Speaking of Controlling the Press
The FT announces that Larry Summers will be answering questions about the election "in a live online debate" on Monday at 10 AM Eastern time.
Then it asks you to submit your questions ahead of time....
¶ 12:07 PM
Comments:
Your knocks on Summers are getting desperately lame.
It's a knock on what Richard perceives as the nature of the "debate," as it would appear that the questions will be pre-screened in advance, and as such, perhaps ensuring that Summers will receive softball, rather than hardball questions.
That being said, if the person wasn't Summers, would it have been an issue or concern for Richard?
Actually, yes, it still would be. As you folks may have noticed, I have a couple of obsessions here on the blog: transparency from the powerful, and the freedom of information. I just think it's wrong—and contrary to the spirit of the Internet—for a newspaper to promote a live online debate and then pre-screen questions. I know this is an over-used term, but isn't this a little Orwellian? Welcome to our live debate! Now give us your questions so we can screen them! Oh, and by the way—2 + 2 = 5!
And first and foremost, this has been a blog about Harvard--while I don't always agree with Richard, this is not "desperately lame." He just pointed out a little irony, that's all.
