‘Media malpractice’: CNN faces backlash for one-sided questioning on Sanders vs. Warren

By Peter Hasson

CNN faced backlash Tuesday night after debate moderator Abby Phillip took Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s side and stated as fact that Sen. Bernie Sanders told Warren in a private conversation that a woman couldn’t win the presidential election.

Warren has accused Sanders of telling her in a private 2018 dinner that a woman candidate couldn’t win the 2020 race — but Sanders has adamantly denied her accusation. Phillip took Warren’s side in her questioning of the two senators in Tuesday night’s Democratic debate.

“CNN reported yesterday and senator warren confirmed in a statement that in 2018 you told her that you did not believe a woman could win the presidential election. Why did you say that?” Phillip asked Sanders.

“Well, as a matter of fact I didn’t say that,” Sanders said and proceeded to point out that he said in 1988 that he thought a woman could win the presidency.

“So Sen. Sanders, I do want to be clear here, you’re saying that you never told Sen. Warren that a woman could not win the election?” the moderator clarified.

“That is correct,” Sanders answered.

Phillip then proceeded to question Warren, from Massachusetts, as though it was an indisputable fact that Sanders, from Vermont, said what he denies saying.

“Sen. Warren, what did you think when Sen. Sanders told you that a woman could not win the election?” she asked.

The CNN moderator’s one-sided questioning of Sanders and Warren drew sharp criticisms from other journalists.

“Seriously it is outrageous that CNN would take Warren’s accusation as a statement of fact,” The Hill’s Saagar Enjeti wrote on Twitter, calling the one-sided questioning “Media malpractice.”

Washington Examiner commentary editor Tim Carney said that “Bernie was mistreated by CNN” in the exchange.

“It was a very telling moment when Bernie said he didn’t say a woman couldn’t win and then in the very next moment, the moderator just asserted that he had,” Reason magazine senior editor Robby Soave commented.

Soave’s fellow editor at Reason, Stephanie Slade, was similarly critical of Phillip questioning.

“That question to Warren, which stated as an unqualified fact her side in an unsubstantiated he said/she said dispute with Sanders, was journalistic effing malpractice,” Slade tweeted.

“Why is @CNN stating unequivocally that @BernieSanders told @ewarren a woman can’t be president when they weren’t there and Sanders is denying it?!” asked Fox Business producer Lydia Moynihan. “That’s not a report, that’s a rumor.”

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Image courtesy of CNN screen capture

4 thoughts on “‘Media malpractice’: CNN faces backlash for one-sided questioning on Sanders vs. Warren

  1. Now does Bernie know how Trump must feel, the bias attacking Bernie hasn’t been impeached yet. Can’t feel sorry for him. Now he must realize just how bad CNN is. Batty Dolt Squaw is CNN’s baby. Now CNN has partitioned Bernie out from the LIb left and noted who they like within that running bunch. The transformation of the media and liberals. Nice to see them eat on each other.

  2. Lieawatha is out for burnee’s scalp…
    The screeching sqaw is in free fall and now ready to throw her only socialist
    friend to the wolves to stop the drop…
    I think her ticket is about up on the short clown bus.
    Poor burnee isn’t even going to get a house out of this run and will have to settle
    for the cash in his campaign fund..

  3. Are you serious?

    CNN?

    They wrote the book on BIAS

    That anyone would confuse anything that CNN does as “news”; now, that’s funny

  4. Liberals tilting the scales…..again, but now it’s on one of there own !!

    So Socialist Sanders is ” Guilty “, per the way democrats and the liberal media
    have demonstrated in the past……..

    Yup, guilty until you can prove your innocence, do you feel the Burn ??

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