Philadelphia’s WURD says host violated editorial independence by accepting questions from Biden’s team
The outlet, which describes itself as Pennsylvania’s only African American-owned and operated radio station, also said the White House’s decision to supply questions to Lawful-Sanders prolonged a historical practice of marginalizing and “de-legitimizing Black voices” in US media.
"Lawful-Sanders was one of two battleground state radio hosts who aired an interview with Biden on 4 July and described being given questions by the president’s staff ahead of the conversation."
Not passing judgement on anyone's behavior, but isn't it typical to be given a list of approved questions when interviewing someone like the president?
Yes. I don’t personally understand what the story is here. I’ve never heard of any high-profile politician going into an scheduled interview without a team providing a list of approved questions.
No. It's fairly common for interviewees to ask for a list of questions beforehand, but according to Boston University journalism professor Christopher Daly "it is not good professional practice to give questions in advance to sources such as public officials." And to let the interviewee actually write the questions for you is egregious journalism malpractice, thus the resignation.
Regardless, the optics at the moment are harmful. I mostly appreciate the job Joe has done, but I'm starting to come around on a Kamala candidacy.
If he resigned from the Presidency now, for personal reasons, that would be nothing but respected by almost all Americans. Kamala would become President, and be running as the incumbent trying to continue his policies and direction into the next term.
She may not poll well at the moment, but that could be worked on.
She may not poll well at the moment, but that could be worked on.
The election is in ~3 months (doesn't seem like it given our 3 year election cycles, but it is). I'm hesitant to add any more chaos to this already chaotic election.
Agree he should just resign and go spend the last couple years of his life doing whatever it is he does for fun rather than sitting in the Oval Office and having his brain continue to rot.
But eh, I don't see there being a single chance for Kamala to actually win.
I have absolutely no idea, hence why I was asking.
It sounds like the problem is she accepted the questions in violation of policy, but the headlines around this don't actually SAY that, and keep talking about how they gave her questions.
Which, fair enough, don't do things your employer explicitly tells you not to do if you like your job and want to keep it, i guess?
It's not just radio interviews like this, it's late night talk shows too. Everyone knows the questions and answers before they go live.
This journalists problem is that she didn't have to actually USE the questions, she could have gone her own direction. It's also likely they're forcing her out for admitting they fed her the questions, making the Biden team look bad.
Is it standard operating procedure or not? If it is, then why would it make the Biden team look bad for revealing that they followed the norms.
It's not unheard of for a politician to ask what will be covered in an interview. It's not good practice to provide questions ahead of time, and it's unheard of to let the interviewee script the questions themselves.
Most damning is the lack of confidence Biden's own staffers have in him to rig the interviews in which he is supposed to be demonstrating his mental agility and acuity.
Because the media is complicit and anything and everything the Biden administration does, whether good or bad, is still portrayed as bad. You just fell for their bullshit.