New emails show that Arizona State University (ASU) President Michael Crow pressured Arizona PBS to offer gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs an interview after Hobbs refused to debate Republican Kari Lake — even though it went against the rules of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, which hosts political debates.
One of Crow’s aides, former publisher of The Arizona Republic Mi-Ai Parrish, told the debate sponsor that it was wrong to give an “election denier” a platform for the debate. Crow has a long history of pushing a progressive agenda at ASU. The scandal has become known as DebateGate.
In reaction to the news, Lake said Crow and ASU “infringed” on her First Amendment rights while also committing “blatant election interference.”
“The 2022 election in Arizona was compromised in so many ways. This is just another piece of the puzzle,” Lake said.
The Republic requested emails between Crow and PBS, which revealed that their discussions “appeared to favor one candidate over another” — Hobbs over Lake. They did not want Lake to participate in a debate. PBS’ change in policy violated the Clean Elections rules for political debates, which state that candidates receive one-on-one interviews if their opponents do not agree to debate. ASU failed to turn over the requested emails to The Republic for 690 days — barely before the next election in 2024, when Lake was a Senate candidate.
The Republic found that journalists at PBS and Clean Elections were excluded from the discussion. The news site reported that experts said the maneuvering “called into question Arizona PBS’ independence as a news organization and its autonomy from university influence.”
Hobbs wanted a separate interview instead of the debate format offered by Clean Elections. Clean Elections rejected the alternate format and, per its procedures, stated that it would be providing Lake a separate interview since Hobbs rejected the debate. PBS then announced it would be giving Hobbs a separate interview, sparking a response from Lake stating that she would have nothing to do with PBS and would conduct her Clean Elections interview on another outlet. For two decades, Clean Elections has partnered with PBS to hold candidate debates.
PBS went ahead with the interview of Hobbs, and Lake did her Clean Elections interview on Channel 7 instead, which has a smaller viewership.
The emails revealed that Crow said to Parrish, “We need … people who believe in elections as participants.”
Tom Collins, executive director of the commission, said that Parrish, who previously served as managing director for ASU’s Media Enterprise during the 2022 election cycle, told his staff that putting “a person on television with those views was wrong.” However, PBS had previously hosted debates with Lake as well as Mark Finchem, who also has come out strongly against election wrongdoing.
Collins was highly critical of Parrish’s contentions, calling it a “shock” since Parrish represents a media organization and a public entity. “Viewpoint-based distinctions between speakers are not something that public entities should be lightly contemplating,” he said.
Parrish did not attempt to appear neutral publicly. She attacked Lake on X and reposted “VOTE for KATIE HOBBS for Governor.” Another post declared that Lake was “unfit” to be governor.
The former publisher ran a consulting business while she led ASU-affiliated media organizations. Arizona Agenda, which noted that Crow is considered “the most powerful person in Arizona,” listed off some of Parrish’s clients on her website. The site said, “It’s plastered with logos of Arizona’s most powerful, and political, companies.”
While this was taking place, Crow gave Parrish a position as interim general manager of PBS, essentially making it an arm of ASU under Crow. Arizona Agenda said it submitted a public records request to ASU in June for records but has yet to receive any.
The Public Broadcasting Act governs PBS. The act emphasizes objectivity and balance in programming, particularly for controversial issues, stating that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR, must facilitate public telecommunications with “strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature.”
The decision by ASU and PBS appears to directly contradict a Supreme Court ruling. The nation’s highest court held in Arkansas Educational Television Commission v. Forbes that public broadcasters can exclude candidates from debates if the criteria are reasonable, viewpoint-neutral, and not based on the candidate’s political opinions.
The court held that a public broadcaster’s exclusion of a candidate from a debate was permissible if based on objective criteria (e.g., lack of significant public support) and not on the candidate’s political views.
The court stated, “Access to a nonpublic forum can be restricted if the restrictions are reasonable and are not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker’s views.”
Federal Communications Commission rules apply to PBS (they also apply to commercial broadcasters), but probably would not address this situation since the Equal Time Rule doesn’t apply to “bona fide news events,” which this would likely fall under.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on X/Twitter. Email tips to .
Photo “Katie Hobbs” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
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