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

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Theater of My Mind

Theater of My Mind

Andrea Lawful-Sanders admitted on CNN that she interviewed President Biden with questions provided by his campaign. CEO Sara Lomax said that violated WURD's practices and a result, "Ms. Lawful-Sanders and WURD Radio mutually agreed to part ways, effective immediately.”

Reports of Biden's aides shielding him from unscripted appearances and feeding questions to interviewers are adding to the scandal over his June 27 debate performance and the increasing calls for him to step aside as the Democratic presidential candidate in the next election.

Radio host who interviewed Biden leaves station
 
This is so bogus. He would have not gotten the interview had he rejected not taking the questions from the White House.
 
sdwulfdawg said:
This is so bogus. He would have not gotten the interview had he rejected not taking the questions from the White House.
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Then (she) just doesn't get the interview---though I have not seen anything indicating that getting the interview was conditional upon asking the questions.

Journalism 101: You don't provide the questions you're going to ask someone in advance, and you don't accept questions in advance from that person or their team.

Especially in politics, they'll try---usually subtly---"We'd like you to stick to these subjects", "please ask the candidate about (subject)", and even with those suggestions, the correct response is "thanks, but we have our own questions for the candidate."

If your own subjects match what they've sent, fine, though it's important to ask a different question than they'd expect on the subject, so you're not getting pre-programmed responses.

Going all the way to scripted questions is a big jump from how campaigns usually operate. Biden's people say they won't do that anymore:


 
Being given suggested questions is very typical for interviews with actors, sports figures, government officials and any other notable person. Typically you are not required to ask any of the questions but those questions frequently are the very ones you want to ask anyway. You might also get additional information that might make the interview better and information like how to address foreign dignitaries (as was the case when I spoke to the King of Tonga).
 
Keep this topic focused on the radio elements and not the political.

One thing that seems to be bungled in the many news stories about this is that some allude to her being a brokered host.
 
michael hagerty said:
Doesn't matter. The point of an interview---by a journalist or a talk show host---is to learn what the candidate thinks about important issues. Using their pre-scripted questions is a cue to the candidate to give their pre-scripted answers. They can buy ad time for their canned talking points.
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If that is not clear enough, I'd say that following a "scripted" interview is no different than an infomercial, except that the station gets no money.
 
michael hagerty said:
Doesn't matter. The point of an interview---by a journalist or a talk show host---is to learn what the candidate thinks about important issues. Using their pre-scripted questions is a cue to the candidate to give their pre-scripted answers. They can buy ad time for their canned talking points.
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Much ado about nothing. I've done lots of interviews, and the publicists always give me what they call ''Talking Points.'' That's their job. Once the interview begins, you either follow them or you don't. They're not scripted questions. The mistake this woman made was following the talking points. It's her interview.

“The questions were sent to me for approval. I approved them,” she said.
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And then she blabbed about it to other reporters, who then turned it into a thing. Now she's out of work.

The same is done with the other guy. He has advance people who tell the interviewers if they ask questions he doesn't want to answer, he won't answer them. You saw that in the debate. He was asked point blank about what he did on Jan 6, and he changed the subject. He did the same thing several times.
 
TheBigA said:
Much ado about nothing. I've done lots of interviews, and the publicists always give me what they call ''Talking Points.'' That's their job. Once the interview begins, you either follow them or you don't. They're not scripted questions. The mistake this woman made was following the talking points. It's her interview.

The same is done with the other guy. He has advance people who tell the interviewers if they ask questions he doesn't want to answer, he won't answer them. You saw that in the debate. He was asked point plank about what he did on Jan 6, and he changed the subject.
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I recall one incident on our highly #1 morning show in Puerto Rico. Before an A-list salsa artist was to join the team in the studio, he said, "don't ask me about..." and mentioned a breakup with a particular singer. Of course, the first question we asked was, "tell us about why he lift your band....".

The artist got up and left, but not before saying a few beepable things on the air. It gave the show stuff to talk about with listeners for several days.

My point is that trying to coach or direct an interview is just bad radio. If it's going to be fake, why do it?
 
DavidEduardo said:
The artist got up and left, but not before saying a few beepable things on the air. It gave the show stuff to talk about with listeners for several days.
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Then THAT'S the story. Nothing wrong with that. This woman took the talking points and didn't do her job. She should get fired, and she was.

DavidEduardo said:
My point is that trying to coach or direct an interview is just bad radio. If it's going to be fake, why do it?
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Publicists are control freaks. They do that all the time. But they know that stopping an interview will be even worse.

I saw another story today that advance people are telling the president in advance where to go when he gets to a venue. Once again, that's what advance people do. He's never been there before, and he needs to know in advance. It happens every day. I get instructions like that when I'm going to an unusual venue. Where are the exits? Where is the PA person? I want to know before I get there. That's how we work.
 
TheBigA said:
Much ado about nothing. I've done lots of interviews, and the publicists always give me what they call ''Talking Points.'' That's their job.
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You're right about the publicist's job but it's not "much ado about nothing". This little station had a rare opportunity to interview the U.S. President which should have generated incredible publicity for them. Well it did, but in the worst possible way because it turned out not to be so much of an interview but a P.R. event, stage managed by Biden's team. The station was exposed as complicit in it because the interviewer herself admitted it on CNN.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
The station was exposed as complicit in it because the interviewer herself admitted it on CNN.
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She's an idiot. She didn't have to follow the talk points. She could have asked anything. But she screwed up, and then told everyone. The station acted properly. They didn't agree to the talking points, she did. My take is she wanted to get fired. It worked.
 
TheBigA said:
The station acted properly. They didn't agree to the talking points, she did. My take is she wanted to get fired. It worked.
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I find it hard to believe senior management wasn't included in the prep process for an interview with the U.S. President. They had to know what was going on. If not, then did the station really act properly?
 
This interview was a disaster for the President's campaign. This wouldn't have happened if the host had used some editing software prior to airtime.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
Quit trying to manipulate everything. The owner is the senior management and should have been in the loop.
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Shoulda woulda coulda. Obviously they weren't. She admitted she approved the questions. Read the article. That's why this reporter was fired.

Then she tells CNN she resigned. Somebody is lying here.

Lomax stressed that WURD was unaware of Lawful-Sanders' communications with Biden's team and that her actions violated the station's journalistic standards.
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