Dan Savage Corrects Me On His CNN Appearance: They Knew What Was Coming

Dan Savage called me this afternoon (shortly after this post went up) to let me know that I'd totally misread the reaction of the CNN host to his calling out of the network for giving airtime to anti-gay bigots. It turns out, CNN knew exactly what he was going to say. Dan writes tonight on Slog:

Did I ambush CNN? Did they abruptly end the interview when I slammed them? No and no. Typically before one goes on CNN or MSNBC—one doesn't go on Fox News, if one has any sense—one does a a pre-interview with a producer. They run you through the topic, ask you some questions, make sure you have something of interest to say. Sometimes pre-interviews are done over the phone, sometimes they're done via email. This one was done via email. Here's what I sent CNN's producer last night in response to the question, "What will it take to lower hate crimes against the gay community and debunk the ludicrous myths?"

One way we can debunk the myths is by marginalizing the liars and frauds who propagate them, men like George Rekers, who argued that being gay was sick and sinful and claimed he could teach people how to raise their children in such a way so as to prevent them from being gay. And it turns out he was gay himself. Rekers worked hand-in-glove with Tony Perkins, a frequent guest here on CNN. There would be fewer myths to debunk if there were fewer venues for spreading them. This network should not allow itself to be used as a platform for spreading hate.

The question about what could be done to lower the rate of anti-gay hate crimes was the planned final question in the segment, CNN knew I was going to slam 'em when they asked it, and they had me on anyway. Which is to CNN's credit.

And THAT is one correction I'm very happy to make.