'Light' Not Right for This Forum (Mac or PC question faked)

[kskiska]

By Howard Kurtz

The student who asked the most ridiculed question at CNN's "Rock the Vote" debate last week -- "Macs or PCs?" -- says it wasn't her idea.

Alexandra Trustman said yesterday that a CNN producer called her on the morning of the Boston forum and suggested she ask about the Democratic presidential candidates' computer preferences. Puzzled by the request, she writes in Brown University's Daily Herald, she drafted a more complicated question about how the candidates would use technology.

But in Boston, Trustman said, she was handed a notecard with the digital-age equivalent of the boxers-or-briefs choice put to Bill Clinton. She wrote that she told the producer "I didn't see the question's relevance," but that he rejected her proposed query "because it wasn't light-hearted enough and they wanted to modulate the event with various types of questions."

(snip)

CNN spokesman Matthew Furman said, "In an attempt to encourage a lighthearted moment in this debate, a CNN producer working with Ms. Trustman clearly went too far. CNN regrets the producer's actions."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23966-2003Nov10.html

[LifeDuringWartime]

1. ha

i bet kucinich uses a mac

[leetrisck]

7. So was the boxer/briefs questions of years

ago a plant also? This is awful - it added nothing to the debate, actually took from it and was plain dumb.

[curse10]

23. actually I think he said PC

Kerry and Sharpton were the only two mac users

[Paschall]

2. If CNN is vetting the questions that citizen-voters can ask...

...what's the point of having them participate? CNN could just produce a "Dating Game" version of the debates and be done with it. :eyes:

[TexasPatriot]

3. This is a big deal!

The whole freaking point of the rock the vote campaign was to let YOUNG PEOPLE have a chance to ask THEIR questions, not to let some old Saruman clone in the CNN truck or some group of producers bent on shaping the context of the debate get their 2 cents in...

Does this mean the DEAN question was rigged to be first? Man, CNN is HOSED if it was... This is TOTAL BS!!!!! and you wonder why young people get pissed off and disallusioned!

Maybe our candidates should have their debates in CANADA and let CBC ask the questions... our own press seems incapable of the concept of neutral observation.

[union_maid]

4. The media continues to disappoint

You know, maybe it's not that the public is so dumb, but rather that the media assumes it is. I listen to talking heads talking about these primaries and it's clear that a lot of them are basing their opinions on soundbites and not on any real knowledge of the candidates' positions. The way most of the debates have been run is a disgrace to the democratic process and this latest is really disgusting. I'm getting real sick of the lot of them.

[dbt]

5. union_maid, you're on to something here.

Taken individually, the public isn't that dumb. Yet, as the size of the group increases, the IQ seems to decrease. You are quite right that the media assumes the public is dumb. They follow that assumption by doing everything they can to see that the public becomes dumber still. In bu$hspeak, they make the pie lower.

:argh:
dbt

[DUreader]

6. This was Product Placement, pure and simple, paid for by MS and Apple

get over it, indeed

[deceased]

8. mac vs pc blah

i agree product placement is every where, and it sucks



what a tired subject.

although it seems to be allmost irrelavent now...the difference between macs and pcs the hardware and the software is no where near what it was... i could be wrong but now days you have amd pentium and what ever cpu apple is using motorola? ibm? a large percentage of people still run windows 98, others run windows2000 or windows xp. a growing population is switching to linux, while in the mac camp you have os9 and osX. the difference between each of the listed operating systems is probably pretty much the same...

even if you look at the hardware
you can make a comparable pc that rivals and exceeds performance of a g5 if you spent the money and bought quality components.

the only thing apple had going for it, was its ease of use. but now learning to use wndows xp is just as hard or as easy as it is to learn osX

[salin]

13. the TRUMAN SHOW lives! n/t

[newyawker99]

16. Hi deceased!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[area51]

9. They shouldn't have left out Linux...

... sorry, couldn't resist. :evilgrin:

[denverbill]

10. This stinks.

It makes the poor girl look shallow, and it makes the candidates look shallow too.

Mac vs PC is totally irrelevant. Chances are good that some of the candidates don't even USE computers, period.

It's a lose/lose question. The candidates looks bad by even being forced to answer such a stupid, inane question. But, that's what CNN is getting paid for I guess. Make Bush look Presidential, make Democrats look like juveniles.

[lostnfound]

12. I Agree. And if the question was asked of Shrub, he'd storm off saying.

it was a setup.

[Tuttle]

17. The only picture I've seen of W with a live computer...

was with a PowerBook (Mac).

Tut-tut

[alfredo]

22. When he hired a Microsoft lobbyist to run his campaign, he switched.

MS was paying the bills, and bush always dances to the big money pipers.

[Toucano]

18. "That's a trick question, so I'm not gonna' answer it."

I think we're going to start hearing him say that more and more!

I don't know whether to laugh or cry! :cry: :D

[sam sarrha]

11. This shows how serious they take the "serious mood" about present events.

[Cocoa]

14. my email to CNN

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form4.html?5

At the beginning of the "Rock the vote" debate, Anderson Cooper instructed the candidates to "keep things real."

But now Howard Kurtz is reporting that the young woman's question about what brand of computer the candidates use was planted.

That question was insulting to me, since it suggests that young people like myself would waste a valuable opportunity like that by asking such a dumb shit question.

It was insulting to the candidates, who all night were keeping things more real than CNN will ever be.

I think that Cooper's supposed email question about Hillary Clinton was bogus too. Young people like myself hear people on networks like CNN speculate on Hillary Clinton running and laugh with scorn. No way do I believe that question was from a real young person.

The whole media totally failed in the 2000 election by doing stupid shit like this, it seems to me that CNN is planning to do it again for 2004.

[TennesseeWalker]

15. Disgusting.

Let the people ask the questions. Quit staging everything. Real life is NOT pretty.

[Toucano]

19. Real life may not be as UGLY

or shallow and inconsequential as the fear mongering, dumb-it-down journalists want us to believe it is.

I think I see a glimmer...wait...no, it was just gun fire. :(

[Khephra]

20. My question is this

If CNN interfered with the question process, then just how much did CNN interfere?

Did they have a hand in making sure that the "flag" question was asked early in the event? Did they help make sure that the "pot" question was asked?

This makes the entire forum suspect now.

[trapper914]

21. Not surprised

I've always thought the audience questions at the end of "Crossfire" were staged too.

[VolcanoJen]

24. Kick!

:dem: