The following press release was sent out by the co-founders of the Save The Debate Coalition:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Save the Debate Coalition Statement on CNN's Flawed Editorial Process
"The Save the Debate coalition would like to thank the Republican candidates for participating in the YouTube debate, which reached an estimated 4.5 million Americans, a record for this primary cycle. We are hopeful that the candidates will consider future opportunities to use technology to reach new participants in the political process.
"Further, we applaud the YouTube community for the quality of the questions submitted that sparked informative and substantive exchanges among the Republican candidates. With nearly 5,000 YouTube user-submitted questions -- 2,000 more than for the Democratic debate — Americans are increasingly taking advantage of the opportunity to participate in the democratic process.
"Unfortunately, CNN's flawed editorial process in choosing the questions asked of the candidates marred an otherwise lively debate and betrayed the trust of the Republican candidates and the YouTube user community. In the most glaring example, a questioner affiliated with the Hillary Clinton campaign was given a soapbox to berate the Republican candidates at the debate -- when even a cursory web search of the individual would have revealed his clear conflict of interest.
"A YouTube debate should strive to minimize the media filter rather than highlight it. Instead the selection of questions for the Republican CNN/YouTube debate highlighted CNN's selection bias.
"We strongly encourage YouTube and other new media platforms to refrain from working with CNN on future debates."
The Save The Debate Coalition was founded earlier this year to help encourage Republican candidates to participate in the YouTube CNN Debate. Its co-founders include Patrick Ruffini of PatrickRuffini.com and Townhall.com, David All of TechRepublican.com, Soren Dayton of Redstate.com and EyeOn08.com, and Robert Bluey of RobertBluey.com and Redstate.com. For more information, visit www.savethedebate.com.
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Comments
I couldn't agree more...
However, I feel the real bias showed up in CNN's attempt to assure a "republican" debate. The Clinton connection was "just" poor sourcing. I'm more bothered by the caricature of the GOP painted by their question selection. Honestly, are we to believe that's all conservative want to hear about, immigration and guns? It painted the GOP as a party of narrow focus, and didn't allow candidates to address several issues that really matter to the voters. Issues that were among the pool of questions. Conservative candidates may not have the the same things to say about health care and energy issues, but that's kind of the point. They have something different to say. If I made the mistake of thinking CNN's questions were the GOP's I'd question if they'd lost touch with America., a disservice indeed.
Good point
I agree with you David.
In fact, I'd argue that our positions on issues like health care and energy are the commonsense solutions that Americans want and need to hear.
I mean seriously, the price of gasoline is expected to rise to $4/gallon next year and it's not nearly as important as whether the Confederate flag has a place in America today.
Odd.
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