zimv20
Nov 11, 2003, 06:30 PM
link (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-111103cnn_lat,1,5176469.story?coll=la-home-leftrail)
CNN Planted Question at Candidates' Debate
By Elizabeth Jensen
Times Staff Writer
9:14 AM PST, November 11, 2003
NEW YORK -- CNN, which has marketed itself as an outlet for serious news, planted a question about computer preferences at last week's debate of the Democratic presidential candidates, according to the student who asked the question and on Monday wrote about the process in the Brown [University] Daily Herald.
Late Monday evening, CNN issued a statement apologizing for the incident, saying "In an attempt to encourage a light-hearted moment within this debate, a producer working with [student Alexandra Trustman] clearly went too far. CNN regrets this."
A CNN spokeswoman said it was "an isolated incident" and no other questions were planted.
The live 90-minute CNN debate on Nov. 7, co-sponsored by the non-profit Rock the Vote organization, had been billed as a chance for young people to ask questions directly of the eight Democratic Presidential candidates who participated, the first such pre-primary election event of its kind. Host Anderson Cooper called on audience members who had been pre-selected and told in what sequence they would appear.
Trustman asked whether they preferred the PC or Mac format for their computers.
Trustman wrote Monday, in comments that were linked on the Poynter Institute's popular media news Web site, that she was called the morning of CNN's debate and given the topic of the question the producers wanted her to ask. She wrote that she was "confused by the question's relevance" and so constructed what she thought was a "much more relevant" question.
But when she arrived in Boston for the debate, she wrote, she was "handed a note card" with the question, and was told she couldn't ask her alternative version "because it wasn't lighthearted enough and they wanted to modulate the event with various types of questions."
Trustman wrote that she went ahead and agreed to pose the question during the debate because "it was clear to me that the question would be asked regardless of whether I was the one to ask it."
CNN Planted Question at Candidates' Debate
By Elizabeth Jensen
Times Staff Writer
9:14 AM PST, November 11, 2003
NEW YORK -- CNN, which has marketed itself as an outlet for serious news, planted a question about computer preferences at last week's debate of the Democratic presidential candidates, according to the student who asked the question and on Monday wrote about the process in the Brown [University] Daily Herald.
Late Monday evening, CNN issued a statement apologizing for the incident, saying "In an attempt to encourage a light-hearted moment within this debate, a producer working with [student Alexandra Trustman] clearly went too far. CNN regrets this."
A CNN spokeswoman said it was "an isolated incident" and no other questions were planted.
The live 90-minute CNN debate on Nov. 7, co-sponsored by the non-profit Rock the Vote organization, had been billed as a chance for young people to ask questions directly of the eight Democratic Presidential candidates who participated, the first such pre-primary election event of its kind. Host Anderson Cooper called on audience members who had been pre-selected and told in what sequence they would appear.
Trustman asked whether they preferred the PC or Mac format for their computers.
Trustman wrote Monday, in comments that were linked on the Poynter Institute's popular media news Web site, that she was called the morning of CNN's debate and given the topic of the question the producers wanted her to ask. She wrote that she was "confused by the question's relevance" and so constructed what she thought was a "much more relevant" question.
But when she arrived in Boston for the debate, she wrote, she was "handed a note card" with the question, and was told she couldn't ask her alternative version "because it wasn't lighthearted enough and they wanted to modulate the event with various types of questions."
Trustman wrote that she went ahead and agreed to pose the question during the debate because "it was clear to me that the question would be asked regardless of whether I was the one to ask it."
