Can we all get along?
Rodney King
No. No we can’t. That’s why we fight. It’s also why we have alternatives to fighting, like political debate.
At the University of Miami, two students set out to give young people a place to voice their opinions. Last year, Daniel Kaslow and Spencer Weinkle created We The Students, a 25-minute online, interactive debate program. The show features debaters from all over the country and a range of topics, and allows students to ask questions over the Internet while the show is live. Dennis Kucinich even appeared on the show last year in an episode about the Iraq War.
Daniel told me how the show got started. “Spencer came to me and he really liked the idea of Internet interconnectivity. The whole thing started with us asking, ‘How can we include people watching our show on the Internet in our show?’”
Producer Brett Smith filled me in on where to catch the show. “We have our own website, WeTheStudents.tv. We’re also carried by OSTN, the Open Student Television Network, and CBS UWire. We’re partners with them.” With such impressive distribution, it’s important to keep the show fresh. A team of faculty advisors in the ethics program at University of Miami advise the producers on what teams to bring onto the programs and what issues to cover.
Jennifer Farrell is another producer. “I usually spend several hours doing research online to come up with questions. Then I come in on Tuesday and spend a couple of hours in the studio making the layout for the show and writing the script for the anchor.” But not everything always goes according to plan. Director Dane Turner told me, “We have the questions scripted out generally, but during the show the debaters have no script with them. We have to be ready for just about anything. The debaters will say whatever they want, they’ll cut each other off, they’ll ramble on. Anything can happen on this show.”
What Dane described was exactly what I saw during the debate on Tuesday, April 1st (no kidding). I was on set for the season ending episode. The topic? Abortion. Two debaters from Liberty University, Jeffrey A. White and Michelle Oh, took the pro-life stance. Samuel Natale and Madeline Murphy Hall, the other two debaters from University of Vermont, took the pro-choice side. Ironically, the pro-lifers were seated to the right while the pro-choice debaters were seated to the left. Go figure.
At times the debate was heated, with people cutting each other off and frustration building. Trust me, nobody needed another pillow. But there was no violence, no name calling, no bitterness. At the end of the show, everyone shook hands and walked away, hopefully with an appreciation of an opposing viewpoint. And that may be the best part about debate: You might just learn something without even realizing it.
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