CNN Regrets Role In Planting US Dem Presidential Debate Question

AP via Dow Jones | 11/11/03 | AP Staff

[BunnySlippers]

CNN Regrets Role In Planting US Dem Pres Debate Question

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP)--A Cable News Network producer went "too far" when the news organization told a student what question to ask during last week's Democratic presidential candidate debate in Boston, a spokeswoman for the news network said.

During the debate, co-sponsored by the nonprofit Rock the Vote organization, Brown University student Alexandra Trustman asked the candidates whether they preferred the PC or Mac format for their computers.

In an editorial she wrote for The Brown Daily Herald, the university's student newspaper, Trustman said CNN, a unit of TimeWarner (TWX), told her to ask the question.

In a statement Tuesday, a CNN spokeswoman said the cable network regrets the producer's actions.

"In an attempt to encourage a lighthearted moment in this debate, a CNN producer working with Ms. Trustman clearly went too far," said spokeswoman Christa Robinson.

A message left Tuesday for Trustman wasn't immediately returned and she didn't respond to an e-mail from The Associated Press. A woman who answered Trustman's phone said Trustman didn't want to comment.

In her editorial in the Daily Herald, Trustman wrote that she was called the morning of the debate and given the topic of the question the CNN producers wanted her to ask. Trustman said she was "confused by the question's relevance," and constructed what she thought was a more relevant question "about how, if elected, the candidates would use technology in their administrations."

But when she arrived in Boston for the debate, Trustman wrote, "I was handed a note card with the Macs and PCs version of Clinton's boxers or briefs question" and told she couldn't ask her question "because it wasn't lighthearted enough and they wanted to modulate the event with various types of questions."

[martin_fierro]

Schadenfreude

[woofer]

CNN Regrets Role In Planting US Dem Pres Debate Question

My, my...caught trying to make news instead of reporting it. How liberally typical.

[Savage Beast]

"CNN Regrets Role In Planting US Dem Presidential Debate Question"

Say, I wonder if CNN Regrets Role in serving as an anti-American, "Liberal", Democrat Party propaganda machine???

[Drango]

a CNN producer ... clearly went too far,"

CNN clearly goes too far on any day ending in "y".

[talleyman]

Is that German for "shot self in foot"? He-he-he...

[per loin]

CNN manufacturing the news? I'm firmly disillusioned.

[Pharmboy]

Trustman lived up to her name, and CNN lived up to its tradition.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Phonies.

[BunnySlippers]

and told she couldn't ask her question "because it wasn't lighthearted enough and they wanted to modulate the event with various types of questions."

I thought this was interesting ... Lighthearted? Why?

[nutmeg]

bump

[Mo1]

But when she arrived in Boston for the debate, Trustman wrote, "I was handed a note card with the Macs and PCs version of Clinton's boxers or briefs question" and told she couldn't ask her question "because it wasn't lighthearted enough and they wanted to modulate the event with various types of questions."

CNN came up with that stupid question??

Figures

Wonder what other questions they had the students ask?

[kayak]

Alexandra Trustman

What irony! This young lady needs to learn quickly not to trust the media, particularly when it comes to politics.

I'm not a bit surprised at CNN wanting to lob softballs at the 'rats .... it's their specialty.

[Loyal Buckeye]

CNN regrets that it was caught planting questions.

[Snowy]

CNN doesn't regret doing it. They regret getting caught. There is a difference.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Yeah right. Just like CNN regrets covering up Saddams' human rights abuses in exchange for access to his spokesmen.

[Prov3456]

Good one!

Exact translation of "Schadenfreude" is difficult, but more-or-less, it means "taking pleasure in someone else's pain or suffering."

Generally it's not a good thing, but I do have some pleasure in CNN's being exposed for the Dem mouthpiece/propaganda organ it clearly is.

[Consort]

Schadenfreude

And epicaricacy.

[Interesting Times]

CNN: We Report, We Decide.

[InvisibleChurch]

CNN Regrets Role In Planting US Dem Presidential Debate Question

no, cnn only regrets getting caught

[Diddle E. Squat]

What a minute, we need to parse CNN's statements like we parsed the Clinton Admin's. So if CNN admits its producers staged a light-hearted question, it suggests that they also may have staged other questions. To avoid getting busted hard on that, they chose to reveal that they planted an innocent one. Story gets covered, and they move on, hoping that no one will dig deeper.

The real question is: Did CNN plant other questions, and has this producer done this before in other debates?