CSM: Newspapers won't say who won a debate. They should.

[DeepModem Mom]

Christian Science Monitor: Newspapers won't say who won a debate. They should.
In their desire to be fair, many of the media don't tell readers much of anything.
By Dante Chinni

....In their desire to be seen as fair and unbiased, many of the mainstream news media have lapsed into not telling their audiences much of anything - especially in the realm of politics, and particularly when it comes to debates. Debate stories almost always end up fitting into the well-known and well-worn template of "candidates clash," followed by a few paragraphs of allegations and responses from each. The pieces wind up reading like abridged transcripts, accented with a little bit of color.

What's missing is what the voters crave - context. Some stories try to fill the void by asking supporters of each candidate for their spin. But that hardly does the job. Spinners never seriously criticize their candidate.

This is not to say every debate story should begin with a lead that quickly labels a winner and loser. Often debates really are draws in which "candidates exchange blows," but many times, particu- larly in more-local, less-polished campaigns, they are not. And in those stories there needs to be some indication of the general feeling in the auditorium. The point of a debate story, or any story for that matter, is to give readers a sense of what happened.

Newspapers sometimes put that kind of analysis on their editorial page, but when they do, their assessment is colored as simple opinion - discounted by one side or the other. A serious evaluation is more than that. It uses facts and description to explain the "why" of something. In the end, despite all the worries about bias, that's what news consumers want. If the media don't do a better job of explaining the "why," they will continue to lose readers and viewers....

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1024/p09s02-codc.html