Peacock is introducing a multiview experience for the upcoming US elections on November 5th, allowing viewers to watch breaking news, polling analysis, and election results simultaneously. The feature will include feeds from NBC News Now, Steve Kornacki’s election analysis, and the NBC News Decision Desk.
The demand for televised presidential debates before the fall election is a self-serving move by the media industry to insert itself into the news agenda. These debates are not true exchanges of ideas but rather dueling press conferences where the media panelists dominate the show. The format, designed for a television audience with a short attention span, hardly allows candidates to fully explain and provide nuance on complex issues. Biden-Trump debates would scarcely be enlightening, as Americans already know all they want to know about the two candidates. If televised Biden-Trump debates do happen, voters would observe a series of consultant-driven cheap shots, tall tales, angry rhetoric, and incoherence, hardly the ‘competition of ideas’ promoted in the media’s call for debates. A pause from presidential debating would give the nation an opportunity to reinvent the process and make it more substantial.
