Over the weekend after President Biden’s less-than-reassuring interview on ABC, radio hosts Andrea Lawful-Sanders and Earl Ingram appeared on CNN. Both had held radio interviews with the President after his disastrous debate performance as part of the White House’s rehabilitation program. “Were those questions given to you by the White House, or the campaign, or did you have to submit questions ahead of this interview?” CNN host Victor Blackwell asked Lawful-Sanders.
“The questions were sent to me for approval. I approved of them,” she answered. Ingram wasn’t asked about his questions on CNN, but later told ABC News that he too was sent questions to ask the President: “Yes, I was given some questions for Biden.” Ingram said he was given five questions, using four of them. “I didn’t get a chance to ask him all the things I wanted to ask,” he said.
Lawful-Sanders has been summarily fired for cause. “On July 3, the first post-debate interview with President Joe Biden was arranged and negotiated independently by WURD radio host Andrea Lawful-Sanders without knowledge, consultation or collaboration with WURD management,” Sara M. Lomax, president and CEO of WURD Radio said in a statement. “The interview featured pre-determined questions provided by the White House, which violates our practice of remaining an independent media outlet accountable to our listeners. As a result, Ms. Lawful-Sanders and WURD Radio mutually agreed to part ways, effective immediately.”
Color me skeptical. I am certain that this cheating, dissembling, manipulative White House has routinely pressured interviewers to ask Biden questions he had been prepped to answer, and I am equally certain that many of them agreed—after all, they are protecting democracy. And I’m certain this was going on long before Biden started speaking in tongues during the fateful debate. That WURD was “shocked” that one of its hosts did this seems highly unlikely.
So was Lawful-Sanders fired for using some of the planted questions, or because she spilled the metaphorical beans about the practice, further revealing the degree to which the news media has been complicit in hiding Biden’s creeping, now galloping, dementia from the public?
Ethics Alarms 
I’ll take a third option: she was fired because it was causing bigger problems for station management. One imagines death threats and other such things.
I’d never heard of the station, so I looked it up. According to Wikipedia, it’s got a 1,000 watt daytime/105 watt nighttime AM stick. This is not, exactly, what’s known in the radio business as a “blowtorch.” Its format is “urban talk,” which I presume means a talk format aimed primarily at African-Americans. Without access to ratings books these days, one presumes the audience at any given point is pretty darned small – maybe a few thousand at any given point.
What I find far more interesting about this whole story is that Ms. Lawful-Sanders was actually able to book Joe Biden on her show. Jack, we first spoke when I was doing talk radio in Portland, Maine; hosts there, particularly on weekends, had to do all their own “gets.” I used various sources to find them and usually ended up with some really interesting guests. Every once in a while, the PD would tell me that such-and-such a politico wanted to come on at such-and-such timeslot, and sometimes I was handed a list of possible “questions” (i.e., what the politico wanted to talk about). It’s actually not that uncommon.
Ultimately, it’s up to the host of the show to decide whether to use the questions or not. I usually didn’t, but when I did it was more to serve as a springboard to deeper questions that the suggested question raised, in order to probe the politician for actual knowledge and depth on the topic. Sometimes they really knew their shit, and the discussion was really interesting, even if I disagreed with the premise. Sometimes, it was clear that they didn’t actually know squat, and that was a lot of fun because it showed them for weasels. Conservative though I may be, I often got more humina-humina from Republican politicians than I did Democrats – who, in my experience, are far more skilled as bullshitters. At least in Maine.
So I actually feel rather sorry for Ms. Lawful Sanders, without knowing anything about her or her views. Maybe she was lazy, maybe she was aligned, who knows? That she chose to use four pre-wrapped questions was ultimately her decision as host. I wouldn’t have done it that way, but it was her show, not mine.
What I’d really love to know is this: how in hell did a minor host on a miniscule station manage a get with Joe Biden in the first place? How desperate must the DNC be to set up an avail like that?
Arthur on the Cape: If you were still doing your show and Biden were to agree to appear on today for the obvious purpose of demonstrating he actually still has his marbles all other evidence to the contrary, (1) would you use those questions, and (2) would you not report the fact you had been given canned questions and whether or not there were any conditions imposed on what you could ask?
An excellent question, OB. I would probably start with one of the canned questions, in order to create a sense of comfort. This is a sound and proven journalistic tactic – you get your best stuff when the interviewee thinks they’ve got things battened down.
Then, I would progress to something related but not in the safety zone – I would have a few of such questions mapped out in advance, but would also be ready to jump on an unanticipated opportunity if it was presented. Slightly out of comfort zone is where you find out what a guest really thinks.
Regardless of the leanings of the host, a talk show must always be cognizant of the audience, and respect the fact that they’ve made a choice to listen. In my opinion, the role of the host is NOT to reinforce the views of the audience – although far too many do; I think the really important thing to do is to ask the questions the audience would ask if THEY had access to the guest.
They don’t. Heck *I* don’t have access anymore. That’s the thing I miss most about doing talk radio!
Hey, I thought it was interviewing ME!
She was fired for revealing what most everyone in mainstream media knew, but she said it out loud. I am surprised CNN would ask this question of her.
Well, maybe it will take the attention away from CNN providing the questions to Biden before the debate.
I’m surprised the station management didn’t just hunker down and let it blow over. The host would have received absolutely no blowback from Dem voters. Clearly, as far as they’re concerned, she was doing the right thing. It’s very puzzling. This development is completely out of left field. Cue Tom Hanks: “Ethical professionalism in broadcast journalism? There’s no ethical professionalism in broadcast journalism.”