ABC News Censors Dennis Kucinich

On Aug. 19, a debate for the Democratic contenders for 2008 was hosted in Iowa by ABC news. At the same time, ABC put up a prominent poll on their website, asking the question, "Who is winning the debate?" When candidate Dennis Kucinich took the lead by a very large margin, ABC took down the poll, and then replaced it with another poll: "Who won the debate?"

After Dennis took the lead, again winning handily, ABC dropped the second survey from prominence on its website. Users posting comments in ABC's Politics page reported having their comments deleted, and demanded explanation of ABC's actions. ABC news has still neither posted an explanation nor officially reported the results of its survey.

In ABC's official story of the debates, however, Kucinich gets a whole spot all to himself: the last three paragraphs of the entire piece. Nowhere else is he mentioned.

On the "Politics Page" of ABC's website, the photo of all the candidates was missing Dennis Kucinich. He had been deliberately cropped out of the picture. The original, from an AP photographer, had all the candidates in it.

During the program, Dennis was not asked a question by host George Stephanopoulos until a third of the way through the debate. In the entire debate, Kucinich only accounted for 8.5% of the response times. However, in the crucial first half - crucial because the majority of viewers only watch the first half - he was only allowed 3.4% of the time - the least of all the candidates.