Should we bring back "Crossfire"?

The following is a guest post from Jonathan Ladd, an associate professor at Georgetown University and the author of Why Americans Hate the Media and How it Matters (Princeton University Press, 2012).

Several weeks ago, Ramesh Ponnuru published an article on Bloomberg View titled “Save Political Debate. Bring Back ‘Crossfire.’” In response, Jonathan Chait and Tim Carney expressed support for Crossfire, and a number of political scientists that I follow on twitter expressed opposition. I may be in the minority among political scientists, but I think that programs like Crossfire are not harmful and can actually be moderately helpful to the political process. 

The first thing to keep in mind about cable programs like Crossfire (or even the super-wonky Up with Chris Hayes at the other end of the spectrum) is that, even if they are successful, they are watched by a small segment of the electorate that tends to be already very well informed and have strong political preferences. These are people whose basic views about politics are very difficult to change. No electoral outcomes will be affected by any of these shows.

But I would argue that both of these types of shows (heavily conformational and heavily wonky/policy-oriented) can play an important role in helping party elites to coordinate their partisan and ideological coalitions. As several political scientists have pointed out (and I do in my book as well) the news media can play an important role in helping political coalitions made up of different factions with diverse policy demands come together to form a united front. By exposing political elites to the types of arguments each side of the political divide is making, they can better deliberate and coordinate which policy stances will be in their coalition and which will be in the opposing coalition. When parties can better coordinate, the can offer clearer choices to voters and elections can provide more accountability. If anything, the less polite arguments on Crossfire might be even more helpful in clarifying the positions of the two coalitions.

But ultimately, I think the distinction between highbrow and lowbrow cable political debate shows, as illustrated by Up with Chris and Crossfire, largely just reflects the aesthetic preferences among the political elites who watch these shows. Some political junkies prefer the political shows they watch for entertainment to be like a college seminar, where topics are debated politely. Others prefer their political shows to be set up more like a sporting event, were people argue. Whichever one prefers to watch, I see no reason to believe that both don’t equally serve the purpose of building and maintaining political coalitions.