Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Ethos of First Televised Presidential Debate

This debate pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard Nixon.  This was a revolutionary debate in many ways.  For the first

time, T.V. was a factor in voting.  By the 1960's, T.V. had become a mass media product.  It was in nearly every U.S. 

household.  Kennedy won mainly because he prepared better.  Kennedy knew these debates were going to be important.  

He put make-up on and tanned himself.  Meanwhile, Nixon thought this was just another debate.  He refused to put 

make-up on, got his knee banged up while getting out of the car.  As a result, he looked pale due to a recent 

hospitalization.  Thus, television was very credible back then.  The better prepared you are, the better you are going to do.  

Logically, Kennedy won the debates while Nixon lost.

2 comments:

  1. I'm not sure if you can base the mistrust of the government all on the Watergate incident. There is a lot that goes into mistrust and the information provided is a bit too limited to state that this is the reason people don't trust President Obama.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think you're making a lot of assumptions in saying that "no one trusts Obama" and how people don't trust the government anymore. The Watergate incident did have an impact on audience in terms of media, but I don't think you can jump to the conclusion that this incident is the cause of why politics is what it is now.

    ReplyDelete