Sunday, October 26, 2008

Orlando Sentinel - Obama campaign cuts off WFTV after interview with Joe Biden by Hal Boedeker

Orlando Sentinel - Obama campaign cuts off WFTV after interview with Joe Biden by Hal Boedeker: "Biden so disliked West's line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate's wife.

'This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election,' wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.

McGinnis said the Biden cancellation was 'a result of her husband's experience yesterday during the satellite interview with Barbara West.'

Here's a link to the interview: http://www.wftv.com/video/17790025/index.html."

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Poor Joe. He got hardball instead of softball and had a hissy fit.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What I really wish had happened in the Barbara West interview is that she had gone on in the vein of her first three questions. The last two were pure tinfoil wingnut polemics, with absolutely no basis in fact. The first three were what American journalists ought to do with all candidates and yet refuse to.

And, as it is, we have no way of knowing whether Biden was taking umbrage at the last two questions (and by God he should take umbrage at them) or at the entire interview.

We do know that Ms. West served up a T-ball of an interview to McCain this past week. Go check the video, she may as well have asked the RNC to write the questions. Maybe Biden was PO'd at the difference.

But I repeat again, US journalists ought to be asking challenging questions of all the candidates, and by and large, none of them are. Even Lehrer and Schieffer did no more than a halfway acceptable job in the debates; Brokaw simply wasn't up to the task, and you're not going to learn anything watching the cable bobbleheads.

And I don't understand the Hal Boedeker reference. He works for the Orlando PAPER, not the TV station.

Anonymous said...

I want the candidates to be asked hardball questions, but the questions by West weren't hardball--they were sillyball. I wouldn't blame anyone for cancelling interviews with West after that.

At least Orlando channel 6 asks rational questions (though they light the candidates weirdly, so it looks like the reporter is in the sunshine and the candidates are in a closet).

I don't see why Jill Biden should be expected to appear on any local tv stations anyway, or Todd Palin either. What difference does it make what the VP candidate's spouse thinks?