A Milwaukee radio station admitted on Thursday to editing an interview with President Joe Biden at the request of his campaign, which they admit fell short of “journalistic interview standards.”
Following the disastrous debate against former President Donald Trump last month, Biden did an interview with popular host Earl Ingram with Civic Media, a talk-radio network based out of Wisconsin. A report later indicated that the Biden campaign requested certain edits from the interview, which the station complied with.
The station said in a statement released on Thursday:
On Monday, July 8th, it was reported to Civic Media management that immediately after the phone interview was recorded, the Biden campaign called and asked for two edits to the recording before it aired. Civic Media management immediately undertook an investigation and determined that the production team at the time viewed the edits as non-substantive and broadcast and published the interview with two short segments removed,” The station pledged to release the full, unedited interview online. The two edits made were Biden saying he had “more Blacks in my administration than any other president” and one in which he appeared incoherent when discussing former President Trump’s call for the death penalty on the Central Park Five.
“I don’t know if they even call for their hanging or not, but he–but they said […] convicted of murder,” he said.
“With a high-profile interview comes a listener expectation that journalistic interview standards will be applied, even for non-news programming. We did not meet those expectations. Civic Media disagrees with the team’s judgments in the moment, both with respect to the handling of the interview questions and the decision to edit the interview audio,” the statement continued.
The station further said it has clarified its policies “particularly for commentators and other non-news personnel.”
“Civic Media unequivocally stands by Earl Ingram and his team,” the statement continued. “Earl is an invaluable voice for Milwaukee and Wisconsin, and remains a crucial member of the Civic Media organization. The decision to make the requested edits to the interview was made in good faith. While we disagree with the decision, we stand by our team. This has been a learning experience and we will do better moving forward.”
Last week, a radio host based out of Philadelphia “parted ways with her station after interviewing President Biden with questions provided by his campaign, a move prohibited by many newsrooms including her own,” reported NPR.
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