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Wow, democrats are really showing their colors today with this whole "boycott the CNN" thing... Unless I missed soemthing he is a presidential candidate, and one who so far hasnt been found guilty of anything that would disqualify him... and a popular one.
Yes he is a piece of shit, and yes he has no business being in politics... But its not CNNs job to make those decisions. Their job is to let the candidates say their piece and let the public decide from there (or the courts if there are legal questions).
As much as I hate Trump... I lost **so** much respect for the democrats today. Supporting censorship, specifically doing so with the intent of winning an election in their favor, is a new low... dont be that party...
@freemo While I agree that Trump is as deserving of a platform as any other political candidate (and I haven't watched the CNN thing, only read a summary, so I could be wrong), from what I hear the issue is less that Trump had a platform and more that he was given a free ride. From the sound of things:
1. Trump was allowed to tell lie after lie after lie and was not called out on any of them. CNN wasn't able to even begin to either challenge his lies or provide fact checking to the viewers. It was entirely predictable and predicted that he would do this, it's not like it was a surprise to them, they should have been ready.
2. The audience was entirely sympathetic to him. There was nobody to ask him hard questions and they were all ready to lap up his lies.
Trump is as deserving of a platform as any significant candidate for major political office. But in giving him (or any other candidate) that platform it is incumbent on the organisation doing it to challenge the candidate, to not simply permit them to say whatever they want whether it's true or not and to make sure that they are asked the questions that they don't want to answer.
A media organisation that does not do these things is not a news or current affairs outlet, it is a propaganda outfit. I wouldn't watch Fox or OAN to get my news about Trump and American politics, and if this is how CNN behaves towards him now I wouldn't watch them either.
I havent watched it either, so maybe i will change my mind after watching it...
But...
To point #1, I dont seem to recall them **ever** fact checking a town hall.. Generally they faciliatate Q&A and dont get into fact checking. That is for debates and even then the host doesnt fact check thats for the other candidates to do on eachother.
#2 That sounds like more an issue with the general public... If the town hall was open to everyone and they happened to favor trump supporters, likely because anti-trump people refused to go, thats not CNNs fault... What almost certainly happened is Trump supporters overwhelmingly wanted to go and non-trump supporters overwhlemingly didnt and wanted to boycott it... so everyone who actually showed up was 99% Trump supporters... cant blame CNN for that, only person to blame would be the ones boycotting it and not going to ask those tough questions
Town halls have **always** been about the candidate saying whatever they want, thats how its always been, thats kinda the whole point of a town hall, to hear the candidate speak without being challenged (the other formats we have are where they are challenged). At least by the host, obviously questions from the audience can challenge the speaker, and should, but thats the democrats mistake for not bothering to show up.
@freemo As I understand it CNN selected the audience to be New Hampshire registered Republican voters and non-aligned voters planning to vote in the Republican primary. So it's not that the democrats didn't bother coming, they weren't invited. Probably to avoid a punch-up in the audience.
Maybe I don't understand the town-hall format. But if you know the candidate is going to say things that are not merely untrue in your opinion but have been found to be untrue in court multiple times, I don't think it's right to let them do that again without challenge, whatever the format.
@VoxDei If we want to start fact checking town halls we have to do the same to Biden when he talks... and other candidates... and pretty much every word out of either of their mouths tends to be a lie... so that would be fun to see.
@freemo I'm not limiting my opinion to Trump! If you want to be elected to the highest offices you need to face the hardest questions, Biden absolutely needs to be challenged as well!
@VoxDei Thats fair... yea its a weird format specifically for a news reporter to host I suppose... but its been the norm in the USA to do this town all format since forever.
I would be ok with changing the format for everyone... in general what I want is something where the news agencies arent deciding who gets a voice and where all candidates are treated by the same standard.
@freemo OK, well, maybe it's the format I have a problem with then. We don't really do that in the UK, we have TV debates (some), we have one-on-one interviews, but we don't really have a here-say-what-you-want-for-an-hour thing. We have party political broadcasts, but they're clearly labelled as such and don't have a moderator, it's just a canned broadcast that the party prepares but paid for by the state (for parties that have seats in Parliament already).
If a candidate wants to speak somewhere then of course they can do so, but they aren't generally carried live for an hour, you just get a couple of highlights on the news. And the TV channel would probably be obliged to present the opposing view or be subject to sanction by the regulator - there is an obligation for broadcasts to be politically balanced here that doesn't exist in the US.
I guess this comes back to the original point then? If all it was supposed to be was a Trump rally (and I'm not really seeing the difference between your description of a "town hall" and a political rally? Other than maybe the audience can ask more questions?), then CNN is responsible for their own choice to carry it. People who don't like Trump rallies are likely to be turned off by that being carried uncritically? I accept the point about if it's for the Republican primary then a Republican audience might be normal, but at the same time you're broadcasting it to everyone, Republican or not. Why is there an obligation on CNN or any network to carry that? Wait for the actual presidential race and then don't softball him (or any candidate)?