“Who Won?”: A Critical Examination of Newspaper Editorials Evaluating Nationally Televised Presidential Debates

Abstract

While mediated reaction to presidential debates assumes many forms, one dominant strain of commentary involves the declaration of “who won.” While there is no shortage of opinion about the utility of the press's interest in picking debate winners, we have little understanding of the kinds of arguments employed to make these cases. The paper examines the types of arguments used in one form of media commentary about television debates and advances three claims about the argumentative criteria media analysts employ in declaring winners in presidential debates: (1) editorials are guilty of the same flaws which media critics assert are problems in the debates themselves, (2) the press uses debate criteria which it admits are flawed, and (3) ineffectual argumentative criteria, not the decision to declare debate winners and, losers, demeans the role that presidential debates assume in the political process.