ISABEL MacDONALD
Communications director for the media watch group FAIR, MacDonald said today: “NBC’s exclusion of Kucinich from the Jan. 15 Democratic debate represents a particularly egregious example of preempting voter choice by the GE-owned network.

“After inviting Kucinich to the debate, the network arbitrarily changed the criteria for participation, and disinvited him. When a court ordered that, as a matter of the media’s obligations, Kucinich had to be included or else the debate could not proceed, NBC successfully fought the decision on legalistic technicalities.

“Perhaps NBC recognized that … [this] was a violation of the public interest, because it did not broadcast the debate on its local affiliate in Las Vegas, choosing to show the debate only on cable, which is not subject to the same public interest regulations as broadcasting.”
More Information

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167