Dialogue Documents

Overview

Newspapers and magazines commonly distribute the “advertising supplement” that is almost always used to sell products or services. 

The Introduction of Public Talks seeks to institutionalize a new communication media, the Dialogue Document, which is similar in physical size to many advertising supplement but is very different as to function and visual appearance. 

Before looking closer at the advertising supplement, recognize that there are two fundamentally different uses for the Dialogue Document, which are both political in nature:

One is to engage in a negotiating process – Public Talks

Two is to engage in a debate process – Print Debate

While the former has been the focus of this entire site, the latter features the same central communications instrument, the Dialogue Document.  (While the nomenclature has changed from the earlier “Challenge Document” to what is now the “Dialogue Document,” the description of this process remains the same.)

Print Debates in the U.S.

For a short summary of a Print Debate, read one of the following opinion editorials and glance at the others:

Opinion Editorial San Francisco Examiner (06/10/94) "Instead of TV attack ads, how about a ‘print debate’"

Opinion Editorial San Diego Union Tribune "Unlike TV attack ads, this old style debate doesn’t insult voters"

Opinion Editorial, Roll Call on Capitol Hill (03/22/04) "Kerry Should Challenge Bush to a Print Debate"

Opinion Editorial, Seattle Times (08/27/04) “Challenging the Candidates to put the Debate on Paper”

One characteristic of the Print Debate is exactly the same with Public Talks in that one side may proceed with or without agreement between two parties.  The following two pdfs have been constructed to show a color version of a Print Debate between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960 using the same issues that were relevant at that time:

Nixon, Kennedy Print Debate With Agreement

Kennedy issuing a Print Debate Without Nixon Agreeing

A set of Print Debate terms for a structured dialogue between political candidates that was constructed in 2004:

Print Debate Terms

A Print Debate lends itself to both campaigns between candidates and an exposition of large complex issues.  Once this formal debate platform is established, each side can drill down and ask the opposing side specific questions that will take place over a series of rounds.  This will effectively allow follow up questions and a challenging of underlying assumptions.  Individual citizens, less ideological than their leaders, will want to see this process move forward as this formal and structured clash of opinions will indeed lead to a greater public recognition of truth.

Questions and Answers about a Print Debate

Since the US is highly connected with the Internet, shouldn’t we expect that a Print Debate here would take place entirely online for very little cost? 

While an online Print Debate could easily take place here, it is not the whole story.

Consider a presidential campaign.  Take the long view of both public policy and maintaining the citizen’s connection to history.  Imagine if you could go to a bookshelf and put your hands on four rounds of an actual Print Debate between Kenned and Nixon in 1960 and reread what was crucial to the U.S. at that time.

Extrapolate this every four years and consider the central issues in 1980 with Reagan and Carter;  What  were the most important issues with Bush and Gore in 2000?   The value to having this durable, long term record of our national debates is clear and compelling but what of other political campaigns, say in Congress, governors and even mayors of major cities.

Granted, one could search for this information and indeed almost any political issue can be found with little effort.  Yet the Print Debate and Public Talks are about far more than assembling information.  Public Talks and the Print Debate are about establishing commonly recognized benchmarks of knowledge.

 A national Print Debate will create a foundation for public policy that will focus on essential issue that will be sharply differentiated from today’s endless political noise.

Are major US elections important enough that we should pay for the physical Dialogue Documents of a Print Debate?

Concerns over costs and sustainable forests will be part of this discussion, but when all the expenses and benefits are weighed, the public may be very interested in Print Debate across a broad spectrum of campaign and major political issues.

Citizens want to hold leaders more accountable and they want leaders to do what they were elected to do.  The citizenry wants policies that work;  they have had enough of smoke and mirrors.  Evidence of this is all around us and it is independent of political ideology.

How does the Advertising Supplement compare and contrast with the Dialogue Document?

The advertising supplement is inherently a one way communications mechanism that is declaratory in nature.  The Dialogue Document is a two way communications mechanism that is inherently opposing in nature.  Every time we experience the latter, we will ask ourselves “What does the other side have to say?”

Advertising supplements appear with little or no advance warning or expectations.  A Dialogue Document will routinely be the focus of a media campaign by whatever group is initiating that process.  Many interviews and events will commonly precede the arrival of that instrument.  Thus these Dialogue Documents will cause significantly higher numbers of readers to purchase that periodical. 

This phenomenon brings up a relevant characteristic.  If newspapers and magazines come to expect a 30-40% rise in readership of the issue that contains a given Dialogue Document, the economics becomes very favorable for both these media and the organizations that have placed this order.
Advertising supplements are paid by commercial interests.  The Dialogue Document will become a component of public policy and a range of funding mechanisms will be used to pay for this process.

What would the Overseeing Body be for the Print Debate process?

While Public Talks will most likely have one major Overseeing Body or perhaps two, the Print Debate may be very different.

Individual states may take very different approaches, which could lead to a variety of relatively localized terms that reflect the views of that region.

At the national level, the league of Women Voters has sponsored most modern presidential debates through 1984 but since then, all of these debates have been organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates  http://debates.org/  This is an assembly of senior party leaders of both Democrats and Republicans who now control televised debates. 

Given this history, one might expect that this organization might create a national Print Debate structure. Yet it is difficult to predict how this would unfold as events surrounding the introduction of the Print Debate will bring sudden attention to the entire idea of debates.

How would print and televised debates be integrated together?

There is little doubt that it makes compelling sense to have the Print Debate first and the televised debates later.   By having a Presidential Print Debate unfold earlier, the candidates could refer to these previous statements.  Moreover, the electorate would benefit from experiencing this back and forth process that all would see as a historical record.

A sample of the first page of the Kennedy Nixon Print Debate: