by Ashleigh Owens, Assistant Editor-in-Chief
The following story was written by a student on the staff of The Jaguar Times as part of Hilliard Bradley High School’s Journalism Production course.
This past Tuesday, the first presidential debate of the 2020 election took place at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. The debate was between President Donald J. Trump and former VP/Democratic nominee Joe Biden. It covered a number of important issues including the Supreme Court, economy, coronavirus pandemic, race and violence, their records and integrity of the election. However, it was a pretty heated night and it seems many people aren’t happy with how it went overall.
To get to the bottom of what happened, the Jaguar Times interviewed some students about
how they feel after the debate. Rosie Cornell (12) explained that “[she] feel[s] like there were no true winners by the end. [She] say[s] this because all they did was personally attack each other, and nobody talked strongly about policy.” This was definitely an intense debate and there was a lot of talking over one another which upset many people. She feels “this debate wasn’t successful at all. They never got their points across, which ended up in the poor success of the debate.”
A lot of viewers expected to see a fiery debate, but after watching many people feel the tension got in the way of actually sharing ideas and policies. Cole Osbourne (12) said that he felt Joe Biden was the winner of the first debate because “although they had a weak opening, Biden was definitely more put together, and came off as the more stable candidate.” Cole also expressed he would support “muting the mics of people who aren’t supposed to be talking”. Other people have agreed with this, citing the agreement both sides made for the candidates to each have two uninterrupted minutes as why. Jillian Weita (12) agreed that Biden won and said “[she] wanted to see how the candidates would interact with one another. They’re often shown separately but not together where they have an opportunity to debate their policy. No, [she] didn’t get this because most of the debate wasn’t about the policy.”
It seems both sides were annoyed by the extreme amount of interruptions because the
the entire point of a debate is to learn more about each candidate and their policies, which can’t be done with constant interruptions.
It appears that students at Bradley were dissatisfied with what they saw on the debate stage for a number of reasons. However, our country is facing a difficult and very important decision right now. If you will be 18 or older by November, please get out and vote! This is a crucial part of our democracy and we all have a part to play. Make sure your voice is heard and never forget the power that your voice has in deciding the future of our country. Every vote counts!
Remember to get out and vote this November and encourage others to do so as well!