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WURD host Andrea Lawful-Sanders out over using campaign-fed questions in Biden interview

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She's taking the fall for not editing out that one sentence. Prerecorded interviews are much safer.
 
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She says she was an independent contractor and not a station employee. That would mean WURD was not contributing towards her Social Security.
 
This whole thing stinks. It feels like there was a carefully orchestrated plan to generate some positive news (cloaked as an objective interview) for the president with "buy in" from the media outlet. Things went sideways when the interview did not accomplish its objective and made worse when someone said something they shouldn't have.

**Not a political statement...this nonsense goes on all the time.
 
Stop overthinking.

The campaign overstepped by suggesting scripted questions instead of recommended topics.

There is nothing that suggests the campaign made the interview contingent on using those questions.

The interviewer screwed up by using those questions. Again, whether you're a journalist or not, you do your audience a disservice by doing that because you're just giving the candidate a cue to parrot prepared responses.

The station wants better, and has (according to the CNN piece) "ended its association by mutual agreement."
 
I always prerecord interviews. I edit it out if my guest stutters, stammers, or flubs up. I want my subject to say what they really meant to say.
 
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michael hagerty said:
Stop overthinking.

The campaign overstepped by suggesting scripted questions instead of recommended topics.

There is nothing that suggests the campaign made the interview contingent on using those questions.

The interviewer screwed up by using those questions. Again, whether you're a journalist or not, you do your audience a disservice by doing that because you're just giving the candidate a cue to parrot prepared responses.

The station wants better, and has (according to the CNN piece) "ended its association by mutual agreement."
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All of this, and I'd add that in a lot of press interviews, even if you do your homework and come up with some really good questions, politicians often fall back on their talking points anyway. I remember getting frustrated when watching Tim Russert - certainly a star on the political talk show circuit - let politicians get away with this on many Sunday mornings.

"Senator, you said this just last week: (plays video clip). Now you're saying something different. Would you care to clarify?"

"Well Tim, that's a great question. But I gotta say, my opponent said (fill in the blank) and I'd just like to remind the American people that I (fill in talking points) and am proud to be serving the people of (state)."

"Thank you Senator. Next question..."
 
Some of us understand senior moments. The wrong words come out of our mouths. We say words that we didn't mean to say at all as happened in this interview.

Live long enough and you will understand. And that is not me being political. But now days in the USA we can't discuss anything like this topic as adults should be able to do.
 
Flying Dutchman said:
Some of us understand senior moments. The wrong words come out of our mouths. We say words that we didn't mean to say at all as happened in this interview.

Live long enough and you will understand. And that is not me being political. But now days in the USA we can't discuss anything like this topic as adults should be able to do.
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That’s not what the controversy here is about. It’s the use of the campaign-provided questions.

And—-IF you’re interviewing ANY candidate who is currently under the microscope for their cognitive abilities—-ESPECIALLY one that’s doing the interview tour to dispel that—-and you edit out a flub, that’s straight-up lying to the audience you’re supposed to be relaying the truth to. Journalistic malpractice.
 
Many interviewees (and entourages) communicate in advance which topics they'd like to discuss, but with the understanding that the interviewer is ultimately free to ask about any topic they want. That's incredibly common. There's been a ton of coverage of this story, and I've seen zero indication that the interview was contingent on the questions. And if you really think about it, that would have been an incredibly stupid move for two reasons: 1.) It could have pre-empted the interview altogether, and the reason Biden was doing that particular interview on that particular station in this particular city is because he needed to. 2.) Any single person at the station could have leaked that the administration said, "Ask only these questions or we're not going to sit down with you." Obviously, someone involved has loose lips or we wouldn't likely be having this conversation. After all this press, the station and the personality (contractor or not) had no choice but to publicly part ways.

I deleted a second paragraph here about the muddled quote because it seemed overly political and because everyone who heard the quote--everyone--knows what Biden meant and knows that Biden has always had speech difficulties...and then made a choice about how to react to the gaffe.
 
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We are not allowed to mention that flub on this board. I have been warned by the new owner. And, it wasn't what he meant to say anyway. Isn't what he really meant to say that's really important.

There's no empathy for peoples handicaps anymore.
 
michael hagerty said:
That’s not what the controversy here is about. It’s the use of the campaign-provided questions.

And—-IF you’re interviewing ANY candidate who is currently under the microscope for their cognitive abilities—-ESPECIALLY one that’s doing the interview tour to dispel that—-and you edit out a flub, that’s straight-up lying to the audience you’re supposed to be relaying the truth to. Journalistic malpractice.
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Like I said, we are not allowed to discuss the flub. And that's not what he meant to say anyway.
 
We grew up in the land of milk and honey, in the golden age of America, an age of enlightenment. But history tells us all such periods in human existence come to an end. They are followed by the dark ages.
 
There's an old axiom in radio that says you don't get hurt by what you don't play.

Here's a new version: You don't get hurt by interviews you don't do.

I'm sure no one in the campaign saw this coming. The candidate does an interview with a minority-owned station in a deep blue city. They never expected something like this would bite them. But that's what it's like in the world now. So don't do interviews with unknowns.
 
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