ROGER SIMON: No More ‘Reportorial Bias’—The Epoch Times to Host New Kind of Political Debate.

We are hosting a Republican primary debate in the Tennessee 5th Congressional  District without reporters.

Replacing the reporters will be domain (subject matter) experts in key areas of interest to voters—health, immigration, the economy, and so forth. These experts—not journalists— will ask the questions of the candidates.

For example, as of now, Gordon Chang will ask questions regarding foreign policy and China and Hans van Spakovsky will ask questions regarding election integrity. (More of these expert questioners will be announced shortly.)

The experts will be encouraged to ask probing follow-up questions to the candidates’ responses in a way that reporters, without serious domain knowledge, could not.

We realize, of course, that experts are human and will have prejudices of their own, but we are hoping their allegiance to the truth of their subjects will prevail over bias.

Further, we aren’t encouraging “gotcha” questions. The object here is not to embarrass the candidates or catch them in a gaffe, but actually to clarify where they stand on the important issues of our time, to give a better idea of what they might do if they were to win the office.

This doesn’t mean they can’t disagree with each other. They can and should. But their disagreements should be based on the specific issue at hand and be substantive, not personal.

Participating in the event will be four or five of the leading candidates (to be announced) who are on the Republican primary ballot in the Tennessee 5th District race. That’s the southern portion of Davidson County (contiguous with Nashville), portions of Wilson and Williamson counties, and the entirety of Maury, Lewis, and Marshall counties.

Regrettably, we can’t accommodate a greater number of candidates and still hope to achieve the kind of event we are attempting.

The debate will be held on July 12 at the magnificent Grand Lodge of Tennessee in downtown Nashville, with plenty of room for those who would like to attend in person. This is three days in advance of the beginning of early voting, with the primary itself on Aug. 4.

Tickets to the debate are now available at Eventbrite, ranging from free for general admission to $100 for VIP seats that include a post-debate reception, where you can meet the expert questioners and the candidates.

The event also will be streamed live by Epoch TV, starting at 6 p.m. local time. We encourage all to watch—even those far from Tennessee—because this is intended to be the first pass at an early form of “pilot” for possible debates to come across the nation. The format and style —indeed, everything about it—are open for discussion and suggestions, which are encouraged. We will be making plenty of mistakes. This is only the beginning, a first attempt, at a new approach.

But please, no adverse comments about the moderator. He will be yours truly and he promises to be the very soul of impartiality.

Good luck!