After a broadly criticized Republican presidential debate the night before, CNBC staffers were told on Thursday to move on from coverage of event, according to a report Friday from a competing news channel.
In a post-mortem from CNN media reporter Brian Stelter, unnamed CNBC staffers said they were “shell shocked” after the debate, which caught nearly universal ire for the moderators’ lack of preparedness and supposed “bias.”
From CNN:
As the day went on, there was less and less talk about the debate on CNBC. According to one of the employees, producers were given internal guidance to move on.
At CNBC’s sister news outlets MSNBC and NBC News, producers were advised not to “pile on” the moderator controversy, according to people there.
During the primetime event – which netted 14 million viewers, making it the network’s most-watched program ever – moderator Becky Quick failed to produce the source for a question on Donald Trump’s immigration policy, which viewers gleefully pointed out was on the candidate’s official website.
The questions were pointed enough to give Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) an opening to grandstand about the network trying to make the debate into a “cage match,” and provided endless fuel for Republicans’ to decry the divisive event as emblematic of liberal media bias.
CNBC issued a one-line statement after the debate that said candidates for President “should be able to answer tough questions.”
