I doubt this will surprise anyone.
Via WaPo:
Though CNN touted its Tuesday session with Hillary Rodham Clinton as a “town hall exclusive,” a great number of American towns apparently didn’t tune in. The hour-long interview, which took place in the Knight Studio of the Newseum, just managed to edge out MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” in the 5 p.m. television ratings. That’s what happens when you traffic in a commodity interviewee: Clinton had already done sessions with ABC News, NBC News and Terry Gross’s “Fresh Air,” all as part of the promotional tour for her book “Hard Choices.”
Small viewing crowd notwithstanding, the Clinton camp couldn’t have been upset with the outcome. The quite-probable 2016 presidential candidate thrived in the town hall format, making nice little connections with the citizen-questioners and chatting with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour about the minutiae of diplomacy. The questions helped, too. Tim Graham of NewsBusters opines that five of the six questions from audience members came from a liberal perspective, while four of the five “neutral” questions were “softballs.”
Just who were these audience members? A spokeswoman for CNN provided this explanation: “[W]e did what is standard practice for televised town meetings like this. We reached out to universities and community groups to book a diverse cross section of people from around the Washington, DC area and around the country. We don’t ask individuals their political affiliation, but we do seek diversity in community groups.”
To add “energy” to its show (attended by the Erik Wemple Blog), CNN deployed an enthusiastic stage director who coached the audience to applaud at various points throughout the broadcast — not in a partisan manner for Clinton, but for the sake of the town hall’s television optics. Approximately 15 minutes before the show, the producer ran the audience through a practice round of applause and noise-making. The results of the audience-prodding turn up in the show’s video.