All the attacks on Harwood and CNBC began with the Federalist

[malaise]

days ago
http://thefederalist.com/2015/10/27/cnbcs-john-harwood-has-no-business-moderating-a-gop-presidential-debate/
<snip>
We see this frequently with mediated political debates, where journalists moderate and control what topics are covered, how questions are framed, and what assumptions are built into topics.

Some journalists are better than others, of course, but too often the moderators — from smug local journalists to Candy Crowley — become part of the story. They frequently don’t have the policy chops to ask good policy questions or respond to dumb policy answers. When they generally agree with a politician, they won’t push back on even the most erroneous or outlandish claims. But if they disagree with a candidate, they’ll push back, no matter how uninformed about the matter at hand they may be. This is related to another point of confusion: they seem to believe it’s their job to argue with candidates rather than facilitate discussions among candidates. The debate is supposed to be with one other, after all, not with the moderator.
They seem to believe it’s their job to argue with candidates rather than facilitate discussions among candidates.

Journalists frequently ask questions full of incorrect assumptions, mistaking their job of reporting on a given topic for being significantly knowledgeable on the same. The ideological agendas advanced by various journalists show that the media are not neutral parties. To take just one example, reporters love to push pro-life candidates about every angle of their views on the sanctity of life, posing increasingly difficult questions. But when was the last time you heard a pro-choice politician asked much of anything about his views, much less if he thinks the right to abortion extends to killing a child because she’s a girl?

Many Republican observers were excited by the news that Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee chairman, had announced changes to the 2015 primary debates. Here he was on Hugh Hewitt’s show earlier this year explaining why liberal media will partner with conservative media figures, including Salem Media and Hugh Hewitt, this time around:

So permit me to ask the obvious questions: Why in the world is liberal journalist John Harwood moderating Wednesday’s Republican debate? And where the heck is his conservative media partner?

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It was orchestrated - I hope Tweety discusses this since his name was called.

[msongs]

1. perfect match, ignorant, ill prepared moderators questioning ignorant, ill prepared candidates nt

[malaise]

2. You see the hacks and their producers so want the campaign money

that they have compromised every journalistic standard to accommodate ReTHUG ignorance re truth and facts. Now they are being told to only ask the what they want asked or better yet - only provide moderators who will speak to the bubble which encapsulates them and their base of semi-literate morons.

[hifiguy]

5. The whirring sound you hear

is Murrow, Cronkite, Huntley, Brinkley and Chancellor hitting 10,000 rpm in their graves.

[malaise]

7. Yep - there are very few journalists today

The hacks are awful but the producers are even worse

[world wide wally]

3. I was channel surfing on my Sirius Radio the other day and came across Mark Levine on the "Patriot"

station (talk about a misnomer!)
It was a few hours before the actual debate started and he was already raging about John Harwood being a liberal that would only be there to play "gotcha" with the loving conservative candidates. He was in on the plan well ahead of the debate.

[malaise]

4. They were all in on this one

and the money loving scumbags will lie down and take it because they want the Citizens' United campaign money. Sometimes I wonder if these morons give any thought to their own contradictions.

[gratuitous]

6. "Liberal journalist" hrrr hrrr hrrr

But that, of course, leaves the obvious question hanging out there: If these fearless he-men of the Republican Party (and Carly!) can't face down "liberal journalist John Harwood" in a controlled setting, why should voters think they'll be up to the task of presidenting?

[tavernier]

8. Excellent response.

👏👏👏