Editorial: A difficult balance

When U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo announced her retirement in November, we knew the race to take over her seat, which she’s held for three decades, was going to be a critical issue to cover for our readers. Helping our communities understand their choices when they go to the ballot box is central to our mission as a news organization, so we decided we had to host a candidate forum.

With the onset of the pandemic nearly four years ago, these kinds of events moved online. We felt that it was time to return to a normal format in front of a live audience. It takes a lot more effort to do this, but we feel strongly that conducting these debates in person is important to the democratic process. The energy is more engaging with a live event, and we believe it does a lot to humanize the relationship between candidate and constituent. It also forces candidates to confront real people, often with passionate concerns, which can cause them to budge off of their talking points and even modify their views based on public opinion. 

In the week leading up to the Jan. 31 debate, we learned that a group of protesters wanting a ceasefire in Gaza was targeting our event, which would take place in Palo Alto’s City Council chambers. We conferred with the city of Palo Alto and the police about how we could handle the situation if the protesters disrupted our forum. The police were clear that they were not going to get involved with people exercising their freedom of speech and would only step in if there was a physical threat to personal safety. 

We decided we would still move forward with the live event and put in place escalating steps to deal with the protesters, starting with an explanation that any disruptors would be asked to leave, including directly addressing unruly individuals and leading up to terminating the event early. However, in retrospect, we were unprepared for the scale of the disruption caused by these protesters, and our techniques to quiet them proved insufficient.

The beginning of the debate went smoothly with excellent engagement by the candidates, answering difficult and important questions about their positions on domestic and foreign issues and their past actions. After 75 minutes, dozens of pro-ceasefire activists began chanting and protesting the proceedings. As we had planned, we took a pause to try to quiet them but they did not settle down easily. Only after communicating repeatedly that the next question for the candidates was about Gaza were we able to proceed. Unfortunately, each response from the candidates was met with obstructionist outbursts and heckling from a few loud and persistent protesters. 

It was a very difficult judgment to make at the moment about whether to continue. On the one hand, getting all the candidates on the record for their position on the war in Gaza seemed more salient than ever. Regardless of whether someone was pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel, it seemed important to hear from the candidates on the issue. And once we started hearing from the first candidate, it also seemed important that we treat the candidates fairly and give each an opportunity to address the question.

On the other side, some of the protesters were engaging in antisemitic speech and denying the Oct. 7 attack and the atrocities committed by Hamas. We had created a platform that was hijacked for hateful speech. The only tool we had left in this live event was to end it, which we did after giving each candidate a chance to respond but omitting their closing statements.

In the aftermath, we’ve heard from many who were disappointed with how we handled the lengthy disruption. In particular, we’ve heard from many in the Jewish community who felt blindsided by the protests and seriously shaken at the overt display of antisemitism that exists within our community. We want to sincerely apologize to the community for not shutting down this speech immediately and for the harm that this speech caused. It was abhorrent and should not be tolerated in Palo Alto or anywhere.

Looking to the future, we are still trying to get our bearings for how we might handle live events. We still believe that they are an important part of the democratic process, but we will have to have more tools at our disposal to manage disruptions if we are to continue. We’d still like to hear more from the community about how to strike the right balance between providing a live and public forum but also being able to safeguard those proceedings. Please email publisher@embarcaderomedia.org with your thoughts on how you think we should strike that balance.