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CNN
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Radio host Andrea Lawful-Sanders has resigned from WURD Radio after admitting that her post-debate interview with President Joe Biden included questions pre-selected by the Biden campaign, the station told CNN Sunday.
“The interview included predetermined questions provided by the White House, which violates our practice of remaining an independent media outlet accountable to our listeners,” Sara Lomax, president and general manager of the Philadelphia-based station, said in a statement posted Sunday on its website. “As a result, Ms. Lawful-Sanders and WURD Radio have mutually agreed to part ways, effective immediately.”
WURD is the only Black-owned talk radio station in Pennsylvania. Lomax said the station prides itself on being an independent and trusted voice for its core audience of Black Philadelphians and that the use of pre-provided questions “jeopardizes that trust and is not a practice that WURD Radio engages in or endorses as an official practice or policy.”
“WURD Radio is not a voice for Biden or any other administration,” she added.
Lawful-Sanders, who hosted “The Source,” sat down with Biden last week and asked him four questions about what’s at stake in this election, his accomplishments, his debate performance and what he would tell wavering voters. In an interview Saturday with CNN’s Victor Blackwell, she said those questions were among eight that Biden advisers had recommended to her ahead of the interview.
“The questions were sent to me for approval. I approved them,” she said.
The move further inflamed the whirlwind that has swirled around Biden’s acumen since his lackluster performance in the first presidential debate, which was hosted by CNN. Biden’s performance in the debate left many leading Democrats wringing their hands in frustration and worry as talk rages about not accepting the party’s nomination.
“If the White House is now trying to demonstrate the energy, the vigor … of the president, I don’t know how they do that by sending questions before the interview so that the president knows what to expect,” Blackwell said.
Blackwell noted that Lawful-Sanders and Earl Ingram, host of “The Earl Ingram Show” in Milwaukee, who also interviewed the president this week, asked Biden “essentially the same questions.”
A Biden campaign spokesman did not deny Saturday that he had asked the questions, but said: “We do not condition interviews on accepting these questions.”
“It is not uncommon for respondents to share their preferences for topics. These questions were relevant to the news of the day: the president was asked about his performance in the debate as well as what he has done for Black Americans,” spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said in a statement.
The Biden campaign said later Saturday that it would no longer suggest questions to interviewers.
“While interview hosts have always been free to ask whatever questions they want, going forward we will refrain from offering suggested questions,” a source familiar with Biden’s booking operation told CNN.
News Source : amp.cnn.com
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