CNN's live 2020 Democratic presidential debate drawing turned democracy into the lottery

The New York Times

"It was a rare chance to see a network generate punditry and render it useless in real time," says James Poniewozik of the hourlong drawing hosted by Anderson Cooper. "The devices that CNN deployed Thursday night, in a prime time live drawing for the July 30 and 31 Democratic debates, turned a momentous and fraught election into a farcical combo of the N.B.A. draft and a Lotto drawing," said Poniewozik. "The drawing took place in three rounds, separated by generous commercial breaks, and were analyzed before, after and during by Anderson Cooper and a seven-person panel. Brianna Keilar, Victor Blackwell and Ana Cabrera got the job of shuffling clunky placards with candidate names and debate-night dates, as if they were running the world’s wonkiest three-card monte game. They drew cards. They read cards. They drew. They read. The production crammed 60 seconds’ worth of news into 60 minutes."