Rick Tyler, spokesman for former Speaker Newt Gingrich, has some excellent ideas on how to fix America's broken system. His lecture in class today was extremely enlightening and set the ground work for some great ideas that we can implement that could affect the political system.
Mr. Tyler's comments on the media's role in debates are well heeded. Instead of allowing the news outlets to focus on pointless news stories: Britney, Paris, etc, we should instead force them onto coverage of actual issues. There are several ways we, as students an bloggers, can achieve this. The number 1 way is to boycott the news networks and begin a grassroots initiative to keep the boycott strong. If successful, this movement would force change in the way news, and political debates are covered. Without viewers, networks would lack the ability to advertise and therefore make money. Viewers would only come back once coverage was changed. Instead of letting the media control our news, we should begin to take steps to influence the media so they actually cover things of worth.
Mr. Tyler also suggested the use of blind polls in order to actually determine which candidates have a stance on the important issues in society. This is a much better approach to determine candidate positions than our current form of debate. What we are given now are simple sound bites and rehearsed speeches that actually contain nothing of substance. These polls, on the back of one-on-one bipartisan debates, would be a much better value for the American people than our current system. If the media and candidates were able to implement this system, we would be one step closer to fixing our broken political system.
Though he spoke about a great deal about other things, these two topics are of supreme importance. If we change the way in which news is expressed, and the manner in which the candidates debate, we will be that much closer to fixing the broken American political system. Mr. Tyler’s observances as to the problems of modern political society have laid the groundwork for a plethora of ideas that we can implement in order to affect change. All we have to do is run with it.
1 comment:
I agree that Rick Tyler's suggestion of the use of blind polls is an excellent idea. I think it would certainly give voters a more unbiased way of looking at the candidates and also a chance to see how the candidates really stand on the issues. Some voters are persuaded to vote for a candidate just because that person is of the party that they are registered for, and it’s not based on that candidate’s positions. Participating in the blind poll would force them to blindly choose a candidate based on their position on an issue and it could lead the voter to re-evaluate who they vote for, based on something that’s more important, the issues. It would also force candidates to reveal their positions and place more importance on the issues, and hopefully make them a more important component in voters’ decisions.
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