MSNBC MANIPULATES PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

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[From Democracy Now]

AMY GOODMAN: You're just about to come to the studio, and so we'll be
having you join in the debate you were excluded from last night. But
before you do, as you pull up right near the Capitol in Washington,
D.C., explain your lawsuit and what happened at the last minute last
night as the case made its way through the courts of Las Vegas.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: NBC, GE, maintained - well, they - you know, we
were invited and as a result of meeting criteria of being in the top
four in a national poll. This was before Bill Richardson dropped out.
And when I met the criteria, NBC then announced they had changed the
criteria so it would only be the top three that would be invited.

We challenged that as a contract, and attorneys in Nevada won a case
before a superior court judge, who said that NBC had an obligation to
provide me with a place in the debate, and if they did not, he would
stop the debate from happening. . .

NBC then immediately contacted the Supreme Court, and a hearing was
held. I was told it was an extraordinary hearing of all seven members of
the Supreme Court, who - three of whom were in Carson City, Nevada and
were teleconferenced in, and they heard a presentation by NBC's
attorneys, who maintained that the debate was essentially a private
matter and that no - you know, really little discussion on their part of
any public interest came up. They alluded that, alternatively, this was
a matter that should have been brought before the FCC, not a contract
matter, and then, in the same breath, said that cable networks aren't
[inaudible] to the FCC. . .

I think that what they're trying to do is stack a presidential election
using their broadcast media power, and they're doing it to further the
interests of their own parent corporation, General Electric. And this is
something that I am not going to stop challenging, because this is
really important to issues of democratic governance, what kind of
country we're going to have, because the corporations are really in a
position where they're using the broadcast media to rig presidential
elections by determining who's viable based on who gets coverage; in the
advent of an election, who goes on the news shows and who is getting
their contributions from their executives. This is a real serious
matter. . .

[Goodman then proceeds to play excerpts of the MSNBC debate and gets
Kucinch's response] 

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/16/breaking_the_sound_barrier_democracy_now


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