Student: CNN Rigged Question for Presidential Debate

A Brown University student who was invited to participate in the "Rock the Vote" Democratic presidential debate hosted by CNN last week claimed that the network prepared her "spontaneous" question.

The student was so put off by critical reactions to her "dumb" question that she was compelled to explain her dilemma in the Brown Daily Herald.

Alexandra Trustman noted that she was "extremely disappointed in the student body's reaction, especially because they weren't privy to the circumstances under which I had to ask the question."

Those circumstances are telling:

"I was called the morning of the event and asked by the executive producer of the show if I would ask a question at the forum. I was told the question would probably be something about Macs or PCs, but that, once I arrived in Boston, we could amend what I would ask. ...

"Once in Boston I was handed a note card with the Macs or PCs version of Clinton's boxers or briefs question. After reading it, I told the executive producer that I didn't see the question's relevance and had thought of one that I would like to ask instead.

"He took a look at my question and told me I couldn't ask it because it wasn't light-hearted enough and they wanted to modulate the event with various types of questions – mine was to be one of the questions on the less serious side.

"The show's host wanted the Macs or PCs question asked, not because he was wondering about the candidates' views of technology, but because he thought it would be a good opportunity for the candidates to relate to a younger audience – hence the 18 to 31-year-old audience of Rock the Vote.

"At this point it was clear to me that the question would be asked regardless of whether I was the person to ask it. I had to make the decision whether to actively participate in Rock the Vote by asking a question that wasn't mine and wasn't representative of me as a Brown student, or to sit in the stands uninvolved."

Nowhere in the young woman's op-ed piece does she tell what her alternate question was.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Media Bias

2004 Elections