Nine Sundays: A Proposal for Better Presidential Campaign Coverage

Abstract

In "Nine Sundays," the Shorenstein Barone Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy proposes that the three major networks on a rotating basis, plus CNN, c-span, Monitor and PBS, provide ninety minutes of evening or prime time every Sunday for nine weeks to a serious and substantive discussion by the two principal presidential candidates of the major issues that concern the American people. One issue at a time. For example, taxes may be the subject for one Sunday, Middle East policy or abortion for another, education, the environment, or us-soviet relations on other Sundays. Such an approach would guarantee a detailed examination of the principal issues of the '92 campaign and undercut the current tendency to reduce all political dialogue to brief sound-bites--and report it that way, as if substance were secondary. This proposal, if adopted, would radically change the content of modern-day politics.