AZ State Senator Achieves Awkward YouTube Fame Via Embarrassing Student Interview

video

by Glynnis MacNicol | 12:59 pm, June 20th, 2010

» 3 comments

Perhaps the lesson of the week is beware of students bearing video cameras. Arizona State Senator John Huppenthal learned this the tough way when high school journalist Keith Wagner came to interview him about massive cuts to AZ education funding. After describing recent cuts as “simply horrendous” Huppenthal was then asked to explain how come he had voted for a bill that would cut $550 million to the Arizona DOE. Um. “Tell me a little bit more about that bill” said Huppenthal awkwardly before leaving the room. The video has since made the blogosphere rounds.

HuffPo reported that after leaving the room Huppenthal never returned, however Wagner now says the senator “did come back and he was very polite.” Also, a lot more well-known than he was yesterday! Some enterprising pol should prob capitalize on this trend and create a fake student viral campaign vid. Watch below.

John Huppenthal, Keith Wagner

ImNotBlue

So the moral of the story is… HuffPo lied?
sarainitaly

Just in case no one bothers to read the truth:

The student journalist who interviewed State Senator John Huppenthal about vocational education funding in a video that is now making the rounds told our reporter this morning the edited version that was posted by Democratic Diva blogger Donna Gratehouse does not accurately portray what happened in his meeting with the senator. Huppenthal did leave, Keith Wagner said, but he didn’t disappear and abandon the interview, as the video posted on Gratehouse’s blog purports.

Wagner said the senator returned with more information on education funding. “He did come back and he was very polite,” he said. Wagner also said he was irked that some are using the video, which was a class project, to score political points. “I am a little upset that the focus of that has been changed to ‘high-schooler interviewing a state senator and kind of catching him off guard,’” Wagner said.

As for the legislation Wagner asked Huppenthal about – he described it in the story only as a bill that cut $550 million from K-12 and decreased the career and technical education funds from $11 million to about $57,000 – the student said he was referring to H2028 (Laws 2009, Chapter 5), which lawmakers approved May 13 last year.

However, the student seems to have misunderstood what the bill did, as it didn’t cut $550 million from K-12 and didn’t wipe out funding for vocational programs. The bill, which was part of a two-bill package that closed a $650 million deficit in FY09, did three things: roll over $100 million in university funding; roll over $300 million in K-12 funding; and cut $250 million from K-12, but backfill the cuts with an equal amount of federal stimulus money. Additionally, budget documents from JLBC show the career and technical education funding levels are unchanged from FY09 at about $11.5 million.
1ifbyland2ifbysea

Thank you sarainitaly……….You beat me to it, but good on ya!…. Folks are so ready to grab at anything to buttress their position……. whats the point in checking facts and accuracy? They might get in the way.

It shouldn’t but I admit that I still am amazed when I see how few of our citizens have, hardly a passing aquaintance with truth anymore.