Blog 3: Trump says 'there will be no third debate': CNN vs. FoxNews
On September 10, 2024, the debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris took place in Philadelphia. Once the ninety minutes of debating was over, both participants went to answer questions and leave remarks to the reporters. Almost immediately after this, the news ticker (banner at the bottom of the screen), showed that the Harris campaign wanted to debate with Trump once more. Trump has officially stated that he will not be debating Harris again before election day. Do you think it is understandable for him to say no to another debate with Harris? Furthermore, after this debate, do you think polarization has gotten worse or is it beginning to improve? In this blog, I will be diving into CNN’s viewpoint on his refusal in contrast to what FoxNews has to say about this situation. It is important to do a comparative case study on such a topic as this to identify the partisanship as well as the bias within each of these news networks.
In CNN’s article, Why Trump ditched a debate rematch – for now | CNN Politics, the first sentence immediately shows some biased input: “The great showman just turned his back on tens of millions of viewers” (Collinson, 2024). The article then quotes Trump where he talks about how he does not want to debate her again because he feels that he won already; “Because we’ve done two debates and because they were successful, there will be no third debate. It’s too late anyway, the voting has already begun”. It appears as though CNN is proposing that Harris is the one who actually won and that Trump is too afraid to debate her again. As you scroll down on the article, there is also commentary on if it is believed that Trump will stick to his word on this or if he will eventually decide to debate her. CNN also focuses heavily on what Democrats say which is shown by what the Governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, says about another debate; “Kamala Harris came across as strong and presidential. If he had another debate with her and it happened again, that would be it for his campaign – he would be done.” However, as the article goes on, there is a statement from Trump’s campaign advisor who says it is a tactical decision to not enter into another debate. CNN’s article ends with remarks that it is very likely he may have to remain competitive against her and join the debate if the polls get tighter in the final eight-week stretch. Do you think Trump is likely to change his mind?
The FoxNews article, Trump says 'there will be no third debate,' claiming victory against Harris in Tuesday's showdown | Fox News, begins with a comment from former President Donald Trump in which he said that Harris only wants to debate again because she lost; “When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH”. FoxNews also explains how she was invited by Fox, NBC, and CBS for a debate with Trump, but she refused these invitations. The article then states that during this heated debate, the ABC moderators only fact checked Trump, but they did not bother with Harris. The journalist for Fox reports, “A CNN flash poll afterward found a majority of watchers thought Harris won the debate. The majority of a Fox News Digital focus group also gave Harris the victory, although the Democrat took criticism for continuing to sound evasive on major issues” (Singman, 2024). Above all else, I found this to be a clear depiction of how the two see the outcome of this debate. Fox News is obviously extremely pro-Republican with most of their support in this article coming from quotes Trump has made. Then, CNN is definitely geared towards Democrats with their verbiage against Trump and within their known support to Harris.
To summarize, I believe the debate that occurred on Tuesday night may have made the partisan gap even worse. What we saw on TV is not an unified America. Further, the responses on social media and through news broadcasting sites illustrates how bad the elite polarization has become. Our text puts it best, “...partisan ideological sorting and negative political effect continue to increase among the populace, following in the wake of an extremely polarized contingent of partisan elites” (Dunaway and Graber, 2022).
References
Dunaway, J., & Graber, D. A. (2022). Mass Media and American Politics (11th ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc. (US). https://kennesaw.vitalsource.com/books/9781544391014
Great Post Kinslee,
ReplyDeleteI would like to see another debate, just for the entertainment, but I can understand why Trump would pass. If he maybe got to go on FOX or some other more right leaning platform, maybe he would do it again, but still unlikely. I don't blame him for not wanting to do another one on one of the left leaning outlets. ABC did a horrible job at bipartisanship. I already went over this in my post, but I can't begin to wrap my head around why there was not fact checking on Harris the entire night. Some 30% of likely voters said they didn't know where she stood on issues, but there was no push back when she dogged a question. Fact checking is fine, just do it to everyone. It is hard to imagine how Harris was not pushed one time. I would be surprised to see polls change as a result of the debate.