[FoRK] Is Media playing favorites?

[Kevin Elliott]

On Jan 7, 2008, at 12:26 PM, Luis Villa wrote:
 >Ah, didn't realize those were ABC's rules. Paul was not invited to the
 >Fox debate this weekend, which is what I thought was under discussion.

Foxes rules are materially similar, the difference being 10% vs. 5%,  
supposedly due to space constraints.

"The network said it had limited space in its studio -- a souped-up  
bus -- and that it invited candidates who had received double-digit  
support in recent polls."

<http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/31/debate.limits.ap/>

> I'd say 4th or 5% and would drop the last 5%.

How would that improve the situation?  All that would do is exclude  
the (unlikely/rare) candidate who is significantly more popular nation  
wide than locally.  If anything that would make the rules seem even  
_less_ fair, which is what you were unhappy with in the first place!

You can argue about the usefulness of including people like Paul and  
Kucinich for the purpose of widening debate, etc., but if the goal is  
to have a serious debate between the people who might actually end up  
being president, then your going to have to use _some_ sort of  
criteria for filtering, and the criteria they're using don't seem  
particularly outrageous.