News Network or Fundraising Front?

All horrible things that you disapprove of are the norm in my horrible country. How else could we be horrible enough?

but you're not. oh you try but are not at all up to standard. i can think of lots of horrible things, that i really disapprove of, that are not the norm at all in your horrible country. if you want to win the coveted Golden Carrot for The Most Horrible Country in the World you'll have to do a darn sight better.

I don't see too many that blatantly to appear on a show that can't be used as a telethon, though. Like you said, Obama paid for his infomercial. Annie

Do you like John Kasich Taskr? He's running for governor of Ohio and I don't like our current governor and I'm not sure I like him either. He has a bunch of ideas that don't seem doable.

I like him as a person. He seems really genuine and honest and I believe that he's actually getting back into politics for the right reason, not for some power trip like most politicians. I haven't looked into his stance on the issues or what his plans would be as governor though so I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Uh-oh...you're refreshing my memory for some reason and I'm thinking I may have been confused but I could have SWORN MSNBC was the network most likely to go along with something like that - at least that what I've been told here quite frequently. It's getting more clear; it wasn't Christine O'Donnell but it WAS a woman and she had stated she liked to be interviewed by reporters that were her friends and that would report the news the way she wanted it reported so she could raise money. Hmmm... Annie

I'd sooner blame the candidate than the news agency. There's really no way for the network to know if the person is just going to up and say "Go to my website if you want to donate money" at the end of an interview. As I said, if the person is basically doing an infomercial and calling for donations, that's different and they should pay for every second of airtime. I just think it's different when it's a quick plug before the interview is over.

The news agencies already gave up the appearance of neutrality during the 2008 campaign when the stories about McCain were three times more likely to be negative than either positive or neutral but the majority of the coverage of Obama was overwhelmingly positive (36%) or neutral (35%). So, I think it's a bit naive to think that no interview of a candidate on any news network is not going to be affected by the political slant of the interviewer or others higher up at the network. We cannot prevent candidates for campaigning for themselves during interviews, even on serious news networks. A question on an issue is going to bring out the candidate's position. That's campaigning. The only other choice is to prohibit networks from interviewing any candidate for office for fear it will be viewed as "free publicity". Obviously, that would not serve the best interests of the public. And free publicity might be the only kind some candidates can afford. Everyone complains about the monied candidates with big coffers, outspending the little guy or having financial backing from special interests. If the attitude is "don't mention your campaign unless you pay for the time" then those candidates with all the money are the only ones who will ever get elected.

You're right! This was kind of an experiment that fell a bit flat, I'm afraid. I wanted to see how quickly the conservatives would jump on a Democrat going on MSNBC and doing what Angle had actually done on Fox! Annie

I've little doubt she will do it again and again until election day. Annie