Comments on: Jonathan Peele Speaks Out On Public Forum Topic Selection Process

By: Topic Sponsorship Brouhaha Update — PFDebate Blog

Topic Sponsorship Brouhaha Update — PFDebate Blog — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:12:01 +0000

[…] money to sponsor (i.e. select) Public Forum Debate topic areas originated with a post by Jonathan Peele and was extended by a response from NFL Executive Director Scott Wunn. Comments continue […]

By: The 3NR » Selling Topics

The 3NR » Selling Topics — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:37:53 +0000

[…] on right now about the NFL “selling” the rights to pick the public forum topic. You can wade into it here, and see a response from the NFL […]

By: tpeters

tpeters — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:05:59 +0000

I want to add one small note to Mr. Peele's original comments. He wrote, "Certainly the Policy and Lincoln-Douglas community would laugh at the thought of being told — with no advance input — that they were debating a topic selected by a sponsoring organization. They simply wouldn’t hear of it." But that's exactly what happened in 1995 with the LD topic. The Special Olympics wanted to make students more aware of issues surrounding disabilities and offered the NFL money if they would encourage students to investigate this topic. The Sept/Oct topic for 1995 was " Resolved: individuals with disabilities ought to be afforded the same athletic competition opportunities as able-bodied athletes." The LD Wording Committee and the community of coaches were incensed (not laughing) at the "selling" of an LD topic and then Executive Secretary Copeland promised it would never happen again.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:41:59 +0000

I am not so much disappointed with the actual content of the resolutions as I am with their wordings. Countless teams, myself included, were wrongfully dropped by inexperienced judges who though the pro on the February topic was actually the con. I know for a fact that this problem made it so that teams did not qualify to state tournaments and did not advance at several of the big national tournaments held this month. I am equally disappointed with the use of the term “justified” in the March resolution as it allows for frameworks that place less emphasis on hard evidence. All I am asking for are consistent straightforward resolutions (ex: January topic).

By: msorkin

msorkin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:54:15 +0000

Does anyone else think that this is a thinly veiled attempt by Harker to gain more power?

Here’s what’s happened so far on this blog posting.

Letter: “I Jonathan Peele am upset that I do not have more power over topics. I’m going to try to make you mad about sponsorship deals that are also common in LD.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Peele
Candidate for NFL Board of Directors (please vote for me!)”

… a number of comments from people on the topic committee who are not bothered by this

Carol Green: you should all be upset

…more comments from people on the topic committee who are not upset

…comments from debaters who don’t like february topic because they either don’t know how to debate it or are upset about topic recycling

Note: So much has changed in terms of lobbying that it’s basically a completely new topic.

It seems that most of the people who are upset about this would be more than happy to let Jonathan Peele write all the PF topics.

By: A PFer

A PFer — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:52:22 +0000

As far as I’m concerned, the issue with February’s topic is simpler than the debate that has transpired here in regards to the ethics of “bought” topics. My problem? I DEBATED THIS TOPIC BEFORE. If the corporate sponsors attempted to implement a resolution about, say, the BRIC nations, would this have been allowed? Sure, that topic was debatable — one of my favorites, even — but even the best topics don’t need to be debated twice. And although in this instance my partner and I have the advantage of a plethora of evidence from previously debating a strikingly similar resolution, is this really fair? If topics are going to be recycled, at least wait a full four years to avoid this kind of situation, where long-time debaters have an even greater upper hand than usual. The sponsorship of topics is one thing, but please, NFL, don’t repeat resolutions over such a short span of time.

By: Annoyed

Annoyed — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:47:52 +0000

all I know is, I hate the february topic, and it upsets me that I have to debate it to qualify for states in Florida. It upset me even more to find out that this horrid topic was “bought”. As a pf debater, I enjoy debating GOOD topics. That’s why I am in the event, so when horrible ones like this come around, it makes me lose some faith.

By: Tha Infamous

Tha Infamous — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 06:07:21 +0000

I believe in Jonathan Peele.

By: Snarf

Snarf — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:25:09 +0000

I’m not seeing how this impacts back though– I understand the potential concerns people keep having but, the truth is, we HAVEN’T had many truly bad topics.

The fact that there are organizations willing to sponsor topics means they have literature on the, which means other people have literature on them. Its almost a guarantee of even ground, and excellent ground at that — we’re STARTING from a place of confirming good aff/neg arguments, and moving back, rather than trying to reach into the ether and hopefully pull out a topic with good division of literature.

tl;dr — no impact to complaints about transparency.

By: Michael T

Michael T — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:29:00 +0000

The surreptitious nature of the NFL in choosing topics makes it difficult for me to trust the veracity and integrity of topic monitoring. When organizations sponsor topics, it’s not exactly like the NFL website has bright banners disclosing this information. In fact, it seems as if the upper echelons of the NFL are acting like a cabal in keeping all of this information secretive.

I feel like above all, transparency is the biggest issue here. I’m almost certain that no one would complain about topic selling if the NFL justified the choosing of each topic; however brief it may be; the point would of course be to make the NFL accountable.

Further, in looking at the context of selling topics, allowing the wholesale of PF topics is a slippery slope. While now, only several are sold each year, who’s to say that the trend won’t increase with voracity in each successive year? How do we know that topic selling wouldn’t be incorporated into other events as well? (On a tangential note, why should we be de-legitimizing public forum with these sponsorships when other events are spared?).

If the NFL is so concerned with making money, why not have commercial breaks in between each speech? Why not roll to the ads during prep time? I’m sure that with this kind of advertisement opportunity, McD’s is going to want to get in on it too…

Clearly, Mr. Peele has a point in stating that some checks need to exist over the Powers That Be.