any candidate, every political reporter in america knows it, you cannot allow political candidates to set the terms of an interview. right. he certainly never did when i worked in politics. you know that s how it works. and you know that. the format didn t allow for that exchange. and instead, it gave him an hour of free tv. give me throw out there some things that have come from inside cnn, from the highly-regarded oliver darcee who writes, reliable sources. he wrote this. 24 hours after cnn s town hall, it is all anyone is talking about, throughout the day in fact we heard from dozens of network staffers ranging in seniority and positions across the organization who all expressed dismay by what they saw transpire on their television screens. i m still writing this letter right now, i am still fielding messages and phone calls. this is cnn s media critic writing about cnn, and when he is talking about staff, he is talking about colleagues and
neutral parties, objective analysts, but also cnn itself. donald trump, now a criminal defendant was found liable for sexual abuse. he faces the special counsel probe, and cnn decided to its journalistic power to give him a live platform he could really dominate. headlines are now splashed like this. cnn town hall was a disaster. cnn town hall was a total disaster, and appealing to conservatives appeared to be a type of disaster. others say cnn failed america. a train wreck. trump steam rolled cnn and cable carnage. cnn has its own media critic, oliver darcy, and he went, cnn aired it all. went on and on like 2016, donald trump s social media feed brought to life on stage. it was a room full of republican voters that cnn staged. in other words, their journalistic choice was not to get something in the real world,