Holt didn\u2019t ask any questions about the following topics: poverty, abortion, climate change, \u00a0immigration, healthcare, student debt, privacy, LGBTQ rights or drug policy. (NBC<\/b> reported<\/a> before the debate that abortion and immigration were two of the policy issues that voters were most interested in, as indicated byGoogle<\/b> searches, along with the economy and police shootings.)<\/p>\n What was discussed: jobs, Trump\u2019s tax returns, who did or didn\u2019t support the Iraq War, raising taxes on the rich, race (framed mostly in a way that pandered to Trump\u2019s theme of a country in disarray), Russian cyberattacks, ISIS, Obama\u2019s birth certificate, Clinton\u2019s physical appearance and whether the candidates would accept the election results.<\/p>\n Obviously, a moderator can\u2019t cover every topic in a 90-minute debate, but one can hardly imagine a scenario where the candidates weren\u2019t asked to discuss taxes on the wealthy, ISIS and the specter of Russian cyberattacks\u2014topics, not coincidentally, the average person is rarely if ever affected by, but receive nonstop discussion on cable news and opinion sections. Holt even framed raising taxes on the wealthy\u2014whose share of national income has multiplied six-fold<\/a> over the last 40 years\u2014as something Clinton had to \u201cdefend.\u201d<\/p>\n Total mentions from the moderator and the two candidates combined for ISIS were 24; Russia\/Putin had 16 and Iran 19. Total mentions of abortion, poverty, health insurance, LGBTQ rights and voter suppression were zero. Climate change was only mentioned\u2014once\u2014because Clinton brought it up.<\/p>\n As FAIR<\/b> (5\/6\/16<\/a>) noted previously, in nine Democratic Party debates, there were no questions asked about poverty. As Think Progress<\/b> (4\/14\/16<\/a>) pointed out, there were also zero questions about abortion.<\/p>\n Issues specifically affecting the poor, LGBTQ people and women (aside from a question about Trump denying that Clinton had \u201ca presidential look\u201d) continue to be overlooked. To the extent race was discussed, it was framed with the false parity of \u201crace relations.\u201d Holt didn\u2019t ask Clinton, for example, how she would fight racism\u2014a word Holt never mentioned\u2014but instead asked her how she would \u201cheal the divide.\u201d (In Holt\u2019s defense, he did press Trump on his racist \u201cbirther\u201d campaign.)<\/p>\n The next debate will be on October 9, hosted by ABC<\/b>\u2019s Martha Raddatz, a reporter noted for her closeness to military sources (FAIR Blog<\/b>, 11\/14\/11<\/a>).<\/p>\n Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org<\/strong>. You can f<\/em>ollow him onTwitter<\/strong> at\u00a0@AdamJohnsonNYC<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n You can send messages to NBC News<\/strong><\/a> (or via Twitter<\/strong>: @NBCNews<\/a>). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.<\/em><\/p>\n Presidential debates do as much to illustrate corporate media priorities as they do to showcase the candidates. They provide a snapshot into what the media, in this case represented by NBC\u2019s Lester Holt, prioritizes as issues worthy of discussion. A week before the debate,Comcast-owned NBC announced the topics, and one could already tell we weren\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[90],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2016-presidential-election","tag-presidential-debates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"Debate](\"http:\/\/fair.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/HoltDebate-e1475001247116.png\")