MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
We are on the eve of the presidential debate - the second of this presidential campaign season but the first between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. There are a lot of opinions about how the candidates will perform; also a lot of opinions about how the journalists who moderate should perform. Should they fact-check in real time, cut off candidates who ramble or dodge questions? Well, they might want to take a cue or two from Kyle Clark. He's a local anchor in Colorado at Denver's 9News. And this summer, he went viral for how he moderated a debate with six Republican candidates for Colorado's 4th Congressional District, including Lauren Boebert.
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KYLE CLARK: As you referenced, you introduced articles of impeachment against the president for his handling of the border. That move was blocked by Republican House leadership.
LAUREN BOEBERT: No.
CLARK: The Senate to...
BOEBERT: No. It...
CLARK: ...Committees who said...
BOEBERT: No. The inquiry...
CLARK: Pardon.
BOEBERT: ...Was sent to committee.
CLARK: Pardon me, please.
BOEBERT: It was not blocked.
CLARK: It was blocked by sending it to committee, so you didn't get the full House vote that you wanted.
BOEBERT: No. I did...
CLARK: So a question for...
BOEBERT: ...Get a full House vote. And it was...
CLARK: I apologize.
BOEBERT: ...Sent to...
CLARK: This is going to be a long evening if you speak...
BOEBERT: OK, well...
CLARK: ...Over the facts, OK?
BOEBERT: ...Then say it right.
CLARK: So question for everybody...
KELLY: A taste there of the Kyle Clark approach to moderating a debate, and he is with us now. Kyle Clark, welcome.
CLARK: Thank you so much.
KELLY: So you earned a lot of praise. You also earned a lot of pushback for how you ran that debate. And I want to start with how you see the role of moderator. I mean, as journalists, we're asking questions to elicit information that informs the public. Do you feel like in that debate you succeeded?
CLARK: You know, I think we did at times, certainly. The candidates for any office have all kinds of forums where they can go and present their talking points in standard fashion and not get any pushback necessarily from their opponents or from the question-askers. And our goal with the debates is to probe a little bit to see if people can defend the weak spots in their positions, can sort out when they've, you know, been on both sides of an issue or haven't been clear about something. And our goal is to bring some light to that and also not to waste the viewer's time, which means if we give somebody 60 seconds to talk about something and they ramble off in another direction, we're going to try to politely redirect them back to the topic at hand.
KELLY: And as people heard there, your approach was very much to fact-check in real time. I mean, different debates are going to have different ground rules, but to you, you see value in doing that in real time.
CLARK: I do. And this is not to say that I think that journalists need to be fact-checking every little detail that comes up during a debate. But if the basic premise on which a candidate is basing their answer is based in a falsehood, I think it's worthwhile for the journalist to point that out and then redirect the question, hoping to get at the truth of it.
I also understand the school of thought that says it should be up to the opponent to do the fact-checking. But then you have to ask, so we're putting the onus on the opponent to fact-check the other candidate who is not being truthful, so that other candidate then has to spend their time on it as opposed to putting forth their own ideas for the listener or the viewer? That doesn't necessarily seem fair either. So I do think that there's a role for journalists in respectfully fact-checking to keep things within the realm of reality.
KELLY: I want to ask about a line of questioning that you put to one of the candidates in that congressional debate - this is Richard Holtorf. It had to do with his use of offensive language. And it's language I won't repeat here - a whole list of comments that seem designed to offend women and people of color and people with disabilities. Here's what you asked Holtorf.
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CLARK: Do you regret saying any of those things? And why do you talk to people like that?
KELLY: Why is that kind of question - calling out a candidate for the language they use - why is that important to ask? Why is it important for voters to hear?
CLARK: I think it speaks to their character. And in the situation that you just described there, that's a state legislator who makes a habit of saying offensive things about people and seems to revel in it. He's kind of made it his personality. And I knew that I wanted to ask about that, but I didn't know how to phrase the question.
I wrote down the litany of offensive statements, and I stared at it for a good 20 minutes trying to workshop a good question. And finally, out of exasperation, I just wrote on my page, why do you talk to people like that? And that ended up being the question that we asked at the debate. I couldn't come up with a better way to say it. And that was, at the end of the day, what I wanted to know and what I think some Coloradans want to know. Why does this man speak to so many people disrespectful?
KELLY: Yeah. It's the classic - if you're trying to figure out what the question is, you're probably overthinking it. Just ask what you actually want to know. Would a question along those lines be appropriate tomorrow night?
CLARK: I think so. I think that Americans would find it refreshing.
KELLY: I've seen where you have been asked if you wish you were moderating the upcoming presidential debate. And I saw one response where you said, and I'm quoting you, "it might be a little shock to the system for folks at the national level to receive that direct of an approach." Why?
CLARK: Well, because I think that the presidential debates have been run the same way for a long time, with a bit of deviation here and there. And even the slightest bit of fact-checking, you know, draws an uproar. I mean, I remember when CNN's Candy Crowley did it, and people were aghast at the idea that she would fact-check in real time.
And the way that we've run our debates at 9News in Denver for a lot of years is that we do fact-check and that we do expect direct answers to questions and that somebody can't just take their time to speak about an unrelated topic. We will redirect them. So they come into our debates with a level of expectation that that's what they and every other candidate is going to receive.
And I think it would be a shock to the system for the presidential candidates to receive direct questioning like that just 'cause it's not what they're expecting. But like anything else, if it's in the ground rules, they should come prepared.
KELLY: Yeah. I mean, it sounds like what you're saying is it's less about that there's a lack of direct questions, but that what you hear is a lack of pushback when politicians don't answer that direct question. Do I have that right?
CLARK: That's absolutely correct. And to me, it's an issue of respect. It's an issue of respect for the office, for your opponent, for the moderators, but most importantly for the viewers and listeners. Have the respect to them, for them, to answer directly. Have the respect to tell the truth. Have the respect to answer the questions to the best of your ability. Because again, most folks are not political junkies, like the two of us. There are folks who dip in and out of politics, and this might be their one chance to hear from the candidates, and they should hear direct, respectful answers to questions.
KELLY: If you were moderating Tuesday night, is there a top question or two that you would love to hear put to Donald Trump and/or Kamala Harris?
CLARK: You know, the way that I do my debate prep, I spend a lot of time coming up with questions that I feel are direct and respectful and will bear fruit. I have not sat down and put that kind of time into questions for a presidential debate that I would be moderating only in my head. So I have not done that.
But more than anything, certainly the journalists from ABC will have very good questions. I would just love to see the follow-up and the redirect. When the obvious answer is coming back to you and it's dancing around the topic, to go back in, to try again. 'Cause then at least the viewers will see there was an attempt made on my behalf, on behalf of the public, to get me something of value there.
KELLY: Kyle Clark of 9News in Denver, Colo. Thanks so much. This has been fun.
CLARK: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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