Statement regarding edits to the July 4th interview with President Biden

The Earl Ingram Show was one of two radio programs contacted by the Biden campaign following the June 27th debate to speak with President Biden. The interview was recorded on July 3rd and aired on July 4th on Civic Media radio stations across Wisconsin. On Monday, July 8th, it was reported to Civic Media management that immediately after the phone interview was recorded, the Biden campaign called and asked for two edits to the recording before it aired. Civic Media management immediately undertook an investigation and determined that the production team at the time viewed the edits as non-substantive and broadcast and published the interview with two short segments removed.

In the interest of transparency, and consistent with Civic Media’s mission and core values, we are sharing the edited segments now, and making the full, unedited interview available. Given the gravity of the current political moment, the stakes in this election, and the importance of public scrutiny of public officials in the highest office, we believe it is important to share this information.

The two edits were:

1. At time 5:20, the removal of “…and in addition to that, I have more Blacks in my administration than any other president, all other presidents combined, and in major positions, cabinet positions.”

2. At time 14:15, in reference to Donald Trump’s call for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, the removal of “I don’t know if they even call for their hanging or not, but he–but they said […] convicted of murder.”

The full, unedited interview is here:

With a high-profile interview comes a listener expectation that journalistic interview standards will be applied, even for non-news programming. We did not meet those expectations.

Civic Media disagrees with the team’s judgments in the moment, both with respect to the handling of the interview questions and the decision to edit the interview audio. We have taken this opportunity as a new media organization to clarify our internal policies to ensure that everyone in the organization understands the standards we expect for live and pre-recorded interviews, particularly for commentators and other non-news personnel. A policy defining Civic Media’s content and production standards for non-news programming that covers our opinion content, including The Earl Ingram Show, is in the process of being reviewed and finalized, based in part on our published Civic Media News Ethics and Standards that applies to hard news.

Civic Media unequivocally stands by Earl Ingram and his team. Earl is an invaluable voice for Milwaukee and Wisconsin, and remains a crucial member of the Civic Media organization. The decision to make the requested edits to the interview was made in good faith. While we disagree with the decision, we stand by our team. This has been a learning experience and we will do better moving forward.

Any inquiries can be directed to press@civicmedia.us.