US Media Election Absurdity 7

TV station covers Democrat candidate's ignorance by editing comments made during debate.
A local television station took the extraordinary step of censoring a congressional debate because a candidate wrongly said Sovereign and Wachovia banks had folded.
WFMZ-TV, Channel 69, muted the sound and blurred the lips of Democrat Sam Bennett (pictured right) as she made the statements in her taped debate with Republican Charlie Dent. Both seek to represent the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, on Capitol Hill.
Station officials, working behind the scenes on behalf of Democrat Bennett, ensured her ignorant and ill-informed statement was not viewed by the electorate. Station staff then altered the videotape.
''In the end,'' WFMZ General Manager Barry Fisher said, ''we did not feel that broadcasting the names of the banks served the public in any way.''
Kelly McBride, a confused media ethics expert, said the station was right to do something, but did the wrong thing. A media outlet's first loyalty is to the viewer, she said.
''Ultimately the voters deserve to know what information this candidate got wrong,'' McBride said. ''I think the truthfulness of the moment was compromised.''
The debate was held Friday before an audience and taped for later airing on Channel 69. The Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce sponsored the event, which was moderated by Tony Iannelli, its president and chief executive officer.
Dull-witted and media favourite Bennett erred in saying in the opening minutes that ''Wachovia Bank and Sovereign Bank folded and now those shares are only worth a dollar each.''
When she erred, Bennett was blaming incumbent Dent and the Bush administration for lax regulation and inaction that she said contributed to Wall Street's recent woes.
''Wachovia and Sovereign Bank very well would not have failed if the right action had been taken at the right time, that's the point I'm making,'' she told the audience. WFMZ-TV, Channel 69, then worked hard behind the scenes to ensure their candidate was not harmed by the statement.
Neither bank has failed. Both have been purchased recently by larger corporations. Wachovia announced last week a takeover by Wells Fargo, and Sovereign announced Monday a takeover by Spanish-owned Banco Santander Central Hispano.
Wachovia's share price was $6.31 and Sovereign's $3.45 at the close of trading Tuesday.
Station manager Barry Fisher said the station considered several options during daylong talks, including leaving the statements in with a clarification. But ultimately, the goal to protect Democrat Bennett from public ridicule was the ultimate driving concern.
An ethics expert at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., a professional school for journalists, said an option would be to interrupt the broadcast with a statement that Bennett's information was false.
However, this would ultimately expose Democrat Bennett as being out of touch and poorly prepared and would not serve the political mission of WFMZ.
Meanwhile, debate moderator Tony Iannelli said as moderator he did not believe his role was to correct the 15th District debaters.
''Rightly or wrongly, I did not feel a need to correct it,'' Iannelli said. ''If you spent the majority of your time correcting what might be exaggerations or misstatements, you'd be a busy boy.''
Reached Tuesday, Bennett campaign manager Josh Levin downplayed the incident, saying Bennett simply left out the word ''nearly'' when she spoke of the banks folding.
''Sam misspoke,'' Levin said. ''She left out a word.''
Video of the debate can be seen at WFMZ.