Howard Kurtz Defends CBS News Over Michele Bachmann E-mail Controversy

Over the weekend, Michele Bachmann‘s campaign has been going after CBS News over an e-mail accidentally sent to her spokeswoman saying that Bachmann would not be asked as many questions as the other candidates. The congresswoman accused CBS of media bias, but on Reliable Sources today, Howard Kurtz stood up for the network.

Kurtz said the network’s decision was less to do with politics and more about giving more questions to the candidates doing better in the polls. CBS, like other networks, wanted to ask more questions of the candidates currently dominating the news cycle. Kurtz did note at the end of the segment, though, that Bachmann did end up getting almost as many questions as the frontrunners.

The Daily Caller‘s Matt Lewis agreed with Kurtz, and while admitting it was “unfortunate” for the e-mail to have gotten out, all the news networks make decisions based on poll numbers. That’s why you never see Gary Johnson (with one or two exceptions), Buddy Roemer, or Fred Karger in these debates. Whether you agree with these decisions or not, the networks do set standards for these debates and, all things being unequal, the more popular candidates will get more questions.

Watch the video below, courtesy of CNN:

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