Public Please

I was shocked and awed at the latest reversal of political censorship on CNN, when Wolf Blitzer said that “the Democratic candidates” would be at the next debate. This was breaking news and I had to call the CNN Headline News at 404-827-2600 to let them know this breaking news tip.

As I waited for the next available operator to take my tip, I couldn’t help but think that Democratic presidential candidates Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel would be thrilled to know that they will be participating in the next CNN Democratic presidential debates. This is a complete reversal of CNN’s historically unfair criteria for participation in a democratic debate.

After listening to several minutes to CNN Radio via cell phone, Donny or Donnie picked up the line. He quickly asked me to tell him my breaking news tip, I gave him two breaking news tips:

1. Kucinich was excluded from the CNN Democratic Presidential Debates in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and

2. After the debate, Wolf Blitzer, on television, announced that all of the presidential candidates would be included in the next Democratic Presidential debate hosted by CNN. (However, Blitzer’s words were excluded from the last part of CNN’s transcript).

He said that he would pass this information along to his producer. So I asked him, “What’s your producer’s name? Who will you pass this along to?” He said he could not give out that information. I was trying to learn how my tip would be processed and how I could document that process. So I asked, “What’s your name?” He said “Donny [or Donnie].” I asked him, “What’s your last name?” He said that he could not give out that kind of information. I didn’t think this was a big deal because I had told him my full name, Will Riley, and that I was a graduate student at Georgia Tech. I should have asked him for a less personal form of identification, such as an employee ID number. How can a media researcher like myself document the corporate media without this information?

He told me that he thought that I had called the wrong number, that his tips hotline was reserved for breaking news tips - not commentary or opinion about news programming. But I argued that it was breaking news to many of us, the idea that CNN was going to include ALL of the Democratic Presidential candidates in its next debate.

Finally, I ended my conversation by telling him that graduate students like myself were going to write about our experiences breaking the news to reporters like him.

And now I’m writing to reporters like you. Let’s document the people and processes behind corporate media censorship. As citizen journalists, we must remind corporate reporters what is news from time to time, expect that they will be slow to listen, and document our communication, so that future generations will know that we sincerely tried to inform the public as the public.