Issues convention on for Austin, but will candidates show?
KTCA faces same question for debate next month
Originally published in Current, Sept. 11, 1995
By Karen Everhart Bedford
In a press conference apparently designed to reach presidential candidates as much as reporters, PBS and the University of Texas last week announced that they will provide the remaining financial backing to guarantee that the $4 million National Issues Convention will take place as planned, Jan. 18-21, 1996, in Austin.
The unprecedented gathering--previously proposed but not funded for the 1992 election--will bring a scientifically selected, nationally representative sample of 600 citizens to Austin to discuss three major issues among themselves and with the presidential candidates. The focal point of the weekend-long event, which PBS's NewsHour will cover in three special broadcasts, will be a ''deliberative poll'' that attempts to measure how citizens who become informed view the issues.
As preparations for the Austin convention roll ahead full steam, KTCA in Twin Cities is offering public TV stations another program experimenting with civic journalism--''CityVote.'' The Oct. 6, 1995, broadcast, a two-hour debate of urban issues among announced and unannounced presidential candidates, will precede a Nov. 7 ''urban primary'' in which residents of 20 cities holding fall elections will express preferences on the current field of presidential candidates.
Both the Austin and Twin Cities broadcast events have yet to secure commitments from the major presidential candidates, however.
''We think it's in both the public interest and the candidates' interests to come to Austin and engage with 600 informed Americans,'' said Charls Walker, senior advisor to the issues convention.
''It was said in a movie picture years ago, 'If you build it, they will come.' We've built it, they will come,'' he added.
Not just a professor's wild idea
With financial and in-kind contributions from three new backers--the Annie E. Casey Foundation, American Airlines and Southwestern Bell--the national issues convention recently cleared its last fundraising hurdle. These and earlier supporting organizations have committed more than $2.35 million in cash and $1.5 million in in-kind contributions.
Support for the event gives ''assurance that this is not merely the wild idea of some hare-brained political science professor,'' said William Livingston, senior v.p. of the University of Texas, which will host the convention on its Austin campus. He described the event as ''large-scale social science research'' that will ''demonstrate once and for all that an educated electorate is not an oxymoron.''
Participants in the convention will be selected through a random, nationally representative survey to be undertaken in November, said UT Austin's Prof. James Fishkin, originator of the deliberative poll process. They will review nonpartisan briefing materials on three topics--the economy, America's international role, and the state of the American family--and participate in small group discussions led by trained moderators.
The convention will then meet with each presidential candidate individually to discuss what Fishkin described as its ''people's agenda.'' At the convention's conclusion, participants will be surveyed a second time to measure how the deliberative process changed their views.
''It will be representative and deliberative and therefore nothing like it has been done anywhere else,'' said Fishkin. ''We're going to make every effort to make it both rigorous social science and good television.''
PBS's coverage of the event will feature live broadcasts of the candidates' appearances before the convention on Jan. 20 and 21. The third broadcast, a Jan. 26 special report on the events of the convention and its impact, will feature the results of the deliberative poll. Jim Lehrer of the NewsHour will moderate all three programs.
The convention will be broadcast ''at a time when it can make a difference,'' Fishkin noted--on the eve of the presidential primaries and between the football playoffs and the Super Bowl. ''We think we can capture the attention of the country.
''A crap shoot''
On a smaller and less scientific scale, KTCA's ''CityVote'' special will engage presidential candidates in a Fred Friendly-style discussion of urban issues to be prioritized by a group of 50 ''Twin Citians,'' as described by Bill Hanley, v.p. of news and public affairs.
To make the program inclusive, KTCA extended invitations to 20 candidates, some of whom, such as Jesse Jackson and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell, have yet to throw their hats in the ring. (Hanley noted that Powell promptly responded with a ''very nice turn-down,'' and Jackson accepted.)
The program and the city-based referendum to follow it are attempts promote discussion of urban concerns early in the election process. With the New Hampshire and Iowa primaries holding such influence over the outcome of presidential elections, ''urban issues get lost,'' said Hanley.
''It's a risky idea that could fall flat on its face,'' acknowledged Hanley. But the CityVote concept sounded like ''such a good thing, we decided to put the wheel to our shoulder and take a bit of a risk.''
It's the kind of idea, he added, that ''has public television written all over it.''
Earlier news: Fishkin, PBS and MacNeil/Lehrer announce issues convention for January 1996
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Later news: Later news: Participants in issues convention say
discussions helped them understand their differences.