An inside look at the underside of Tuesday’s Republican Presidential debate

The Hillsdale Collegian ^ | November 11, 2015 | Macaela Bennett

[2ndDivisionVet]

When Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, made a snide comment about jour­nalists during Tuesday’s fourth Republican Pres­i­dential debate, hundreds of jour­nalists clustered in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, media filing center shared a moment.

While responding to crit­icisms of Donald Trump’s firm stance against illegal immi­gration, Cruz said many people disregard immi­gration as an economic issue. He blamed this misun­der­standing partially on the main­stream media’s coverage of it. To emphasize his point, Cruz argued that the media would cover the issue differently if undoc­u­mented immi­grants entering the United States were applying for jour­nalism jobs.

“I will say, the politics of it would be very, very different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande,” Cruz said. “Or if a bunch of people with jour­nalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press, then we would see stories about the economic calamity that is befalling our nation.”

Adjoining the debate hall in Milwaukee, where Cruz made this comment, I observed hundreds of jour­nalists withdraw from writing deadline stories, rehearsing TV stand ups, and live tweeting to cast shifting glances and share smirks with one another. For 30 seconds, the clacking keyboards stilled and every media person held something in common: We had all been called out.

I didn’t hear any major remarks about his accu­sation, but it was the only time Tuesday night a candidate captured the attention of the entire press.

The rest of the day, jour­nalists fueled by free coffee and chips provided by the Republican National Committee buzzed between the debate hall, filing center, and protests raging outside, where Black Lives Matter repre­sen­tatives burned an American flag and provoked policemen.

Underlying the glamorous-looking debate hall, where the candidates were split into two groups — an undercard debate of four candidates and prime-time debate with the eight garnering the most support — media repre­sen­tatives took little time to share in these type of human experiences.

An exception being whenever a jour­nalist found his or her assigned seat and read the Wifi password: “StopHillary.”

Even though an RNC email had sent out that infor­mation a few days prior, a shrill spike in laugher and comments something like “That’s hilarious. Did you see the password?” arose above the normal din every few minutes.

After CNBC’s debate two weeks ago was broadly crit­icized for lacking both content and moderator talent, Tuesday’s co-hosts Fox Business and The Wall Street Journal pledged to foster more substantial conversation.

Because of the backlash specif­ically against CNBC’s moderators, those moderating Tuesday night seemed appre­hensive about avoiding a similar review. Before the undercard debate, moderators Sandra Smith of Fox Business and Trish Regan from WSJ reminded the candidates several times, “Please be kind to your moderators.”

As a result, candidates during both debates spent more time talking about tax plans than fantasy football.

While many on Twitter shared their relief about the more serious debate format, a few jour­nalists in the media center grumbled that it wasn’t as entertaining.

The jumbotron and flatscreens scattered across the media center blackened during the prime-time debate’s first commercial break, and one voice pervaded the sudden silence saying, “So when is someone going to say something interesting?”

That same jour­nalist joined in the chorus of disgruntled groans after Cruz’s comment an hour later, and he looked much more amused.

(TWEETS-AT-LINK)

[Jet Jaguar]

BTTT

[concentric circles]

Los Angeles County supervisor Michael Antonovich, “Illegal immigration continues to cost County taxpayers nearly $2 billion dollars a year and siphons resources away from vital municipal services for legal immigrants and county residents.”

[TBP]

Antonovich is still in office? He was in office in the 1970s!

[Utilizer]

Cleaned up a bit:

When Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, made a snide comment about journalists during Tuesday’s fourth Republican Presidential debate, hundreds of journalists clustered in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, media filing center shared a moment.

While responding to criticisms of Donald Trump’s firm stance against illegal immigration, Cruz said many people disregard immigration as an economic issue. He blamed this misunderstanding partially on the mainstream media’s coverage of it. To emphasize his point, Cruz argued that the media would cover the issue differently if undocumented immigrants entering the United States were applying for journalism jobs.

Protesters clashed with police outside of the November 10 GOP Presidential Debate.

“I will say, the politics of it would be very, very different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande,” Cruz said. “Or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press, then we would see stories about the economic calamity that is befalling our nation.”

Adjoining the debate hall in Milwaukee, where Cruz made this comment, I observed hundreds of journalists withdraw from writing deadline stories, rehearsing TV stand ups, and live tweeting to cast shifting glances and share smirks with one another. For 30 seconds, the clacking keyboards stilled and every media person held something in common: We had all been called out.

I didn’t hear any major remarks about his accusation, but it was the only time Tuesday night a candidate captured the attention of the entire press.

The rest of the day, journalists fueled by free coffee and chips provided by the Republican National Committee buzzed between the debate hall, filing center, and protests raging outside, where Black Lives Matter representatives burned an American flag and provoked policemen.

Underlying the glamorous-looking debate hall, where the candidates were split into two groups — an undercard debate of four candidates and prime-time debate with the eight garnering the most support — media representatives took little time to share in these type of human experiences.

An exception being whenever a journalist found his or her assigned seat and read the Wifi password: “StopHillary.”

Even though an RNC email had sent out that information a few days prior, a shrill spike in laugher and comments something like “That’s hilarious. Did you see the password?” arose above the normal din every few minutes.

After CNBC’s debate two weeks ago was broadly criticized for lacking both content and moderator talent, Tuesday’s co-hosts Fox Business and The Wall Street Journal pledged to foster more substantial conversation.

Journalists watched the debate on large screens in the media filming center.

Because of the backlash specifically against CNBC’s moderators, those moderating Tuesday night seemed apprehensive about avoiding a similar review. Before the undercard debate, moderators Sandra Smith of Fox Business and Trish Regan from WSJ reminded the candidates several times, “Please be kind to your moderators.”

As a result, candidates during both debates spent more time talking about tax plans than fantasy football.

While many on Twitter shared their relief about the more serious debate format, a few journalists in the media center grumbled that it wasn’t as entertaining.

The jumbotron and flatscreens scattered across the media center blackened during the prime-time debate’s first commercial break, and one voice pervaded the sudden silence saying, “So when is someone going to say something interesting?”

That same journalist joined in the chorus of disgruntled groans after Cruz’s comment an hour later, and he looked much more amused.

[libertylover]

Cruz argued that the media would cover the issue differently if undocumented illegal immigrants entering the United States were applying for journalism jobs.

Cleaned up a bit more.

[Oatka]

Thanks - my eyes were jumping out their sockets.

[Grams A]

Tired old eyes thank you a lot. Happy Veteran’s Day.

[Utilizer]

Welcome. Glad you appreciated it. :)

[Utilizer]

Happy Veteran’s Day to you as well.

As a veteran, I appreciate that you remembered.

Take care now. :) *smile*