🎓 Dr. Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@social.cleverlibre.org

@barney

> CNN put Trump on TV. They did it because he is a political candidate, and they presumably intend to give his opponents equal time. I question their timing, but not their fairness.

Agreed

> CNN allowed a rapist to slut-shame the woman he raped, on national TV, while the audience laughed at her.

As I said I havent seen the actual town hall yet so I cant speak to this point. do you have the specific quote or a link to a video. Until I see it I cant judge this point either way or if your characterization of it is accurate.

> They allowed him to spew lie after unchallenged lie, for two hours, thereby facilitating a violent insurrection against the US. Is this okay?

Is it ok, nope, is it normal, yup... This applies to every Biden Townhall, every Trump Townhall and virtually every town hall we have had. Fact checking has never been an element of town halls, the format has been the norm for decades to allow Q&A and for the host to do little more than facilitate the audience to ask questions... we have never fact checked and have always let the lies from all candidates fly... maybe we should change that, but Trump is hardly new, why not cry fowl when Biden was allowed to lie and not get fact checked?

> And why is your dislike for Biden relevant to your answer?

Because it shows precedence and is a good litmus test to check if you are being impartial towards the candidates and holding them to equal standards.. Biden as a pro-segregationist has an abysmally racist history, would his racist history be a good enough reason for CNN to refuse to host town halls for him, probably not... Usually applying our standards to the things we support is a good litmus test to see if we truly think our standards are good ones to hold.

@barney

Yes CNN did it not hte courts... the courts are the only ones responsible for denying presidential candidates, not CNN.. so CNN did the right choice, as disgusting as he is. It is not their place to judge which presidential candidates meet their standards to have a voice.. its a shame he got TV time and that he is running at all, but they did right by giving him the same opportunity they will give any other legally recognized candidate.

The **last** thing anyone should be demanding is that news organizations pick what candidates get platforms.

@statmonkey

Wait what, this was a town hall for the republican primaries, not for the presidency... It is perfectly normal for primary town halls to have audiences exclusive to the party the town hall is for.... this is how its been done since forever.... If it were post-primary I'd agree with you, but its not.

@barney To some extent I do agree, if political candidates are lying and still primary candidates and given the airtime that goes with that, there is a problem somewhere.... the problem isnt with CNN though as far as I can tell, the problem lies with some combination of the courts for not acting to curb Trump sooner, or the general public for showing such levels of support for such a horrific candidate.

That said, while Trump is one of the worst examples of a bad candidate by the same token we have a pretty close second in office right now, Biden. So the failure that led to him getting in office isnt much better than the failure that is allowing Trump reach the level of popularity he has.

@alfredo_liberal@universeodon.com Town halls have never had a fact checking element. The format has always been Q&A with the host doing nothing in the light of fact checking...

So I think its fine to say "maybe we should change our traditional format and not do town hall type formats in the future and instead switch to a format where the host pushes back of fact checks and gives the candidate a chance to respond"... thats fair... but we have always given other candidates the ability to lie their ass off in these formats, so lets not get into the habit of complaining about the lack of fact checking **only** when its the candidates we hate and be ok with it when its the ones we like.

@VoxDei Thats fair... yea its a weird format specifically for a news reporter to host I suppose... but its been the norm in the USA to do this town all format since forever.

I would be ok with changing the format for everyone... in general what I want is something where the news agencies arent deciding who gets a voice and where all candidates are treated by the same standard.

@VoxDei If the town hall format were to be changed and thats the new format I might not mind.. but traditionally that hasnt been the case.

@VoxDei Oh and as for the republican only audience.. if thats the case I guess we would have to judge it by past town halls... it sounds like this is a town hall for the republican primary and not the presidency.. in which case having a rebpulican only audience may be normal.

@MargaretSefton yes if Trump wins we certainly will be in a dangerous place as far as fascism goes, I agree.

@VoxDei If we want to start fact checking town halls we have to do the same to Biden when he talks... and other candidates... and pretty much every word out of either of their mouths tends to be a lie... so that would be fun to see.

@MargaretSefton I would be very happy to hear Trump is proven to have done things that make him ineligible for presidency. That would be wonderful.

If I had one wish from a magic genie I'd probably wish that Biden and Trump were ineligible to run for president in 2024.

@SallyStrange hahah, right, cause addressing fascism means letting the news pick our presidential candidates for us...yea ok...You have some pretty backwards views of what facism is.

@MargaretSefton I dont think Trump should get a fair shake at all..I think the courts should e3xpose his crimes and once proven he should be barred from running...

What we shouldnt expect is CNN or any other news agency to pick which candidates get a voice and which dont.

@VoxDei

I havent watched it either, so maybe i will change my mind after watching it...

But...

To point #1, I dont seem to recall them **ever** fact checking a town hall.. Generally they faciliatate Q&A and dont get into fact checking. That is for debates and even then the host doesnt fact check thats for the other candidates to do on eachother.

#2 That sounds like more an issue with the general public... If the town hall was open to everyone and they happened to favor trump supporters, likely because anti-trump people refused to go, thats not CNNs fault... What almost certainly happened is Trump supporters overwhelmingly wanted to go and non-trump supporters overwhlemingly didnt and wanted to boycott it... so everyone who actually showed up was 99% Trump supporters... cant blame CNN for that, only person to blame would be the ones boycotting it and not going to ask those tough questions

Town halls have **always** been about the candidate saying whatever they want, thats how its always been, thats kinda the whole point of a town hall, to hear the candidate speak without being challenged (the other formats we have are where they are challenged). At least by the host, obviously questions from the audience can challenge the speaker, and should, but thats the democrats mistake for not bothering to show up.

@realcaseyrollins Yea, though this is worse than usual, to want to ban a whole network for simply hosting a town hall...