Parkland shooting survivor claims CNN tried to censor his town hall question

(Image credit: Screenshot/Youtube/Douglas Stewart)

published 22 February 2018

A teenaged survivor of last week's school shooting sat out CNN's gun control town hall Wednesday night, claiming the network tried to feed him lines.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School junior Colton Haab told Miami's ABC affiliate WPLG-TV that he did not go to the event — which was specifically centered around the attack at his Parkland, Florida, school — because CNN tried to control what he would say. "CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions, and it ended up being all scripted," Haab said.

Haab said his rejected question focused on the possibility of hiring veterans as armed security guards at high schools, an idea that President Trump supports. But CNN pushed back on Haab's claim of censorship, saying that Haab and his father elected beforehand not to participate in the town hall and told the network as much. A spokesperson for CNN also told The Hill: "CNN did not provide or script questions for anyone in last night's town hall, nor have we ever."

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Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.