Journalists used Twitter as an outlet last night to rip CNN for its bizarre Democratic presidential debate format.
After a glitzy, game show-style opening, host Anderson Cooper dominated the first hour of questioning, leaving one of CNN’s top correspondents, Dana Bash, to sit back like a spectator.
But it was the limited use of CNN anchor Don Lemon and CNN en Español anchor Juan Carlos Lopez that really raised the ire of the media. And with good reason. Lopez sat silent for nearly two hours. Lemon was limited to a gimmicky approach of asking questions of the five Dem candidates from Twitter users.
Worst of all, their first questions reflected their own ethnic backgrounds, making them appear as mere token participants in the event. Lopez’s first question was about immigration. Lemon introduced a question from a Facebook user about “Black Lives Matter.”
According to Politico, here are some of the reactions on Twitter to this format:
“How about letting a minority journalist moderate a debate – rather than gimmicky cuts to black guy & Latino guy for race and immigration [questions?]” Washington Post Reporter Wesley Lowery tweeted.
“Checking off token quotas @CNN,” News Corp Senior Vice President of Strategy Raju Narisetti wrote on Twitter.
“Revolutionary idea for CNN: Let black and Latino reporters ask questions about non-black- and Latino-related issues,” wrote The Atlantic’s’ Jeffrey Goldberg.
“If Don Lemon can only ask about black people and Juan Carlos Lopez can only ask about Hispanics, Wolf Blitzer only gets to ask about wolves,” joked New York Times reporter Dave Itzkoff.
“Now immigration reform is a big and important issue. But why is this the first and only question Lopez has been allowed to ask thus far?” asked Washington Post’s Jannell Ross.
