November 29th, 2007
Where Were the Health Care Questions?
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At a time when CNN had an opportunity to shine as host of last night’s Republican presidential debate, the network faltered. Today conservatives are left with yet another example of bias at the highest level of the media establishment. It’s another sad example of how liberals deliberately portray conservatives as gun-toting, Bible-thumping, and gay-bashing bigots.
I had high hopes for CNN in its role of selecting questions for last night’s debate. The network had nearly 5,000 to choose from — plenty to get a good representation of a variety of issues. Instead, we heard three questions about guns, a topic of significance to the GOP, but was it really that important to ask three different questions? There was also a question attacking trade, another about the North American Union, a silly question about The Holy Bible and two each on abortion (here and here) and homosexuality (here and here). By the time Anderson Cooper got around to introducing a question about the Confederate flag, I was flabbergasted.
It’s no wonder the Politico’s Jonathan Martin wrote on his blog, “Is this the Upper East Side view of the GOP?”
Before the debate, I asked Mitt Romney spokesman Kevin Madden about health care — a topic I figured would play a particularly important role last night. Instead, it didn’t come up at all. John McCain briefly mentioned the SCHIP debate, but it came up in the context of another question.
Is there a more serious public policy debate taking place in Washington right now? YouTube users submitted questions about health care — I know because I looked. Why CNN chose to ignore the subject is a question that should be asked today.
With conservatives already skeptical of CNN, last night’s debate reinforces why so many people on the right think the media are biased. It’s actually probably more accurate to say they’re out of touch with reality — painting the GOP and candidates on stage at the debate in the context of God, guns and gays.
UPDATE — 9:01 a.m.: I just scanned the headlines of a few conservative blogs and I’m not alone in my assessment of CNN. Patrick Ruffini and David All, who were both on hand with me last night, were not impressed. And I’d be remiss not to mention the biggest story of the day — CNN’s use of a gay Hillary Clinton supporter’s question. Matthew Balan at NewsBusters and Kevin Aylward of Wizbang have the details.
UPDATE — 6:06 p.m.: It’s one thing for CNN to deliberately exclude questions about health care, as the network did last night, but it’s another thing for one of its own correspondents to then blame the Republican field for not talking about it. Believe it or not, that’s exactly what happened.
Vivian Lee reports on NewsBusters and Conservative Belle that CNN’s Emily Sherman had the gall to say “the Republican presidential contenders seemed to all but ignore what is considered a major priority for many voters.” Give me a break! Did Sherman even watch the debate?
Not only was it ignorant on Sherman’s part to make such a comment, but she looks foolish because, as Lee points out, the candidates did talk about health care.
Sherman must have missed when health care was brought up by former Governor Mitt Romney (Mass.). When question about pork spending, Romney managed to include his experience with health care insurance.
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Sherman must have also missed when former Governor Mike Huckabee (Ark.) discussed health care coverage expansion for African-Americans. In response to a question asking why African-Americans don’t vote for Republicans, Huckabee managed to mention his health care initiatives in Arkansas.
That makes at least three candidates — McCain, Romney and Huckabee — who discussed health care on their own without any prodding from CNN. It’s time for Sherman to issue a correction and YouTube to dump CNN as a partner.
UPDATE — 10:45 p.m.: I neglected to link to Joe Garofoli’s story in the San Francisco Chronicle earlier. It’s an excellent recap of the debate from the tech crowd.
I’ve also posted statements from CNN and a release from the Save the Debate coalition here.
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Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, November 29, 2007
The Republican YouTube/CNN presidential debate was a lot different from its Democratic counterpart last summer. And not just because the eight candidates had to field video-posed questions asking "What would Jesus do" about the death penalty, whether they believe every word in the Bible or their position on gun control - after their questioner cocked his weapon.
The questions at Wednesday night's two-hour debate in St. Petersburg, Fla., came not from professional journalists but from people who uploaded short videos to YouTube.com. Yet the debate passed without any questions about health care, and little was said about energy policy or the environment.
However, considerable time was spent talking about guns and abortion, and candidates heard from a gay retired brigadier general from Santa Rosa, who also appeared live at the debate to chastise them for not answering his question about why gays shouldn't serve in the military.
While political analysts praised the first YouTube/CNN debate for its attempts at innovation, this time they questioned the degree to which this melding of old and new media is progressing. If soliciting videos online was supposed to be a way for "ordinary people" to directly question the candidates, then why did Grover Norquist, a leading anti-tax conservative with a Rolodex full of A-list Republicans, get to ask his question? And analysts wondered why the first 35 minutes were devoted to immigration policy, yet little time was allocated to discussion of job creation or the international trade imbalance.
Some analysts pointed to more stage-managing from CNN, whose producers and professional journalists picked the three dozen questions from among 5,000 submitted.
"It seemed more like CNN was picking and choosing the questions for their dramatic effect," said Peter Leyden, director of the New Politics Institute, which studies new media and politics and who was in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. "They wanted fireworks, and they got them."
"It looked like (CNN moderator) Anderson Cooper came into this looking to pick a fight," said Rob Bluey, an online media expert for the conservative Heritage Foundation. "CNN saw this as an opportunity to paint the differences between the candidates."
"This is where CNN's process is a bit mystifying to me," said Micah Sifry, co-founder of Personal Democracy Forum and editor of techPresident.com, which explores the use of technology in the White House race. "Why weren't these questions (about health care and the environment) asked?"
So if the mainstream media is controlling the question box, what is the point of using user-generated videos?