Presidential Debate Between George W.

¶ … Presidential Debate between George W. Bush and John Kerry

With the Presidential race between George Bush (Republican candidate) and John Kerry (Democrat candidate) nearing next month, the first presidential debate has spurred numerous media coverage. The first debate is the American public's first chance to get a glimpse of the platforms and agenda of each candidate once one of them becomes the 44th President of the United States of America.

The heavy media coverage given to the presidential debate shows the powerful role of the mass media in shaping, even altering, public opinion. News coverage over the week about the debate illustrates how the mass media acts as a surveillance agent for the public in determining what candidate to choose and who is most suitable to become the next President of the country. In this paper, the researcher discusses and analyzes three news coverage for the week, gathered from electronic sources of television and print news agencies such as CNN, ABC, and New York Times. The researcher posits that analyses of these three news coverage show that the media delivers the news objectively, letting statistics and statements, and ultimately, the public, to decide whether Bush or Kerry should be deserving of America's vote for 2004.

ABC News' coverage of the preparations for the presidential debate details the issues that are most likely to be tackled and discussed in the debate (Associated Press, 2004). The news piece discussed what national issues each candidate can draw strength to, where the report goes on to say that both Kerry and Bush's weakest issue is the Iraq war. This is because Kerry's argument states that Bush has not been very effective in ensuring that the Iraq-U.S. war was a just war after all. Bush, meanwhile, argues that Kerry is not strong and 'tough' enough to decide on international issues such as the Iraq war. Bush's mistakes and Kerry's irresoluteness on the issue of the Iraq war are both issues in itself that they need to address in order to gain America's vote. Going to the issue of the presidential debate itself, the ABC News report quotes representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties, where the latter calls Bush "...' great debater'... But wins match-ups on 'style not substance'..." The Republicans, on the other hand, considers Kerry a "seasoned debater" but tends to 'take' "more than one position on foreign policy issues."