While the media missed out on a historic opportunity last Thursday, 11 million people tuned into X — the social media platform owned by Elon Musk — to watch Robert F. Kennedy Jr. debate… himself.

Streamed from Los Angeles in front of a live studio audience, Kennedy & Company watched the debate live occasionally pausing the actual debate to give the Independent candidate a chance to speak.

While the innovative X debate allowed Kennedy to explain why Americans shouldn’t vote for Trump or Biden, he failed to bring up how his policies are better. What he did do at the very beginning of the debate was allege CNN colluded with the Republican and Democratic parties, which is why he was not on stage.

Thursday’s debate between President Biden and former President Donald Trump was the first not put together by an independent non-profit. Meaning CNN owned the debate. They commercialized the debate.

Perhaps this is why CNN threatened X owner Elon Musk with a lawsuit if the Kennedy “debate” took place. As of this writing, it’s yet to happen. However, there are several ethical concerns if the 24-hour news network should be allowed to. Though televised debates have been around since the 1960s the opportunity to transition these debates to a streaming or digital service could provide better options for the viewers’ freedoms.

Modern Presidential debates haven’t been around for very long but they have proven important for candidates to grasp hold of undecided voters. The first radio debate was aired in 1948 when Republicans Thomas E. Dewey and Harold Stassen went head-to-head in the presidential primary.

Eight years later, Democrats one-upped the GOP by televising their 1956 presidential primary debate. However, it wasn’t until the famous Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960 when we saw two confirmed presidential nominees hit the airwaves, with 66 million viewers. Compare it to CNN’s 48 Million [rounding up] plus an additional 11 million from Kennedy’s debate, that’s only 59 million viewers. Our population has grown, yet fewer Americans are watching our potential Presidents debate.

After 1960, Americans waited 16 years (four election cycles) before we saw another televised presidential debate for the general election. It was 1976 Ford vs Carter. While the 1960 debate was sponsored by the news outlets, from 1976 through 1984 debates were sponsored by the League of Women Voters.

In 1987, the group dropped out of sponsoring presidential debates, releasing a statement that said in part, “because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity, and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.”

The Commission on Presidential Debates was formed and took over for the League of Women voters. Since then we’ve seen not one but two independent candidates hit the debate stage.

Before Ross Perot in 1992, John B. Anderson hit the debate stage in 1980, but only against Ronald Regan. President Carter’s campaign declined to debate the Independent, even though Anderson was polling at 22%. Ross Perot was polling at 18.9% when he ran. Kennedy is not far behind, with three different pollsters having him at 15%. (Yes, Ralph Nader tried to crash a debate but he never made it in and was only polling at 5%, hardly enough to make a dent into his contemporaries.)

The businessman with a famous last name has a large social media following largely comprised of Latino and young voters. In theory, he will have an easier time gaining traction with voters through social media, provided the algorithms allow exposure.

Modern media outlets have a unique opportunity, one the League of Women Voters  (and our founding fathers) would’ve loved to use. Give voice to other parties and candidates along with Republicans and Democrats. More substantive debates could be held on platforms like X, Facebook Live, and YouTube with live questions from actual voters across the country (instead of carefully curated questions in years past). No networks or commercials needed.

This election cycle, X (along with vigilante owner Elon Musk) is taking advantage of this by giving Kennedy extra exposure/airtime after being left out of Thursday’s debate. If other modern media outlets will follow suit remains to be seen. However, instead of bowing to our two-party system, social media has the opportunity to give the country more options, like George Washington wanted.

“[Political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Recently, I read a note in The Free Press (the online one, not the Detroit newspaper) that mentioned one can now earn a master’s degree in “degrowth.” Outside of being voluntary, degrowth sounds similar to the US radio industry in the 2020s. After getting past the initial incredulity that a university would actually offer such a degree, I looked it up. It’s real.

The degree is offered by UAB. No, not the University of Alabama-Birmingham, but the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. And yes, there is a master’s degree program in Political Ecology Degrowth and Environmental Justice. If you’re interested, it’s taught in English, takes a year of your time, and will set you back just under 4,000 euros. I’ve not been to Barcelona, but I’ve heard it’s a nice city.

The university suggests that while this degree will not lead to doctoral studies (heaven forbid!), you might be able to obtain work in areas such as public administration, environmental justice organizations, or cooperatives, among other potential employers. 

The program is run in cooperation with an organization known as Research and Degrowth International. The group defines “degrowth” as “a multi-level voluntary path towards reduction of production and consumption…”. RDI is also a big fan of Palestine and Gaza, the latter of which is certainly well into the process of degrowth.

That’s why this struck me as a useful degree for entering radio management. Certainly, the industry has not been growing for some time, in other words, radio is “degrowing”. Why not hire some people that specialize in the field? 

To support my assertion, I was working on a presentation for my current class at Western Kentucky University and came across this chart.

You can see that radio revenue was essentially flat from 2013 through 2019. COVID did a number on the business in 2020, but the rebound in 2021 did not return the industry to the revenue levels of the 2010s. S&P Global and Kagan, the sources of the data, suggest that revenues will decline slowly through the rest of the decade, and this includes digital.

We’ve seen all the layoffs, RIFs, cutbacks, and in a few cases, licenses being turned back to the FCC. It’s not just commercial radio as some of the biggest public radio operators have reduced headcount, canceled programming, and taken other steps to get their financial houses in order as well.

When I’ve been chatting recently with friends in the business, I’ve said that I should write a column with the headline “All of These People Can’t Be Stupid”, in other words, if everyone is hurting, it’s highly unlikely that all of the radio CEOs are all clueless idiots. Any industry that can still generate around $15 billion of annual revenue is not dead but is not headed in the right direction. It’s degrowth.

What to do? Last week, Fred Jacobs offered some concrete ideas in his blog. Fred’s not the only one with ideas that might steer us in the right direction, but it strikes me that our lack of promotion is hurting us. 

My summer class at WKU is Emerging Technologies. While I was a dope to take a graduate class that crams 15 weeks into five, it’s been interesting. The subject of my paper and presentation for the class (which is web-based, by the way) is AI in radio and I’ve had to learn more about how AI is being used in the business.

Last year, there was a lot of ruckus about “AI Ashley”, a cloned version of a jock in Michigan doing middays in Portland, Oregon. When you look up AI Ashley on Google, you’ll find all sorts of stories about her and the use of an AI jock. How much publicity did KBFF receive (oddly, KBFF is known as Live 95.5, but AI Ashley is a real live person)? How many people around the country saw or read a story about a radio station? 

Do we have any other stories to tell that will bring broadcast radio to a top-of-mind position as one more choice in a world with so many media choices? What can we do to promote our medium more, regardless of how individuals access it? And while we want to promote it to the people who control advertising spend, wouldn’t a greater profile locally and nationally wake some of them up? As I noted in a recent column, we have all the studies, we know that audio advertising works, but that doesn’t seem to be changing the chart above.

If we can’t change the story, perhaps we should have UAB’s website add that holders of a masters in degrowth may have options in traditional media (without the left-wing baggage that comes with the degree although Uri Berliner might suggest a public radio gig). All of print is in degrowth, linear TV is headed that way, and if we don’t come up with new ideas and act on them, radio won’t be far behind. 

Let’s meet again next week.

It’s been touted as the most anticipated debate this election season. The first Presidential debate of 2024 was a Hail Mary toss for CNN, yet they landed short of the end zone.

It’s the earliest debate ever held. Neither candidate is technically on the ballot in any state (because they are not yet the nominees of their party). It is also the re-match most people in America did not want and the media is failing in it’s duty to be the fourth estate.

In the first debate where mics of nonspeakers would be muted, it was not surprising both candidates had multiple clipped answers. It’s good because it showed that their audio technician is human but it also showed they muted mics equally and without prejudice.

What was ridiculous was both Biden (46) and Trump (45) stepping over each other on 46’s golf handicap. This would have been a perfect opportunity for Dana Bash or Jake Tapper to step in and get the two elderly statesmen back on track. Yet, this is one of the many examples of the pair failing at their moderator duties.

The first three follow-up questions were all to Trump. In fact, 45 was asked the same question significantly more than Biden. It’s not from Trump lacking an answer and Biden providing perfectly coherent responses. It’s from a failure of their journalistic duty.

The point where Bash failed was when she asked “If [Trump] will accept the results of this election?” 45 answered that question the first and third time she asked it. However, if she had been listening, Bash would have heard the first time Trump answered it. This gives left-leaning outlets a chance to say he didn’t answer the question fully. It also provides them an opportunity to praise Bash for “pressuring” Trump.

Conversely, Tapper missed two opportunities to pressure Trump on key issues (likely because his answers could have picked up some moderate left voters). The first: If Palestine should be a recognized country. The second: What would [Trump] do to make child care more affordable?

There were several instances where Biden did not answer a question, fully, completely, or coherently. However, instead of asking the same question again — like they did with Trump — they asked a follow-up question. To Tapper and Bash’s credit, they both noted when each candidate had time left and asked a second question (provided the candidate answered the first question to their liking).

While both moderators tried to “refocus” Trump on certain questions, neither of them tried to refocus Biden when he did not answer (or stumbled through a response).

A most notable failure? Tapper began asking a question (moving on from the January 6th topic) when Biden raised his finger asking for rebuttal time. No, Jake! This showed your bias. You began asking a question. This means it’s time to move on. Not allow Biden to rebut Trump. This is Tapper handing the debate over to Biden and not maintaining control.

Speaking of moving on, CNN (and all other outlets) need to move on from having commercial breaks. It is ironic and symbolic because it shows how the Presidential race has become more of a commercial enterprise than a public service (which is what our Founding Fathers intended our government to be: public service). Other outlets could have seized the opportunity to review the debate.

All the major outlets aired (their own, not simulcast) commercials during the break. The only people to benefit from the commercial breaks were media suits. It’s a sad day for journalism when what should be a service provided to the American public was manipulated into a profit machine for large corporations.

However, there was one major failure of CNN which came before the debate. In 1992, Ross Perot (I) joined President George H.W. Bush (R), and then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton (D), on the debate stage. It marked the first time ever three people had shared the stage for a Presidential debate. True American politics at work. This is what our system was designed for.

Yet, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was nowhere to be found on this debate stage. While CNN claims he did not meet the qualifications to participate, his campaign says neither did the other candidates (because neither is technically on the ballot as they have not yet been nominated by their party).

In May, the Kennedy campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission but to no avail. It’s ironic the debate that takes place on Ross Perot’s birthday is not allowing a third-party candidate to participate. Kennedy instead held a real-time debate on X.

Biased “journalist” media outlets have lost integrity and self-respect. Plus drinking games and bets on which President would poop their pants on live tv first. Yes, the 2024 Presidential debate featured exactly what the other 99% of Americans feared: evidence that we are hopeless to the broken system and biased outlets that used to make our Democratic Republic so great.

Regardless of who wins in November (I hope it’s none of the above), we Americas and the American Media need to put our bias aside and unify as a country, something CNN moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper did not do. Supporting the President — regardless of party — is extremely important because if the President fails so does the country. We need a media outlet to unify the country. CNN is not said outlet.