Daily News wrote caustically that Gibson and Stephanopoulos "disgraced my profession of journalism, and, by association, me and a lot of hard working colleagues who do still try to ferret out the truth." A Newsday editorial summed up: "Voters deserve better."

18/04/2008