CV NEWS FEED // A chorus of journalists expressed concerns about CNN’s unusual rule changes and other strange behavior ahead of the first 2024 U.S. presidential debate, which the network hosted at its Atlanta studios Thursday night.
Many have deemed the various unprecedented pre-debate developments advantageous to the struggling campaign of President Joe Biden and unfairly biased against the campaign of former President Donald Trump.
Biden consistently trailed Trump in most national and battleground state polls taken in the months preceding the debate.
New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin noted Thursday afternoon on X (formerly Twitter) that CNN refused to allow a group of reporters from The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) inside the debate studio.
“For weeks, WHCA has advocated for the inclusion of our White House travel pool [of reporters] inside the studio for the presidential debate,” WHCA wrote in a statement posted by Mullin.
“WHCA is deeply concerned that CNN has rejected our repeated requests to include the White House travel pool inside the studio,” the Association continued.
It added that CNN not allowing the pool of reporters into the studio “diminishes a core principle of presidential coverage.”
“The White House pool has a duty to document, report and witness the president’s events and his movements on behalf of the American people,” the statement went on:
The pool is there for the “what ifs?” in a world where the unexpected does happen. A pool reporter is present to provide context and insight by direct observation and does not through the lens of the television production. A pool reporter is an independent observer whose duties are separate from the production of the debate as a news event. The pool reporter works on behalf of the entire White House press corps.
Later in its statement, WHCA pointed out that the Thursday debate “will have no audience present and includes format rules that can silence candidates’ microphones.”
The Federalist CEO and co-founder Sean Davis responded to Mullin’s post of the statement on X:
CNN has banned non-CNN apparatchiks from even being physically present at the debate, because CNN plans to rig the debate—and potentially even edit or fabricate footage—without any third-party observers to hold them accountable. The level of corruption here is so insane that it’s almost comical.
Journalist Patrick Webb wrote on X that “reporters must view [the debate] feed from a building across the street.”
He said this was “due to concerns of a potential ‘medical emergency’ involving one of the presidential candidates.”
Author Chadwick Moore joked: “They’re like, we’ve never pumped an 80 year old full of this many amphetamines, something might go wrong.”
In another X post, Webb indicated that during the debate “CNN will implement a 1-2 minute delay … instead of the standard 7-second delay, potentially allowing time to edit parts of the broadcast.”
Journalist Kyle Becker replied: “CNN has thought of more ways to cheat viewers of a free and fair presidential debate.”
He said the alleged delay would allow CNN to “cut audio if Trump says something the network doesn’t want Americans to hear.”
Meanwhile, former CNN host Brian Stelter – who was let go in 2022 – quickly dismissed the reports of the alleged delay as “misinfo.”
Other journalists were skeptical of the former CNN employee’s assertion.
Tech journalist James Spiro stated: “This is not a debate. It is a farce.”
As CatholicVote previously reported:
the campaigns of both candidates agreed to rules for the Atlanta debate – some of which were markedly different from the rules of presidential debates in the recent past.
CNN indicated that “the June 27 clash will have no studio audience,” a fact it called a “key departure from the two Biden-Trump debates of 2020.”
“The debate will include two commercial breaks … and campaign staff may not interact with their candidate during that time,” CNN added
CNN reported last week that during the debate “[m]icrophones will be muted throughout the debate except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak.”
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