Tuesday, October 30, 2007

QED to hold late debate

My rely to QED follows this email.
Mayoral Debate officially titled: WQED Presents: The 2007 Pittsburgh Mayoral Debate will air on:

WQED TV-13 and WQED HD (13.1) will first air on Thursday, 11/1/07, 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Program will repeat on WQED TV-13 Saturday, 11/3/07 from 1:00 AM to 2:00 AM.

Program description:

Who will be the next mayor of Pittsburgh and how is that person going to address the many issues that face the city & affect the entire metropolitan region? Meet the candidates and hear what they have to say about tough issues. Moderated by Stacy Smith. Produced by WQED in partnership with the League of Women Voters.

Live Studio Audience--please report to WQED Studios, 4802 Fifth Avenue in Oakland by 7:30pm on November 1.
Live Simul-Stream at wqed.org from 8-9pm on November 1
Public invited to post questions for the candidates before November 1 at wqed.org
Debate panelists: Michael Bartley, Chris Moore and Tonia Caruso

George Hazimanolis
Senior Director of Corporate Communications
WQED Pittsburgh
4802 Fifth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
ghaziman@wqed.org
412-622-1366
412-622-6413 FAX
www.wqed.org

WQED Pittsburgh: Winner, 2007 and 2006 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Station Excellence

"WQED changes lives."
Thanks for the mayor's debate efforts.

I wish the Libertarian and Socialist were included. I understand that these guys (Tony Oliva and Ryan Scott) are NOT going to win. However, we all are less and the region goes deeper into the despair when the elites exclude. When they are not free to join on the debate stage, the young depart the region.

Their inclusion isn't for this election on Nov 6. But, they need to be included for the future elections and the recruitment of new candidates in the years to come.

You need to think bigger and into the future.

We can't count on QED. That's very sad. That's not in line with the charter of public broadcasting.

My polls (with thousands of calls to city residents) say that more than 75% of the voters today are UNDECIDED about the controller's race. Meanwhile, six to seven percent of the voters are still undecided about the mayor's race.

You mayor's debate is nearly meaningless even for Ravenstahl and DeSantis. Furthermore it is like poison to the common ground of democracy for the third party candidates and independents.

If you really wanted to help -- you'd scratch the debate as you have planned and hold a different debate among the controller's candidates. Ask the mayor candidates to attend and ask the questions (being on the panel) to Michael Lamb and myself.

Can you forward this to J. I have little faith that she'll return my call.

2 comments:

Jason Phillips said...

Ryan Scott clearly illustrated at the PG Debate why he shouldn't be invited to take part in the debates. I'd say leave the debating to the grown-ups, but that would be wrong. Instead I'll say leave the debating to those who know how.

Mark Rauterkus said...

Ryan was bad. No doubt.

And, Ryan won't be the last bad candidate to run.

Those who are in office are bad as well.

But, when are we going to only have good and great candidates running? The quality of the candidate will increase or decrease in a direct relationship according to the candidate inclusion in hosted debates.

And, Ryan Scott would be much like the other Socialist candidates who don't show up to events when invited. I have no problem with that either.

Poor candidates will self select. They don't want to look bad on TV either.