Press: In Search of Questioners

The League runs into problems putting together a panel

Nearly every candidate for national office complains at some point that the press spends too much time pursuing its own vision of the issues and not enough allowing the candidate's message to get through to voters. Yet when offered the opportunity to debate on TV, the campaigners have spurned proposals for head-to-head confrontation and insisted instead that reporters ask questions, as the Reagan campaign demanded this year. Participation by journalists turns what could be an unpredictable, even uncontrolled, exchange into a variation on the safe, familiar format of a press conference.

Despite reporters' growing misgivings about becoming too much a part of the campaign process, journalists have been a part of every presidential debate since the first Kennedy-Nixon encounter in 1960. To all outward appearances, there have been only cosmetic changes in the debate structure established then and adapted in 1976, 1980 and 1984. But behind the scenes, a new factor this year caused major news organizations to threaten to boycott future debates: for the first time, both campaigns misused their veto power over the selection of questioners in an effort to secure a friendly panel.

The League of Women Voters has accorded campaigns veto power since it began sponsoring the debates in 1976. Explains President Dorothy Ridings: "If a candidate feels there is some reporter who is totally opposed to him as a person or to his positions, it will affect his performance." There was a general understanding that the veto would be used only in extreme circumstances. In 1976 neither side objected to any reporter. In 1980 a handful were excluded, but not enough in any debate to force the League to expand beyond its usual slate of about twelve potential participants. For the exchange between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale, however, 83 journalists were considered and only three were acceptable to the campaigns and also willing to appear. Each side knocked out about an equal number. Said Ridings: "There was abuse of the process by both campaigns. The letter of the agreement was lived up to, but the spirit was not."