To hold a great debate, first make it great TV

Like much of American democracy, presidential debates are on increasingly shaky ground.

For the first time since 1988, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates will not host the face-off between the major party contenders. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have committed to just two debates, both far ahead of the typical schedule. And already Trump and his allies have laid the groundwork to declare the first debate rigged or even drop out.

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But rather than mourn the debates we had, we should take this chance to reinvent them.

A more modern debate would borrow techniques used by everything from cable TV news to Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," insights from political science and rhetoric and a close read of what went wrong in past debates to make the 2024 editions both engaging and insightful. If you want a great debate, you first have to make it great television.

Historically, televised presidential debates went out of their way to make them as un-TV as possible, something like the deliberately staid and slow-paced "PBS NewsHour." It's not coincidental that the dean of debate moderators was that show's longtime executive editor and anchor, Jim Lehrer.

But in the last few elections, that ended up lending the proceedings a gravitas they may not have earned. Trump exploited the format to unleash a torrent of false claims that kept fact-checkers working until deep in the night, while moderators who had been trained on the Lehrer model to stay on the sidelines often failed to correct the record in real time.

When CNN moderator Candy Crowley attempted a fact-check in real-time in a 2012 debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, Romney supporters cried foul. CNN has already said that it won't be trying that approach this Thursday, arguing that a live debate is "not the ideal arena for live fact-checking."

But polls show the public — including majorities of both Republicans and Democrats — likes the idea of fact-checking. So what to do?

The debate moderators could borrow insight from professors of rhetoric who have studied the effectiveness of written fact-checks. Research suggests that the most common model of fact-checking — quoting a statement, posting evidence for and against it, and then ending with a judgment of the statement's veracity — is backward. That's because it emphasizes the false claim and often repeats it. In a phenomenon first identified in 1977 and repeatedly confirmed in later studies, people tend to remember claims they have heard repeatedly and assume they are true.

Instead, experts now recommend that fact-checkers use a "truth sandwich": Start with the facts, then explain how the candidate mangled them (or didn't) and then restate the facts. This way, it's the facts that are remembered more easily.

Moderators could use the same technique. Questions could start with a brief statement of several facts about the issue at hand. Put them in a graphic on screen, like TV news always does (and old-fashioned debates never did). Include key facts in the chyron that runs along the bottom of the screen. Post links to the evidence for those facts on social media for viewers who are using a second screen. Then ask the candidate how they would handle the issue. If they misstate any of those facts in their answer, moderators could then refer back to them in a follow-up question, even putting the graphic back on screen.

What about questions that focus less on a policy than on a candidate's views about the policy?

Here again, moderators could look at what already makes for good TV. In this case, that means targeting the contradictions that politicians sometimes make when changing their stance — or when just trying to weasel their way out of taking a stance. Moderators can simply roll the tape of what the candidate has said on an issue versus what they are saying now, then ask them to resolve the contradiction on stage now.

Again, playing the tape at the beginning makes it a lot harder for the candidate to say something flatly untrue, like "I never said X." After all, we have all just watched them say it.

While this would be especially helpful in pinning down a candidate like Trump, whose ever-changing positions can be head-spinning to follow, this isn't a Trump gotcha tactic. Biden has changed his mind on a couple of subjects, such as building a border wall or oil and gas drilling on federal lands. He should have his feet held to the fire just the same.

Finally, moderators could take a note from some more recent TV trends and have more confidence in the audience's attention span.

The one way in which the old presidential debates didn't break out of the typical TV of their era was that they never stuck with any subject for too long. Like a local TV news show skipping from traffic to sports to weather, presidential debates used to spend a minute or two on a subject before moving on, which gave viewers only the most superficial understanding and allowed candidates to throw out some rehearsed talking points.

But the success of longer formats like Seth Meyers' "A Closer Look" segment on NBC's "Late Night" and John Oliver's deep-dives on HBO's "Last Week Tonight" show audiences have a lot more patience to stick with a subject than they are given credit for.

Moderators should have the confidence to pick a subject and drill down on it. Ask follow-up questions of both candidates. Force them to explain their positions in depth. They could even borrow an idea from my colleague Hayes Brown, who wrote four years ago that debates should include a round where candidates have to answer factual questions and a round where they can get into a serious back-and-forth debate on a major issue.

These are all just suggestions. Not every new idea would work, at least not as intended. But the traditional format is beyond stale. Debate hosts need to try something — anything — other than what we've been doing.