Newspaper editor finds spotlight blistering
Don Day December 16th, 2007
Convergence has been the word over the past decade or so - with TV, print, web and radio all merging into one big media mush. But there are a few places where things don’t go so smoothly. Carolyn Washburn, managing editor of the Des Moines Register took the national stage during two televised debates this week. The forums have been widely panned - and not just for style. Washburn decided not to talk about Iraq or immigration. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank has a roundup of some of the chatter on the debates. Even though we’ve all become so used to people being Jacks and Janes of all trades - there are a few places where some specialization comes in handy: like hosting 90 minutes of live television.
(Disclosure: I met with Washburn several times during her time at the Idaho Statesman in Boise while planning — what else — a debate.)
1 Comment Add your own
1. TLB | December 16th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
The fact that she excluded immigration is certainly “odd”, since that’s the area where most of the candidates are weakest and some pointed questioning would reveal that they have absolutely no job running for president. I guess Washburn is too much of a lightweight hack to try to do something about that, and feel free to add that to her clippings file if you’re going to send her something.
The way to avoid lightweights like Washburn is to switch from using moderators to experts:
youtube.com/watch?v=xA8Kgn_48t0
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