Evaluate what?

It is already part of the daily life of political journalists. At the pace that the electoral campaigns are followed by the evaluators of the evaluators should be already more determined, in those whose mission is to make known the political news.

In the role of debate judges between party leaders, journalists are not there to give news, not even to comment, another function to which they are called regularly. No, there the mission is really to give notes and explain why. It doesn’t matter whether or not we like the protagonists. Nor whether or not we agree with your ideas. It’s simple, it’s listening and evaluating the performance. For this, it is essential that the evaluator leaves his ideas at home and put himself in the skin of the message receiver. In the end it is punished according to the effectiveness of the messenger.

Basically this is what is required for a good teacher. If it were not so, Álvaro Cunhal, the historic communist leader, would not have been approved in defending his thesis at the Lisbon Law School with 16 values. One of the evaluators was nothing less than Marcelo Caetano and the thesis, at the time of the Estado Novo, was about abortion and its decriminalization. The student was competent and had a distinction, although surely none of the jury members had sympathy for the content of the thesis, or its author.

All this comes about the way the journalists, commentators, causes, and evaluators seem to me, are totally confusing their role in the evaluation debates that follow the policy presentation debates. Someone should explain they not, this is not the proper place to defend their options or to act according to their sympathies or antipathies. Also because if they have any intentionality of political gain, their technique results in the opposite.
When André Ventura enters a debate, he is talking to his faithful and his potential voters, who have a determined profile. It is no use that journalists will follow to tell people that he had a bad installment and that he lost the debate, when those who were availability to hear realized just the opposite. The technique does not work, as the results of the 2024 elections made it too evident.
But André Ventura is just an example. Perhaps the most evident, because he is also the most striking of the contenders. On the left and right, there are other examples of candidates who, according to the tastes of the evaluators, are wrongly evaluated by their performance. And the worst is when some of these evaluators try to be honest in their mission. Then the Carmo and the Trinity falls. They are torpedoed with interruptions and criticism from panel companions, always turning an assessment into a discussion of political options. It even happens that there are much more lit -luked evaluators than the debates that evaluators evaluate. It is the world of legs to the air. But at the end of the day, the hearing listens and does not change their minds, probably takes the opportunity to confirm the conviction it had in the debate, that of politicians.

Playing clean is what you ask for the evaluating journalists. I Judge Journalist I confess. I will evaluate well or bad, but I will try not to mix convictions with evaluations. If Raimundo is well will have a good grade. Whether Montenegro or Pedro Nuno wrapped around the arguments will have guaranteed lead. If Real Sousa convinces you can win and if deadly, Tavares and Ventura do their role, I will have no problem giving them a positive note.