Betsy's Page

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Bloggers show CNN how to do research

CNN ran with a question from retired general Keith Kerr to ask the candidates about the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy keeping openly gay people from serving in the military. Within a few minutes, I started seeing reports on the internet that Kerr was on the Steering Committee of Veterans for Kerry. Later on, bloggers found out that Kerr was a member of the LGBT Steering Committee for Hillary Clinton. CNN managed to book a flight to get this guy there to be in the audience to ask if he felt that he received to his question and so General Kerr had an opportunity to say he wasn't satisfied since none of the candidates agreed with him.

So bloggers could, within a few minutes, google the guy's name and find out all this information about him and his connection to the Clinton campaign. Bill Bennett brought this up in the post-debate discussion with Anderson Cooper and Cooper admitted later that CNN hadn't known this and if they had they would have identified him as a member of the Hillary campaign.
That was something certainly unknown to us, and had we known that, would have been disclosed by us. It turns out we have just looked at it. Apparently, there was a press release from some six months ago. Hillary Clinton's office saying that he had been named to some steering committee. We don't know if he's still on it. We're trying to find out that information. But certainly, had we had that information, we would have acknowledged that in using his question, if we had used it at all.
Is there any question about using it if they'd known? My gosh, would it normally have been their policy to choose questions in a GOP debate by a member of a Democratic candidate's steering committee?

And it turns out that General Kerr wasn't the only Democratic plant among the questions. Michelle Malkin has a roundup of three other questioners who are quite public in their support for Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. All it took for Freepers and bloggers to follow the links on youtube to find those questioners public statements of support for Democratic candidates. Using a Democratic voter's question isn't necessarily illegitimate - after all these guys are running for the nomination in which they'll have to face much worse than having some girl with a blog who supports Edwards ask them a question. But CNN should have done the research to find out about such public statements of supports and then labeled the questioner as an Edwards supporter. The candidates should still have to answer the question, but the audience should be informed of the questioners' open and public statements. As Malkin wrote,
The best thing about Republicans agreeing to do the CNN/YouTube debate is that it created yet another invaluable opportunity to expose CNN’s abject incompetence.
I'll be interested to see CNN's answer as to why they didn't google any of the questioners to see whom they were giving a platform to.

When you couple this sorry demonstration with the fact that, as Wizbang reminds us, CNN allowed Democratic party operatives to ask questions at the last Democratic debate, CNN has shown how utterly derelict in doing some basic research. Oh, and remember how they pressured that girl in the Democratic debate to ask Hillary if she preferred diamonds or pearls. Yeesh.
A few weeks ago, during the most recent Democratic debate, it was uncovered that a lot of the questioners CNN picked had were Democratic party officials and apparatchiks. The justification at the time was "oops -- we didn't know!" and "well, it's for the Democratic primary, so of course it's going to be a lot of Democrats asking the questions."

Now that lightning has struck twice at CNN and we have a new slate of Democratic appartchiks and activists asking questions of Republicans, the new narrative seems to be "well, they were valid questions, so it really doesn't matter who asked them."

This raises the interesting question: if who asked the questions is irrelevant, then why didn't the gay general ask about lead in toys, while the mom with her kids ask about gays in the military? The honest answer is, of course, that this is a case of "identity politics" -- in many cases, who is saying something is just as important -- if not more important -- than the actual statement.

The irony here is that the argument is correct. Those were good, solid questions. But CNN, by playing by completely contradictory standards for its questioners at debates, betrays its bias: the Democrats get to stack their questions to make their candidates look good; the Republicans find themselves having to squirm and evade, or give concrete answers that won't make some people very happy.

And the greater irony is that, in the long run, CNN isn't doing the Democrats any favors. By protecting them from the same kind of rigorous questioning that they inflicted on the Republicans, they set them up for failure when CNN can't control things as rigorously. On the other hand, the Republicans have already been tested, and know what sorts of things to expect.
Jay Tea is exactly right. I don't particularly mind that Democrats question Republicans, although it would have been fair to allow Republicans to question Democrats. I just think that if you're going to do this youtube format and advertise about how carefully you're selecting among the 5000 candidates, you could assign some intern to google the names of the people who submitted the questions and disclose their background.

UPDATE: And while I think that the question about the policy was itself fine to hear what the candidates believe, I thought that Duncan Hunter's answer that most in the military are conservatives and have conservative values (I guess that translates into saying that they just don't like gays) and so shouldn't have their values violated was incredibly lame. Does he mean that, if the military had more liberals that he'd support the policy because he chooses a recruitment policy based on the ideology of the majority of those serving? If he believes in the policy then it shouldn't matter that those serving have any particular type of values.
Labels: Election 2008

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:13 AM 0 comments

Comments:

CNN ran with a question from retired general Keith Kerr to ask the candidates about the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy keeping openly gay people from serving in the military. Within a few minutes, I started seeing reports on the internet that Kerr was on the Steering Committee of Veterans for Kerry. Later on, bloggers found out that Kerr was a member of the LGBT Steering Committee for Hillary Clinton. CNN managed to book a flight to get this guy there to be in the audience to ask if he felt that he received to his question and so General Kerr had an opportunity to say he wasn't satisfied since none of the candidates agreed with him.

So bloggers could, within a few minutes, google the guy's name and find out all this information about him and his connection to the Clinton campaign. Bill Bennett brought this up in the post-debate discussion with Anderson Cooper and Cooper admitted later that CNN hadn't known this and if they had they would have identified him as a member of the Hillary campaign.

That was something certainly unknown to us, and had we known that, would have been disclosed by us. It turns out we have just looked at it. Apparently, there was a press release from some six months ago. Hillary Clinton's office saying that he had been named to some steering committee. We don't know if he's still on it. We're trying to find out that information. But certainly, had we had that information, we would have acknowledged that in using his question, if we had used it at all.

Is there any question about using it if they'd known? My gosh, would it normally have been their policy to choose questions in a GOP debate by a member of a Democratic candidate's steering committee?

And it turns out that General Kerr wasn't the only Democratic plant among the questions. Michelle Malkin has a roundup of three other questioners who are quite public in their support for Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. All it took for Freepers and bloggers to follow the links on youtube to find those questioners public statements of support for Democratic candidates. Using a Democratic voter's question isn't necessarily illegitimate - after all these guys are running for the nomination in which they'll have to face much worse than having some girl with a blog who supports Edwards ask them a question. But CNN should have done the research to find out about such public statements of supports and then labeled the questioner as an Edwards supporter. The candidates should still have to answer the question, but the audience should be informed of the questioners' open and public statements. As Malkin wrote,

The best thing about Republicans agreeing to do the CNN/YouTube debate is that it created yet another invaluable opportunity to expose CNN’s abject incompetence.

I'll be interested to see CNN's answer as to why they didn't google any of the questioners to see whom they were giving a platform to.

When you couple this sorry demonstration with the fact that, as Wizbang reminds us, CNN allowed Democratic party operatives to ask questions at the last Democratic debate, CNN has shown how utterly derelict in doing some basic research. Oh, and remember how they pressured that girl in the Democratic debate to ask Hillary if she preferred diamonds or pearls. Yeesh.

A few weeks ago, during the most recent Democratic debate, it was uncovered that a lot of the questioners CNN picked had were Democratic party officials and apparatchiks. The justification at the time was "oops -- we didn't know!" and "well, it's for the Democratic primary, so of course it's going to be a lot of Democrats asking the questions."

Now that lightning has struck twice at CNN and we have a new slate of Democratic appartchiks and activists asking questions of Republicans, the new narrative seems to be "well, they were valid questions, so it really doesn't matter who asked them."

This raises the interesting question: if who asked the questions is irrelevant, then why didn't the gay general ask about lead in toys, while the mom with her kids ask about gays in the military? The honest answer is, of course, that this is a case of "identity politics" -- in many cases, who is saying something is just as important -- if not more important -- than the actual statement.

The irony here is that the argument is correct. Those were good, solid questions. But CNN, by playing by completely contradictory standards for its questioners at debates, betrays its bias: the Democrats get to stack their questions to make their candidates look good; the Republicans find themselves having to squirm and evade, or give concrete answers that won't make some people very happy.

And the greater irony is that, in the long run, CNN isn't doing the Democrats any favors. By protecting them from the same kind of rigorous questioning that they inflicted on the Republicans, they set them up for failure when CNN can't control things as rigorously. On the other hand, the Republicans have already been tested, and know what sorts of things to expect.

Jay Tea is exactly right. I don't particularly mind that Democrats question Republicans, although it would have been fair to allow Republicans to question Democrats. I just think that if you're going to do this youtube format and advertise about how carefully you're selecting among the 5000 candidates, you could assign some intern to google the names of the people who submitted the questions and disclose their background.

UPDATE: And while I think that the question about the policy was itself fine to hear what the candidates believe, I thought that Duncan Hunter's answer that most in the military are conservatives and have conservative values (I guess that translates into saying that they just don't like gays) and so shouldn't have their values violated was incredibly lame. Does he mean that, if the military had more liberals that he'd support the policy because he chooses a recruitment policy based on the ideology of the majority of those serving? If he believes in the policy then it shouldn't matter that those serving have any particular type of values.

Labels: Election 2008

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:13 AM 0 comments

Comments: Post a Comment

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Thursday, November 29, 2007

Bloggers show CNN how to do research

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HOME Betsy neither necessarily uses, nor endorses, the products advertised on this site. The truth about Avesil Cheap Hosting Atlanta Bankruptcy Attorney Dallas Bankruptcy Attorney Wikio Get exclusive travel deals and book discount cheap flights Online Bachelors Degree Comments from an AP history and government teacher in Raleigh, NC. e-mail betsynewmark AT gmail.com Commissions earned from selling items through Amazon will go towards buying materials for my classes. Thank you. Site Feed		Thursday, November 29, 2007 Bloggers show CNN how to do research CNN ran with a question from retired general Keith Kerr to ask the candidates about the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy keeping openly gay people from serving in the military. Within a few minutes, I started seeing reports on the internet that Kerr was on the Steering Committee of Veterans for Kerry. Later on, bloggers found out that Kerr was a member of the LGBT Steering Committee for Hillary Clinton. CNN managed to book a flight to get this guy there to be in the audience to ask if he felt that he received to his question and so General Kerr had an opportunity to say he wasn't satisfied since none of the candidates agreed with him. So bloggers could, within a few minutes, google the guy's name and find out all this information about him and his connection to the Clinton campaign. Bill Bennett brought this up in the post-debate discussion with Anderson Cooper and Cooper admitted later that CNN hadn't known this and if they had they would have identified him as a member of the Hillary campaign. That was something certainly unknown to us, and had we known that, would have been disclosed by us. It turns out we have just looked at it. Apparently, there was a press release from some six months ago. Hillary Clinton's office saying that he had been named to some steering committee. We don't know if he's still on it. We're trying to find out that information. But certainly, had we had that information, we would have acknowledged that in using his question, if we had used it at all. Is there any question about using it if they'd known? My gosh, would it normally have been their policy to choose questions in a GOP debate by a member of a Democratic candidate's steering committee? And it turns out that General Kerr wasn't the only Democratic plant among the questions. Michelle Malkin has a roundup of three other questioners who are quite public in their support for Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. All it took for Freepers and bloggers to follow the links on youtube to find those questioners public statements of support for Democratic candidates. Using a Democratic voter's question isn't necessarily illegitimate - after all these guys are running for the nomination in which they'll have to face much worse than having some girl with a blog who supports Edwards ask them a question. But CNN should have done the research to find out about such public statements of supports and then labeled the questioner as an Edwards supporter. The candidates should still have to answer the question, but the audience should be informed of the questioners' open and public statements. As Malkin wrote, The best thing about Republicans agreeing to do the CNN/YouTube debate is that it created yet another invaluable opportunity to expose CNN’s abject incompetence. I'll be interested to see CNN's answer as to why they didn't google any of the questioners to see whom they were giving a platform to. When you couple this sorry demonstration with the fact that, as Wizbang reminds us, CNN allowed Democratic party operatives to ask questions at the last Democratic debate, CNN has shown how utterly derelict in doing some basic research. Oh, and remember how they pressured that girl in the Democratic debate to ask Hillary if she preferred diamonds or pearls. Yeesh. A few weeks ago, during the most recent Democratic debate, it was uncovered that a lot of the questioners CNN picked had were Democratic party officials and apparatchiks. The justification at the time was "oops -- we didn't know!" and "well, it's for the Democratic primary, so of course it's going to be a lot of Democrats asking the questions." Now that lightning has struck twice at CNN and we have a new slate of Democratic appartchiks and activists asking questions of Republicans, the new narrative seems to be "well, they were valid questions, so it really doesn't matter who asked them." This raises the interesting question: if who asked the questions is irrelevant, then why didn't the gay general ask about lead in toys, while the mom with her kids ask about gays in the military? The honest answer is, of course, that this is a case of "identity politics" -- in many cases, who is saying something is just as important -- if not more important -- than the actual statement. The irony here is that the argument is correct. Those were good, solid questions. But CNN, by playing by completely contradictory standards for its questioners at debates, betrays its bias: the Democrats get to stack their questions to make their candidates look good; the Republicans find themselves having to squirm and evade, or give concrete answers that won't make some people very happy. And the greater irony is that, in the long run, CNN isn't doing the Democrats any favors. By protecting them from the same kind of rigorous questioning that they inflicted on the Republicans, they set them up for failure when CNN can't control things as rigorously. On the other hand, the Republicans have already been tested, and know what sorts of things to expect. Jay Tea is exactly right. I don't particularly mind that Democrats question Republicans, although it would have been fair to allow Republicans to question Democrats. I just think that if you're going to do this youtube format and advertise about how carefully you're selecting among the 5000 candidates, you could assign some intern to google the names of the people who submitted the questions and disclose their background. UPDATE: And while I think that the question about the policy was itself fine to hear what the candidates believe, I thought that Duncan Hunter's answer that most in the military are conservatives and have conservative values (I guess that translates into saying that they just don't like gays) and so shouldn't have their values violated was incredibly lame. Does he mean that, if the military had more liberals that he'd support the policy because he chooses a recruitment policy based on the ideology of the majority of those serving? If he believes in the policy then it shouldn't matter that those serving have any particular type of values. Labels: Election 2008 posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:13 AM 0 comments Comments: CNN ran with a question from retired general Keith Kerr to ask the candidates about the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy keeping openly gay people from serving in the military. Within a few minutes, I started seeing reports on the internet that Kerr was on the Steering Committee of Veterans for Kerry. Later on, bloggers found out that Kerr was a member of the LGBT Steering Committee for Hillary Clinton. CNN managed to book a flight to get this guy there to be in the audience to ask if he felt that he received to his question and so General Kerr had an opportunity to say he wasn't satisfied since none of the candidates agreed with him. So bloggers could, within a few minutes, google the guy's name and find out all this information about him and his connection to the Clinton campaign. Bill Bennett brought this up in the post-debate discussion with Anderson Cooper and Cooper admitted later that CNN hadn't known this and if they had they would have identified him as a member of the Hillary campaign. That was something certainly unknown to us, and had we known that, would have been disclosed by us. It turns out we have just looked at it. Apparently, there was a press release from some six months ago. Hillary Clinton's office saying that he had been named to some steering committee. We don't know if he's still on it. We're trying to find out that information. But certainly, had we had that information, we would have acknowledged that in using his question, if we had used it at all. Is there any question about using it if they'd known? My gosh, would it normally have been their policy to choose questions in a GOP debate by a member of a Democratic candidate's steering committee? And it turns out that General Kerr wasn't the only Democratic plant among the questions. Michelle Malkin has a roundup of three other questioners who are quite public in their support for Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. All it took for Freepers and bloggers to follow the links on youtube to find those questioners public statements of support for Democratic candidates. Using a Democratic voter's question isn't necessarily illegitimate - after all these guys are running for the nomination in which they'll have to face much worse than having some girl with a blog who supports Edwards ask them a question. But CNN should have done the research to find out about such public statements of supports and then labeled the questioner as an Edwards supporter. The candidates should still have to answer the question, but the audience should be informed of the questioners' open and public statements. As Malkin wrote, The best thing about Republicans agreeing to do the CNN/YouTube debate is that it created yet another invaluable opportunity to expose CNN’s abject incompetence. I'll be interested to see CNN's answer as to why they didn't google any of the questioners to see whom they were giving a platform to. When you couple this sorry demonstration with the fact that, as Wizbang reminds us, CNN allowed Democratic party operatives to ask questions at the last Democratic debate, CNN has shown how utterly derelict in doing some basic research. Oh, and remember how they pressured that girl in the Democratic debate to ask Hillary if she preferred diamonds or pearls. Yeesh. A few weeks ago, during the most recent Democratic debate, it was uncovered that a lot of the questioners CNN picked had were Democratic party officials and apparatchiks. The justification at the time was "oops -- we didn't know!" and "well, it's for the Democratic primary, so of course it's going to be a lot of Democrats asking the questions." Now that lightning has struck twice at CNN and we have a new slate of Democratic appartchiks and activists asking questions of Republicans, the new narrative seems to be "well, they were valid questions, so it really doesn't matter who asked them." This raises the interesting question: if who asked the questions is irrelevant, then why didn't the gay general ask about lead in toys, while the mom with her kids ask about gays in the military? The honest answer is, of course, that this is a case of "identity politics" -- in many cases, who is saying something is just as important -- if not more important -- than the actual statement. The irony here is that the argument is correct. Those were good, solid questions. But CNN, by playing by completely contradictory standards for its questioners at debates, betrays its bias: the Democrats get to stack their questions to make their candidates look good; the Republicans find themselves having to squirm and evade, or give concrete answers that won't make some people very happy. And the greater irony is that, in the long run, CNN isn't doing the Democrats any favors. By protecting them from the same kind of rigorous questioning that they inflicted on the Republicans, they set them up for failure when CNN can't control things as rigorously. On the other hand, the Republicans have already been tested, and know what sorts of things to expect. Jay Tea is exactly right. I don't particularly mind that Democrats question Republicans, although it would have been fair to allow Republicans to question Democrats. I just think that if you're going to do this youtube format and advertise about how carefully you're selecting among the 5000 candidates, you could assign some intern to google the names of the people who submitted the questions and disclose their background. UPDATE: And while I think that the question about the policy was itself fine to hear what the candidates believe, I thought that Duncan Hunter's answer that most in the military are conservatives and have conservative values (I guess that translates into saying that they just don't like gays) and so shouldn't have their values violated was incredibly lame. Does he mean that, if the military had more liberals that he'd support the policy because he chooses a recruitment policy based on the ideology of the majority of those serving? If he believes in the policy then it shouldn't matter that those serving have any particular type of values. Labels: Election 2008 posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:13 AM 0 comments Comments: Post a Comment