This presupposes that a Biden “town hall” will screen the audience for Dem and Dem-leaning “moderate” voters. How boring would that be? No ratings boost for CNN in that. So I can guaran-damn-tee you that audience will be salted with enough howler monkeys to make for drama! conflict! headlines!
What did the name of E Jean’s pet have to do with anything?
It would need Biden to push for it. He has leverage, as if they don’t run his town hall, it undermines their claim they are doing this for all the candidates. Do note that it officially was not only Trumpers, but Trumpers and undecided. So all that would be needed would be to filter out the MAGAs.
That said, I doubt Biden would push for it. The best we could probably hope for is the pre-screened questions and civility rules (that MAGAs in the audience will ignore).
As I have said, if she had called him out right then and there in a vulgar and personal manner - “you’re a scumbag, go fuck yourself” - or something of that nature - she’d garner instant A-list status and the name Kaitlin Collins would be immortalized, rather than forgotten as I am sure it already has been. She’d be the darling of…like, EVERYONE other than Trump’s cultists. Folk hero status, guaranteed career mobility.
These moderators and interviewers don’t even realize the power they have. He’s psychologically immune to any criticisms of his policies or anything said in passive voice or second-hand. “You’ve said this, but this other thing happened” doesn’t work. “This person said this about you” doesn’t work. This has zero effect on his mind and he just keeps on bulldozing. The only statements that could potentially crack him are direct personal “you ARE…” jabs, but nobody ever does it!
I don’t think any kind of moderation would have worked. You can’t get an effective result by telling Trump he is wrong about something or that he did something bad/unacceptable. The moment you throw that at him, his inner five year old comes out and will only respond with “no, you are!”
The Access Hollywood tape came from someone taking a different approach. Someone going along with what Trump was saying and encouraging him to say more. That is how we got the statement from Trump about how he treats women. If the purpose is to give Trump more rope with which to… implicate himself then you need a sympathetic interviewer asking him softball questions and gently guiding him towards speaking his mind. It would not take much to get him to open up and start spilling his deepest stuff but he has to feel safe. Otherwise you just get the millionth round of “I know you are but what am I?”
He’s had 800 miles of rope and the rope is still slack. There’s no end to the rope. It’s not even a rope, it’s a pile of hemp fibers that float around in the breeze. What you’re describing has not, and will not, ever accomplish anything.
Let me know when CNN starts debunking Trump lies on their primetime shows–that would mean something. (But I’d recommend against you holding your breath until this happens.) (My bolding in the quote.)
As for Licht…seriously? You think he’s a centrist? No one else does.
As for Collins herself, this clip from her days working for Tucker Carlson might be instructive (it’s 45 seconds):
I have to disagree, also, with your assertion that “Cooper makes an important point”–as others in the thread have said, Cooper’s attempt to blame the audience for CNN’s choice to host a Trump rally is both illogical and insulting. Objecting to giving Trump a room full of devoted fans and a moderator who never had a remote chance of getting any answers from him is NOT proof of being ‘in a silo’. It’s proof of being sensible.
Can’t do that because I don’t get CNN on TV since I don’t subscribe to cable. But the clip I posted of Anderson Cooper’s remarks were said on the air just prior to the start of his prime time show. While he was trying to defend the network allowing Trump on the air – primarily by citing his front-runner standing in Republican polling – it was also a scathing takedown of Trump as a clear and present danger to American democracy. Do you think Cooper is the only one saying these things on the air? Do you think Cooper would be saying them if CNN was taking a right-wing pro-Trump position? Do you think CNN is saying one thing pointedly and repeatedly on their website and something completely different on the air? Really? There are also many other clips by other CNN personalities debunking Trump’s lies which were obviously made for broadcast, not just for the website.
As for Licht, I didn’t see anything in his background, which includes working for Stephen Colbert’s show and formerly on MSNBC, to suggest he’s the kind of right-wing nut that some might want to portray him as.
Look, I’m no expert on Licht or on how CNN may or may not be changing, and I’m willing to be convinced, but I don’t find these arguments persuasive. Your statement that “no one else” thinks Licht is a centrist is supported only by an opinion about a “rightward shift” on CNN. This may well be true and Licht would possibly even acknowledge it. But in the same spirit in which I said earlier that CNN is not evil, they’re simply a commercial broadcaster in the American tradition of commercial broadcasting that is always chasing audience share and ratings, I think it’s a mistake to claim that there’s some evil conspiracy afoot to turn CNN into another right-wing mouthpiece. It is far more likely and realistic that Licht is trying to grow CNN’s audience share by presenting a more centrist viewpoint and a less left-leaning one. Progressives may perceive this as “a rightward shift” but LIcht probably sees it as an effort to avoid pissing off the half of American voters who lean Republican. Which is not the same as the conspiratorial claims some are making.
As for the article in The New Republic, I’ve already said – probably three times now – that the “clown hall” was badly botched. As for why, the explanation “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” is a remarkably universal truth. Yes, there may have been some element of not alienating Trumpists any more than necessary, but what I found the most striking about it was the lack of journalistic competence. Which tends to support my “stupidity” theory.
As for Collins, maybe she’s just a chameleon, like the guy in Woody Allen’s Zelig who takes on the characteristics of whatever dominant personalities he associates with. Zelig was a satire about a nondescript individual with no principles of his own. Maybe that’s Kaitlan. But in what little I saw of her in the interactions with Trump, and some of the clips CNN was showing, she was definitely making an effort at fact-checking Trump’s lies. Trump was just steamrolling all over her, literally talking over her in his typical arrogant and demeaning style.
Not on one of their shows, but CNN has debunked many of Trump’s claims made in his remarks at the recent CNN Town Hall:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/10/politics/fact-check-donald-trump-town-hall/index.html
I’d shave this with Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. I don’t buy it. CNN hates Trump and even they aren’t stupid enough to think they can win over Trump’s viewers and keep them on just because they had a festive townhall.
I didn’t watch it. I couldn’t. But I’ve seen quite a bit of it already in follow-up.
The composition of the audience was a horrible choice/deal. Otherwise, I’m left thinking what I think after essentially every VP/POTUS debate:
In journalism, access is the coin of the realm: who will take your call, who will meet with you. That creates an inherent conflict of interest when we have journalists play moderator. Go for the jugular and you might never get access again.
Maybe we should have a panel of bipartisan academics and attorneys moderate these things. Make the participants/candidates answer. Fact check them as they go. Keep them to their time limits. Ask tough questions.
This shouldn’t be a chance to make or break a journalist’s career. It should be informative for voters.
I also side with NYT columnist, David Brooks, on this point:
Amna Nawaz: Is granting him a live platform a mistake or a bad idea?
Once I see a rattlesnake in my house, I will neither ignore it nor go to sleep until I’ve caught it and eliminated the threat. I view Trump similarly (except that he --manifestly – has (tiny and lecherous) hands).
That would be like having zebras “moderate” a lion. A tough professional journalist who’s aware of slimy politician tricks is the best moderator - if you’ve just gotta put on one of these phony displays.
Trump would simply refuse to appear in the first place.
I guess I’m wondering, though, if … maybe that has to be okay.
Though I’ve always been wary of “who decides what’s true,” I do think we adjudicate ‘truth’ daily in the US.
And one thing that ‘credible’ outlets may have to be pressured into standing for is more explicit agreements in advance, and teeth to back them up – meaning: it wouldn’t be hard to put together a list of bright lines that – if crossed – earned you the mute button on your microphone.
CNN and Trump made a deal with the devil. Neither believes their existing audience is large enough to achieve their respective goals.
If outlets like CNN can be pressured into only agreeing to ‘better’ formats, and Trump, et al, eschew CNN in favor of only RW media, Trump can’t reach that broader swath of voters that he probably does need at this point. With both properly motivated, I suspect a better deal could have been struck than the shit-show CNN settled for.
None of this is easy. The unimaginable has been foisted on the US, and it appears to be rising again. But appeasement, IMHO, is right out the window.
Allow me to quote Otter, from “Animal House:”
Bluto’s right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We’ve gotta take these bastards. Now we could fight ’em with conventional weapons ; that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, in this case I think we have to go all out. I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.
BLUTO: And we’re just the guys to do it.
I desperately hope we are.
Maybe lock the doors so Trump can’t run away when he’s asked tough questions?
Gee, David (Brooks), if only the question, instead of being “should the media cover him at all,” had been whether it was a good idea to let him come on live TV and say whatever he wanted to raucous applause.
Stupendously arrogant response from him, it turns out.
If this is true, it’s not surprising.
Evidence, from the Russia invades Ukraine thread:
How would that line have sounded in the 1990’s?
David Brooks:
By a huge margin, people prefer his economic policies to Joe Biden’s.
WHAT economic policies?
And it’s not like an observer/citizen can totally divorce his (putative) e.p.s from his other (dire) positions and actions.
There’s this: