Breaking from typical pre-election news coverage, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart moderated "Turning the Tables: Politicians Grill the Media," a debate between prominent journalists and politicians, on Saturday night in Manchester, N.H.
Approximately 25 Dartmouth students joined an audience of about 400 to see the spectacle unfold. The event featured bright lights, video projections and a very feisty Chief White House correspondent for ABC News, Sam Donaldson.
Other panelists on the journalist side were Newsweek magazine Senior Editor Jonathan Alter, Time magazine Managing Editor Walter Isaacson, NBC White House corespondent Claire Shipman and CNN Legal Analyst Greta Van Susterern.
On the politicians' side were former Congressman Fred Grandy, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, former Congresswoman Susan Molinari, New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler, former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder and Senior Adviser to Bill Bradley for President Richard Stengel.
From the first question-answer session when Donaldson stood up and walked across the stage to mock-strangle Isaacson after he admitted that fact-checking was the thing journalists did most poorly, it was clear that this event was far from a normal panel discussion.
At points, the panelists became defensive.
"I had no idea that you guys would actually get angry," Stewart joked. He noted that when you reverse the roles of the questioners and respondents, you get similar results of discomfort and defensiveness.
