Word: kalb
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...addition to his post as Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy, Kalb heads the K-School's fledgling Shorenstein-Barone Center for Press, Politics, and Public Policy. It was through the center that he launched "Candidates '88," featuring 12 of the 13 presidential hopefuls for rounds of serious questioning...
...true that Kalb, a former CBS and NBC diplomatic correspondent, has found a less visible role for himself at Harvard--indeed, his arrival at the Kennedy School last year coincided with his removal from Who's Who in America. Despite this fall from grace, Kalb has established himself as an oft-quoted and--pundit or not--an influential figure in the campaign which reaches Massachusetts tomorrow...
Serious questions, however, are no guarantee of serious answers. And even an unprecedented full-hour format does not ensure that candidates will deal with the issues, and not launch into tired campaign rhetoric. Kalb concedes that Sen. Al Gore Jr. '69 (D-Tenn.), for one, used the show more to present his image than to discuss policy. "Each one of them came up here to look the best he could, to sound the best he could," says Kalb. "A politician running for the presidency who did not take advantage of an hour of free time would be a fool...
Even faced with this dilemma, this tendency towards soapbox sermonizing, Kalb's tendency is not to press harder, or put a candidate on the spot. This is largely due to the way he views his role as interviewer. The K-School professor is perhaps one of the last journalists to follow the example of Edward R. Murrow himself, emphasizing straightforward questioning while avoiding less friendly, if sometimes more effective, tactics...
...never intended to trip anyone up," says Kalb. "I don't want to do that, it's not my style...I don't think you get information out when you try to trip up a candidate." He says his show "never was conceived of as an opportunity for me to engage in self-promoting, hyperbolic questions designed for the viewer to say "Wow, isn't Marvin smart.' " Kalb insists on deriding such hostile cross-examination as a diversion from any serious discussion of political issues...