A Philadelphia radio host who interviewed President Joe Biden on July 3 has resigned after using questions provided by his campaign team.
Andrea Lawful-Sanders, who hosted “The Source” on local radio station WURD, asked Biden four questions as part of an interview after the first presidential debate last month.
WURD, Pennsylvania’s only Black-owned talk radio station, said the interview had been “arranged and negotiated” without management’s “knowledge or consultation.”
In a statement, WURD president, Sara M. Lomax said the questions provided by the election campaign “violates our practice of remaining an independent media outlet.”
WURD and Lawful-Sanders have since “mutually agreed” to part ways, the statement said.
“As Pennsylvania’s only independent Black-owned talk radio station, WURD Radio has cultivated that trust with our audience over our 20-year history. This is something we take very seriously,” Lomax said on the website. “Agreeing to a pre-determined set of questions jeopardizes that trust and is not a practice that WURD Radio engages in.”
In an interview with U.S. media, Lawful-Sanders said the campaign sent her eight questions, four of which she used.
A second radio host who also interviewed Biden in Milwaukee said that he, too, was provided questions before the interview and because of that could not ask everything he had wanted to.
A spokesperson for the Biden reelection campaign was cited in media saying it is not “uncommon” to share topics they would like to discuss, and that Lawful-Sanders was free to ask other questions.
“We do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions, and hosts are always free to ask the questions they think will best inform their listeners,” the campaign spokesperson said.
The Associated Press cited a person familiar with how the Biden campaign books interviews as saying the team plans to stop offering suggested questions to hosts.
