CNN Debate’s Question Assignments Raise Concerns Of Tokenism
BY JOSH ISRAEL
Unlike last month’s CNN Republican presidential debate, which featured questions from two straight white men and a straight white woman, Tuesday’s Democratic debate on the network featured considerably more diversity in its moderators and viewer-questioners. But some viewers, Vox, and RedState founder Erick Erickson suggested that the question assignments seemed to go to “token” members of the groups most associated with the question.
Openly gay principal moderator Anderson Cooper asked Hillary Clinton about her record on marriage equality. Juan Carlos Lopez of CNN en Español asked the candidates about immigration reform and health care for undocumented immigrants. Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash asked a question about family leave. CNN Tonight anchor Don Lemon, himself black, introduced a young black male to ask about whether Black Lives Matter. And a young woman was brought on to ask a question about climate change.
ThinkProgress spoke with several progressive activists who applauded the inclusion of these topics in Tuesday night’s debate, but expressed concern that the topics might appear to be parochial concerns only for these particular groups based on the way CNN assigned them. CNN did not immediately respond to a ThinkProgress request for comment.
Juan Escalante, an immigration reform advocate with America’s Voice, said CNN “has some work to do” when it comes to the network’s execution of questioning the candidates. “I think the way the questions were handled yesterday definitely read a little odd to me, particularly the ones that surrounded Black Lives Matter and essentially immigration. My reaction to the whole thing is that they seem to have been playing to stereotypes for one reason or another.” He noted that the content of the questions was fine, but wished the debate organizers had been “a little more sensitive and responsible” in determining who would ask them.
Mario Carillo, spokesman for the immigration reform group United We Dream, was even more critical. “I couldn’t help but laugh,” he said via email. “When Don Lemon was brought on to ask a question on Black Lives Matter, I half-jokingly tweeted that I’m sure Juan Carlos Lopez would be brought on to talk about immigration.”
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http://thinkprogress.org/media/2015/10/14/3712256/cnn-democratic-debate-tokenism/
