Via Media Matters, a new campaign to Change the Debate:

With few exceptions, the media figures who moderated the presidential primary debates focused on campaign gaffes, political tactics, and personal issues and, as a result, critical issues were pushed aside. While the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq raged, the mortgage crisis gathered steam, and nearly 50 million Americans continued to go without health insurance, the debate moderators focused on frivolous and trivial matters, far removed from the issues the public wanted to hear about.

Over the course of 31 debates and 2,300 questions, candidates running to be their party’s nominee for president were asked a total of:

* One question about warrantless wiretapping
* Two questions about declining wages
* Three questions about conservation and renewable energy
* Six questions about the growing crisis in the mortgage industry
* One question about how the candidates would keep the economy going if terrorists attacked our shopping malls

Sign the petition and tell them to Change the Debate

When you sign the petition, Media Matters gives you the opportunity to specify which issues are of particular importance to you.

They include:

* Abortion
* Afghanistan
* Civil Rights/Torture
* Crime
* Economy
* Education
* Energy
* Environment
* Food Safety
* Health Care
* Infrastructure
* Iraq
* Science/Technology
* Social Security
* Terrorism
* Trade

The one issue that ranks top on my list - animal rights - didn’t make the cut. Nor did a watered-down version, such as “animal welfare” or “animal agriculture.” The closest runner-ups are “food safety” and “environment.” Neither of which get to, ahem, the “meat” of the matter.

Nice try, Media Matters, but no dice. You’d think putting Palin on the ticket would bring animal issues - if not to the forefront - at least into the national consciousness. But I guess you’d be wrong, then.

Sigh.

I would say ::RAGE::, but I fear I’m too tired and cynical to get all that angry over this bullshit anymore.

Updated to add: you can find Media Matters’ report - Change the Debate: How Gaffes, Games, & Gotchas Dominated the 2008 Presidential Primary Debates - here.

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare action alerts 2008 elections media matters msm debates election coverage environment wtf petition

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 2:37 pm and is filed under action alerts, animal liberation, indecision '08, msm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.