A review of T&T's first televised political debate

July 23, 2010 by Edmund Gall

I've just witnessed T&T's first national political debate prior to an election, televised live on CNMG's C TV (find the recorded video here).  Here are my initial views.

First, I must, like others I've spoken with via facebook during the show, commend the T&T Debates Commission (TTDC) for facilitating the event, CNMG's C TV for broadcasting it over-the-air in T&T and over the Internet via their website (for free - take note Guardian Media Group), and the PNM and People's Partnership for agreeing to participate in this historic event. While critical analysis will follow in the hours and days ahead, constructive or otherwise, I am very grateful to all parties for taking such an important step to advance our political culture.

Here are some of the things I thought worked well.  The TTDC published the debate format, and rules and guidelines for the participants, moderator, questioners and studio audience on their website so the public could assess beforehand.  The TTDC also recognised (somewhat) the worth of social media in today's public relations strategies and created its own facebook page (as did C TV with its own pages for C News Live and First Up, their flagship programmes).

The questioners were very good and eminently qualified for the job.  Mr. Andy Johnson and Ms. Jessie-May Ventour have significant experience hosting their own political talkshows, while Dr. Rolph Balgobin has a very distinguished private and public career (he's now an Independent Senator).  Both Mr. Johnson and Dr Balgobin wrote insightful columns in the local press dealing with national issues, and their opinions have been enlightening to me over the years.  All three are very articulate and I detected no undue repetition of themes, biased questioning or irrelevant follow-up questions.  Put it this way: they were infinitely better than the three journalists who participated in the ridiculous Prime Minister Unplugged interview of our ex-Prime Minister in the run-up to this year's general elections.

The set was well-designed, and I was able at all times to hear the participants' contributions via the Internet.  My congratulations to CNMG's IT staff for ensuring their website remained available throughout the debate (I missed 5 minutes due to no fault of theirs - my laptop dropped my Internet connection and I was quickly able to re-connect to their live video feed).  I thought the provision of a large screen showing a countdown digital clock off-camera (which was briefly shown on-camera at the start of the show) was a great tool to help the participants realise when their time was running out: I think this resulted in only one instance of the moderator having to interrupt a participant for going beyond the time allotted (Mr. Sharma in one of his earliest responses).

I am also grateful to all concerned for allowing the debate to be shown without any disruption by nonsensical advertisements.  Folks may think T&T citizens have no mental stamina to watch a political discussion for 90 minutes straight without picong and music, but I must confess that I was surprised to hear the moderator wrap things up at the end.  I thought the 90 minutes went by so fast!  Plus, it would've been wrong for this important democracy-related event to be sponsored by a select list of advertisers (we already have enough worrying about our inadequate campaign finance laws).  C TV should also be congratulated for posting this debate on their video-on-demand website - I recommend a copy be stored in the national archives at NALIS.

In my view, apart from some issues raised below, I think everyone followed the prescribed rules/guidelines. The studio audience remained commendably silent for the duration of the debate; I can imagine if any passionate activists were present, it would have taken a lot for them not to clap at their representatives' responses.  There was a lot to be impressed about and this was a great foundation for future debates.  I do hope there are more debates, and not just in the run-up to elections.  I've already laid out my wish for weekly, televised town hall meetings, and suggested how they can be conducted.

I'll now outline the things that need improvement for the next debate.  Firstly, here are some things that can be addressed by the TTDC.  According to their published debate format, the debate was due to start at 8:30 p.m. (T&T time) and run for 90 minutes.  The show actually started at 8:05 p.m., the debate started about 8:15 p.m. and ended at 9:28 p.m.  If anyone read this published format and tuned in at 8:30 p.m. they'd have missed about 15 minutes of the debate, and from my calculation we only got about 73 minutes of actual debate (not the 90 minutes I expected).

Secondly, the TTDC needs to move beyond just creating presences online to actually using them:

• The TTDC website states that the moderator for the debate was an Independent Senator, Mrs. Helen Drayton.  Due to illness, she was replaced by another Independent Senator, Mr. Subhas Ramkhelawan.  However, the TTDC website was not updated - hours after the event, Sen. Drayton is still listed as being the moderator.
• TTDC Chairman Angella Persad appeared on First Up on 22 Jul 2010 to promote the debate.  I asked, via First Up's facebook page, why members of the public weren't polled for questions since this was being promoted as a local government election debate.  According to the debate format, the designated questioners were solely responsible for creating their questions, but I thought local government issues (as opposed to central government issues) would be constituency-specific.  Her response was that (a) they felt there wasn't enough time to poll for questions, and (b) they wanted the questions to be confidential.  I think they could've addressed these concerns through proper use of their website and e-mail address: why not invite folks to send questions to a private e-mail address accessible to the questioners in the 7 days they had before the event (they first advertised the debate on their facebook page on 15 Jul 2010, and it appeared in the local press at the same time)?  That said, I must say there were some extremely good questions posed (e.g. those which addressed public concerns such as corruption and central government support for Opposition-controlled councils).
• At the time of writing, there are no profile pages for the questioners on the TTDC's website (allegedly in an attempt to protect the questioners from public barrage).  I had to source profiles from other websites for the questioners above.
• I couldn't find any facebook forum for viewers to share their opinions as the debate unfolded. The TTDC did not publicise their facebook page before the debate and didn't ask viewers at the start of the debate to post their opinions live on their facebook page.  C TV didn't create any page for the event either (nor asked folks to post on their existing pages).  To add insult to injury, the moderator only advertised the TTDC's facebook page 50 minutes into the debate, and managed to confuse the facebook page with the TTDC's website - two completely different online addresses.  As a result, at the time of writing there were only three feedback posts on the TTDC's facebook page (including mine complaining about the late notice that the page existed)!

Thirdly, though they both have experience in making Parliamentary contributions, I was concerned that the Independent Senators' lack of TV experience would make them less than ideal moderators.  Sen. Ramkhelawan was good in his opening remarks (which were probably read from a teleprompter) and initial handover to the first questioner.  However, he then made a number of mistakes. Firstly, he repeated the theme of the debate several times during the show: this seemed unnecessary since the debaters ignored the theme and focused on the questions posed to them.  Secondly, he made some stilted and irrelevant comments while transitioning from response to rebuttal (e.g. '... I'm sure the viewers are riveted so far ...'); these seem more appropriate for a game show, not a debate.  Thirdly, his wrap-up was introduced with the comment '... Well, it seems we're about to run out of time ...' and then mentioned closing comments, but there were no closing comments.  Closing remarks are not allowed according to the published local government debate format, but are allowed in the TTDC's proposed general election debate format, so I suspect Sen. Ramkhelawan confused the two formats.

Hence, my recommendations to the TTDC are:

• Update the debate framework to reflect reality in terms of start time and duration (and if there are any changes, publicise it).
• Use your website and e-mail to obtain possible questions from the public (and have the questioners read the names of the persons who submitted any questions they use during the debate).
• Even if you persist with keeping the questioners' identities secret until the day of the debate, at least prepare their profile webpages beforehand and publish these on your website (and advertise the link on facebook) an hour before the debate.
• Publicise your facebook page (and create and use a Twitter account for the same purpose) in your pre-debate marketing.
• Encourage viewers to post their feedback during the debate via your facebook and Twitter feeds (have C TV put the addresses in a scrolling banner at the bottom of their video feed, and train your moderator to give the addresses accurately).
• Consider having a moderator for your facebook and Twitter pages to respond to any viewer's concerns.
• Include viewers' comments from your facebook and Twitter feeds in your post-debate review.
• Use TV presenters as your future moderators, for e.g. Tony Fraser, Fazeer Mohammed, Ira Mathur, or one of the most fluent news readers, and ensure they understand the format and guidelines.

I have few recommendations for the questioners. Mr. Johnson's first question was relatively long and he asked it in his customary quick pace. Unfortunately, it was delivered so quickly I didn't comprehend it and I suspect the first responders, Local Government Minister Chandresh Sharma and ex-Mayor of Port of Spain Murchison Brown, didn't either.  Mr. Sharma delivered an extremely short response that sounded more like a pre-constructed introduction that he meant to deliver no matter what the question was, and Mr. Brown gave a rambling rebuttal in his contrastingly slower style and mellow tone.  Also, in one instance, Mr. Johnson asked two follow-up questions of Mr. Brown, when according to the debate format only one follow-up is allowed.  However, apart from that, I was generally impressed by the questioners.  So my recommendations are:

• Try to ensure that initial questions are short - avoid lengthy introductory phrases or sentences.
• Ensure your pace of question delivery is reasonable.
• Consider using open initial questions (i.e. they begin with How, What, Why, When, Who or Where); follow-ups can be closed and more specific to the debaters' responses.
• Ensure, especially if you're a host of a TV talkshow, you don't forget the rules and ask too many follow-up questions.

Now, the debaters.  The PP was represented by Mr. Sharma and Ms. Khadijah Ameen; the PNM was represented by Mr. Brown and Ms. Natasha Grimes.  In this respect, the two teams mirrored each other: a mix of an older gentleman and a younger lady.  One of my concerns when the concept of a political debate was being discussed in the past few months was that T&T's politicians weren't trained to deliver cogent, focused responses in under 90 seconds (which was the time allotted for first responders), much less 60 seconds (which was the time allotted for rebuttals).  The risk, especially for experienced politicians, would be that their responses would be longwinded; for inexperienced candidates, their thoughts may be so disorganised that their responses would be repetitious and disjointed.  In the main, these risks came to past:

• Mr. Sharma was the only one to go over time, and Mr. Brown rambled at times.
• Both gentlemen failed to answer some questions effectively - Mr. Sharma would waste too much time repeating that the ex-government spent 8 years and $300B delivering nothing, and Mr. Brown missed an ideal opportunity to outline any new anti-corruption measures included in the PNM's whitepaper on local government reform.
• Ms. Ameen delivered some of the best responses (such as her first response) and also the worst (such as the strange response that if everyone did what they were supposed to do, we'd all be happy).
• Ms. Grimes was as passionate as Ms. Ameen but her responses were so disjointed at times that I just felt a sense of exuberant incompetence.

So my recommendations to debaters are:

• Ensure your preparation beforehand includes a few hours being asked likely questions by your colleagues under the same debate format conditions.
• Ensure you prepare 3-5 key messages you or your party would like to be expressed during the debate.  For e.g., based on the amount of times these were repeated whether relevant to the question or not, the PP seemed to have wanted viewers to know the PNM spent a long time and much money delivering little, while the PNM wanted to remind us that they engaged in necessary reform that was based on wide consultation (but they didn't seem to have any others besides these).
• Please don't waste precious seconds making irrelevant repetitions or preambles - you'll turn listeners off.
• Please ensure you actually answer the questions, not just give a response - no matter how fluently you deliver an irrelevant response, you'll appear incompetent.
• As in interviews, you don't have to start answering as soon as the questioner finishes speaking - if you spend 3-5 seconds in silence initially gathering and ordering your thoughts, you can determine up to 3 relevant points to make and then cogently deliver each in 15 seconds (for a 60-sec rebuttal) or 28 seconds (for a 90-sec response), which will prevent the rambling, disjointed, irrelevant and vacuous responses.
• If the town hall debates I hope for ever become a reality, the political parties should ensure at least three MPs and three councillors (including anyone being groomed for future political leadership roles) regularly participate so as to develop their debating skills.  This would help ensure the future Prime Ministerial Debates would be of high standard and no candidate would fear the TTDC's invitation to debate.

Finally, I'd like to address the T&T media.  This was a landmark event in our nation's history, and I feel the local media treated it with gross disrespect.  While C TV hosted the event and allowed the TTDC to market it via their flagship programmes, I've already stated that more could have been done to promote the event and viewer participation via social media.  In addition:

• Just as on general election night, the event seemed to fizzle to an abrupt end.  Why, for such an important event, was there no immediate post-mortem by a panel of political journalists and analysts?  For e.g., from 9:30 to 10:00 p.m. C TV could've had a small panel hosted by Tony Fraser reviewing some of the key responses.  An initial poll of the viewers could've been done via facebook/telephone based on some of the TTDC's own objectives for the debate (e.g.: Did you gain any info to help you decide who to vote for? Which party did you feel won the debate?). Instead, C TV showed the season finale of The Cougar (a ridiculous reality TV show,  IMHO).
• In the UK, the three inaugural Prime Ministerial Debates were each hosted by a different TV station (BBC, ITV and Sky).  However, all three of them had extensive pre-debate shows for the hour before and ran post-mortems immediately after each debate.  Did any of the other T&T stations host any post-mortems after the debate with public input?  We lament that folks don't engage with the political process, but the media needs to play their facilitation role more fully.  I suspect they will all have clips from the debate on their news programmes from tomorrow morning.  This is not enough for such a critical, historically-significant political event.

In summary, I think this was a good first attempt, and each stakeholder can take away some meaningful positives.  When the above issues are addressed, future debates would throw more light and less heat onto the nation's political consciousness, to the immense benefit of out political culture.  Nonetheless, at least this viewer was satisfied.  I give them a B- grade.

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