Why did CNN have Don Lemon ask about race and Juan Carlos Lopez ask about immigration?
*For a debate by a political party where half of its members are not white, the presence of non-whites was dramatically low. VL
By Dara Lind, Vox
All five candidates in the first Democratic presidential debate were white. Moderator and CNN anchor Anderson Cooper is white. Anchor Dana Bash, who assisted with moderating, is white.
The only two nonwhite people who participated in the debate were CNN anchor Don Lemon and CNN Español’s Juan Carlos Lopez. Lemon didn’t even ask questions himself — he introduced video clips from young people. As a result, the majority of screen time occupied by nonwhite people asking questions were on issues that are supposed to be of interest to their particular ethnic groups.
[pullquote]”At least Lopez got to ask his own questions, or questions that appeared to be his own …”[/pullquote]Lopez asked a series of questions about allowing unauthorized immigrants to get health care. (In the last half hour of the debate, he asked a pair of questions about marijuana legalization.)
But by the last half hour of the debate, the damage was already done. Viewers had noticed that the nonwhite moderators were expected to ask “ethnic” questions first. And since they got so few chances to ask questions at all, those are the ones that stuck.
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[Photo courtesy of News Busters]
