Poor Forum for Debate |
In covering the provincial leaders' debate in the Oct. 30 edition of the Leader-Post, Gerry Klein reported that the participating leaders “all expressed frustration that the format of the debate precluded them from fully exploring ideas relevant to Saskatchewan voters.” I write to second this complaint and to suggest an alternative format.
In the Oct. 28 debate, a journalist would pose a question to a leader, who was given a short period of time to answer it. The other two leaders were then each given a period to “debate” the responding leader. In these latter periods, which accounted for most of the hour-long debate, the two leaders were asked to speak during the same time. This forced them to compete for the same speaking time by interrupting or talking over each other. The debate's format was thus largely responsible for the widely reported lack of basic civility or constructive discussion.
Unfortunately, the only alternative format suggested in Klein's story is “the Global Television debate in which the leaders were aggressively interviewed separately by three journalists.” While individual interviews may be a valuable exercise, they do not constitute debate and are certainly no substitute for it.
Debate is a direct clash of opposing arguments and ideas. The format selected for the leaders' debate misunderstands this. Forcing a struggle for limited speaking time certainly generates a clash between the leaders, but it precludes substantial clash between the ideas they are presenting.
At schools and universities across the country and around the English-speaking world, debate clubs employ formats in which the opposing sides are given alternating opportunities to speak for set periods of time. Although questions and/or heckling are permitted in most formats, this alternation gives each side an opportunity to present constructive points and to refute the other side's arguments. Since legislatures and parliaments also alslow only one person at a time to speak, with an alternation between the opposing sides, it would not be unreasonable to apply this system to election debates.
On each topic, or in response to each journalistic question, each leader, in turn, should be given a set period of a few minutes to present his or her position. Afterwards, each leader should be given another period to respond to what was said by the others. A leader choosing to spend an uninterrupted period of several minutes not answering the question, screaming accusations, or repeating empty slogans would look foolish to most viewers.
ERIN WEIR
Weir is a former President of the University of Regina Debate Society.
Regina