Radio Host Gets Fired for Staging an Interview for Pres. Biden

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Did you take journalism? I keepforgetting you're you got radio school? Yeah,
but but like how much journalism wereyou taught or did you like like
ethics of journalism? Yeah? WeI took like one one class, just
one, you know, yeah,so just a little bit. What what
if you had to from from likebeing in this business even though I don't
know if you call us necessarily journalistsbecause that's not really what our job is.

(00:25):
We can do some journalism within,you know, some like important reporting
on things, but not necessarily likejournalism to a t what but how would
you describe journalism in like a sentence? Like the backbone rule, like the
most important rule of journalism if itbleeds, it leads. No, not
that, No, I'm talking aboutthe ethics, not the stories. Ethics

(00:51):
of journalism. Here's one. Ifthey start to cry, I don't cut
the commercial zoom in and well howwould you? But but how would you
describe that? Like That's part ofwhat I getting at here is Oh,
I got you right, right?Right? Yeah? Ethical journalism? You
want to be fair? Right?Fair is important. Being fair to my
team is important. Oh gosh,you're weird, but you're right. I

(01:15):
mean people, people protect each otherand protect everybody's things. I got this
for you. So there's an AfricanAmerican owned and operated talk radio station in
the state of Pennsylvania, and theyhad a morning show host by the name
of Andrea Lawfel Sanders, and shehas lost her job. This is a
Philadelphia area and it's because she interviewedPresident Joe Biden on her radio show and

(01:38):
used questions that were provided by thecampaign for her to ask. She admitted
to using four of the eight questionswhich were provided to her by the campaign
to ask him the state. Thestation, in a statement, emphasized their
dedication to remaining an independent media outletaccountable to their listeners, and it's expressed

(02:00):
concerns that accepting pre prepared questions wouldundermine their credibility and perpetuate the practice of
de legitimizing black voices by making themappear as a mouthpiece for the Biden administration.
And of course, like I said, this is an African American owned
and operated talk station in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania, where there's a larger population of
African Americans. Now, I don'tthink that part of it is as important

(02:22):
to me. It shouldn't be,because It's more about the fact that this
person took pre approved or pre providedquestions and use them. How do you
feel about that? My first thoughtwas I really feel for this reporter.
That's well, she's a host.I wouldn't say she's a reporter, Okay,

(02:43):
right, Well, I feel forthis host of the radio show because
when the president of the United Statesis coming on your show and says,
this was the questions you can use. This was the first post debate interview.
Like he showed up on her showthe day after the debate or not
the day it was, but itwas the first live interview he had done.
It was last Wednesday. Who madethe announcement that this is how it

(03:06):
worked? Like? Who made thefirst official who put it out there?
Like? Was it? That's myquestion? It would have been the host
of the of the radio prog Here'smore of the statement. On July third,
the first post debate interview with PresidentJoe Biden was arranged and negotiated independently
by host Andrea Lawfel Sanders, withoutknowledge, consultation, or collaboration with our

(03:28):
management. The interview featured predetermined questionsprovided by the White House, which violates
our practice of remaining an independent mediaoutlet accountable to our listeners. As a
result, Miss Lawful Sanders and ourstation have mutually agreed to part ways,
effective immediately. It sounds like whathappened was she told them she received eight

(03:49):
questions from Biden's team and used fourof them during the broadcast. They say
that violated their commitment to independent journalism. Understandable and commendable that they would,
you know, like make this public. Well, here's the thing. We
always talk about spin in this industry, and they want people to think that
it's not spun that way. Andagain, nobody would have known except for

(04:11):
the fact that they decided, Hey, that's not cool, we can't do
it like that. What do youthink about when you're talking to like a
political person, that you send themthe questions ahead of time. There have
been people I've interviewed that they askedif I could send the questions I was
planning to ask ahead of time.Sure, yeah, I mean that's pretty
common, right, I think so, especially if those people are not like
commonly interviewed and they want to beprepared for the questions. Right. There

(04:31):
was a girl I was doing asports radio show on a weekend and I
had a correspondence to all the differentcollege sports teams. And she was a
young woman who's the host in KinnickStadium for the Iowhawkeyes. And I was
able to recruit her to do this, but it was something she had never
done before. Lets be like aninsider on boots on the ground to report
on what's going on with the Iowahawkeyes, right, and so like I would

(04:54):
ask her, you know, Iwould tell her the questions I had planned
to ask, because she was deathlyafraid of not being prepared for one of
the questions I asked. That's differentthan talking to a politician who knows this
stuff is going to happen, rightand should be ready. And this is
there's a reason they don't give thequestions. Theyre not supposed to give the
questions to the candidates ahead of thesedebates. Well, and I think it's
one of those balance of power thingswhere if if you're kind of new in

(05:17):
the biz and you're just looking toget the best guests possible, you're probably
going to have to enter that situationwhere, hey, you know, you
got to be friendly if you wantthe access. Yeah, and and and
they're and they're going to trust thatyou're going to respect that friendliness and not
you know, trying to weasel yourway around it on air, because then
you might not get them next timeand they might tell their friends. Right.

(05:39):
And this is the other thing.When I talk to politic politicians on
this show, a lot of peopleare just like, oh, what way
to hand them softballs? There's stuffthat I that's topical that they are obviously
prepared to answer questions for knowing I'mgoing to answer, Like, ask those
questions because it's topical. That's notme buttering them up or preparing them.
They just know how to answer thequestions because that's their job. Right for

(06:00):
Joe, we don't know that,right, because Joe has a hard time
when he doesn't have the note cards. So to ask pre provided questions makes
it a lot easier for him andhis administration to manage that sort of variability,
you know what I'm saying. Yeah, And that's the unfortunate part of
this is for her, she's thinking, Okay, well, I want access
to the president. I agree tolike ask just these questions. At the

(06:23):
same time, who learns anything fromthat, especially if you're trying to,
like if the station itself is tryingto be as fair as possible, as
much spin as you want to tryto put on it. The station says,
we don't want to be associated withthis kind of propaganda. Yeah,
and I think it's it is wholeheartedlytwo separate conversations. It's apples and oranges.
If the host is sending questions aheadof time to say, here's what

(06:46):
you can expect, versus the guestsending questions of saying, here's what you
can ask me these different thing youcan choose questions on this list to ask
because he'll be ready for that.This has to continue to make this administration
look bad though, right they're tryingto control the narrative as best they can
and doing it blatantly out in thepublic. And now that this station,

(07:06):
who I'm sure is you know thatmost of the people listening to it African
American audience mostly I'm assuming that they'retrying to cater toward in an African American
hot spot of population in Philadelphia aremostly Biden supporters. I know there's a
lot more African Americans who are sayingthat they aren't going to vote Democrat or
they're they're leaning more Republican and stuff. But here they are saying, we

(07:28):
don't care, we don't want peopleto see us that way as a station.
That's a and to make it public. Wow, And what does that
do to the career of this woman? Right? Like, I'm sure if
her name gets hot enough, Idon't know how many people even talking about
this, but if her name getshot enough, somebody will take a chance
on hers because of the eyeballs inthe ears that she may bring. At
the same time, though, Imean, that's a tough look. It's
a tough look for her to belike, oh, yeah, I was

(07:50):
the one that spoon fed, youknow, Grandpa Biden's questions during his first
legitimate interview after the debate, thoughit was almost a week later. That's
a tough look. But also that'sa really tough position to be put in,
where you know, it's the presidentof the United States and here's the
questions you can ask. I don'tknow, I mean, I you know,

(08:11):
it's I have complicated emotions about itbecause, for one thing, your
your employer totally just you know,throw you under the bus to virtue signal.
Right, it is a virtue signal, and threw you under the bus.
At the same time, is shenot at all responsible to talk to
the management of this station considering theimplications of what this interview could possibly be
one way or another. I mean, if I was going to have the

(08:33):
President of the United States on myshow, I am calling Sadlemeyer, I'm
calling Rose, I'm calling Vorhe's andyou, and we're going to kind of
talk together about like how should Ihandle this? Right, I'm like,
I'm pumped to get that opportunity potentially, but how do I handle that that
kind of thing? Right? Fiveforty nine, I got an interesting clip
from Wimbledon to play you from thewinningest major champion of all time. Pretty

(08:54):
interesting coming up on news radio elevento ten kfab