Showing posts with label presidential debates 2016. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presidential debates 2016. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Why I want Republicans to make good on their threats to boycott CNN and NBC

Who is the "liberal media?" Anyone that isn't Fox News!
If you follow the Republican National Committee on facebook or Twitter, you've likely seen their campaign trying to guilt CNN and NBC, which they characterize as "the liberal media" into dropping documentaries about Hillary Clinton. Their mechanism of enforcement? They're threatening refuse to let those networks host 2016 presidential debates. 

Here's why I think CNN and NBC should air the documentaries and make the Republican Party boycott them: There's no way the RNC can do it. If the RNC prohibits their candidates from appearing on CNN, a station that Democrats trust more than most, and NBC, they'll be stuck with PBS, a station the party wants to defund, ABC, or CBS. Since neither of the latter stations have a cable news presence comparable to Fox, NBC, or CNN, what the RNC is essentially saying is the only major cable news station that can host a debate is Fox News. This presumes that a Democratic candidate will appear in a debate on that station while stations more sympathetic to him or her are blacked out. Ultimately, it makes it very easy for Democrats to not deal with Fox News, while Republican candidates would have to boycott all stations except Fox News to protect themselves from a similar kind of criticism.