Over the past few days, we’ve had a lot of discussion (here; here) about the despicable performance of the moderators in Wednesday’s Democratic debate on ABC.   I’d like to share some reader suggestions about what to do about it as well as some commentary from TalkingPointsMemo about what all of this means for our democracy.   First, the reader comments:

One excellent way to get a network to pay attention is to boycott affiliates’ advertisers, especially local advertisers. To this end, I suggest contacting Rochester’s ABC affiliate, WHAM, at 585-334-8700 or feedback@13wham.com to let them know how you feel about the debate moderation. Suggest also that local progressives will be boycotting their advertisers. The next thing to do is to contact advertisers. One is ESL Federal Credit Union, 100 King’s Highway South, Suite 1200, Rochester NY 14617-5598. Another is Frontline flea and tick treatments, whose national number is 1-800-660-1842. I’ll try and post further comments in coming days with other advertisers. Spread the word!

One thing I would add here is that Channel 13’s own local coverage is solid, in my opinion.  It’s important to be clear that the complaints are about ABC, not the affiliate.

And here’s the commentary from Josh Marshall of TPM:

Organized campaigns of falsehoods, distortions and smears used to be something most people thought of as a bad thing, if not something that’s ever been too far removed from American politics. Now, however, members of the prestige press appear to see it not as a matter of guilty slumming but rather a positive journalistic obligation to engage in their own organized campaign of falsehood, distortion and smear on the reasoning that it anticipates the eventual one to be mounted by Republicans. In other words, we’ve gotten past the debatable rationale that journalists have no choice but to cover smears and distortions once they’re floated into the mainstream debate to thinking that journalists need to seek out and air smears and distortions on the grounds of electability, as though the mid-summer GOP Swiftboating was another de facto part of the election process like primaries, conventions and debates.

[...]

In any case, at this stage it’s not even clear the GOP slimesters ever have to come on the field. Journalists recognize their obligation to seek out potential Swift Boat tactics and do the job for them.

I would argue that the D&C is guilty of much the same thing when they write about Minarik’s bogus issues (the pledge of allegiance, filters in libraries).  But I would say this: the D&C is not nearly as bad about this as the national media is.