Did CNN really cut off Benjamin Watson for saying Jesus is Lord?

Hard to believe, but your eyes don't lie to you. Benjamin Watson of the New Orleans Saints has a take on the Ferguson situation that is certainly outside the norm established by the mainstream media and its favored narrative. Watson's take involves an honest look at sin and rebellion against God, and when it garnered more than a three quarters of a million likes on Facebook, CNN apparently thought Watson's view was worth exploring in a live on-air interview. So since they certainly should have known what they were getting into, it seems hard to believe they suddenly freaked and cut Watson off when he declared during the interview with host Brooke Baldwin that Jesus is Lord. But that's certainly what appears to happen here:

A further look at the dialogue leading up to the cutoff appears to give credence to the zapped-for-Jesus theory (transcript courtesy of PJ Media):

"It's not the skin, the issue is sin," Watson said. "And I firmly believe that the issue is that internally, we are flawed. Internally, we need salvation from our sin. Internally, our sin makes us prideful. It makes us judgemental. It makes us prejudiced, which leads to racism. It makes us lash out at people that don't look like us. It makes us look past evidence to protect people that look like us. It makes us do all those things. It makes us lash out in anger. It makes us point fingers." "Alright..." Baldwin tried to interrupt. Watson continued: "Our sin that's in us makes us do those things and the only salvation for this sin is the gospel. The only way to really cure what's on the inside is understanding that Jesus Christ died for our sins. And so for me, on a micro-level, it's under -- " "Got it -- " Baldwin again interrupted. But this time Watson's side of the split-screen was replaced by a green screen with wavy lines. "Whup...just like that, we lost him," Baldwin said pointing to her earpiece.

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Here's how this comes across: Watson goes on a preaching rant and Baldwin is trying to reel him in and get back to the issues she wants to talk about, but Watson just keeps going on with the preaching, making Baldwin and her producers feel like the interview is getting out of control. Finally, Watson crosses the line and goes full-on evangelist with the Jesus-died-for-our-sins statement, at which point the producers decide to just cut him off and pretend it was a technical glitch. It's possible they were telling Baldwin in her earpiece that if Watson didn't knock it off they would do that, which might explain why she didn't look all that surprised. Or, it could have been a real technical glitch. Having conducted many interviews, and having been interviewed many times myself, I can tell you an experienced interviewer (which Baldwin is) knows the techniques necessary to reel in an interview subject who decides to go off on a tangent. And she does seem to be trying to do that, but not very aggressively. I have no idea if Baldwin is a Christian, but even if she is, she surely knows that CNN isn't interested in an interview that explores faith in Jesus Christ as an answer to street violence. They're going to figure that kind of talk belongs in church. I strongly disagree, of course. There is no reason spiritual matters should not be part of the mainstream narrative on issues affecting the general public, but the people who run major media outlets don't see it that way. I haven't seen any statement from CNN on the matter of whether they really did cut Watson off, nor trying to explain what the technical glitch might have supposedly been. Honestly, I'm not sure. If you really want a ranting interview subject to put a sock in it, the right approach is to politely but firmly inform him that you've run out of time and thank him for appearing. Brooke Baldwin certainly knows how to do that, and there's no reason she couldn't have if she really felt the interview was getting away from her. On the other hand, you see what you see. If all you're going on is your distrust of the mainstream media, you're probably sure CNN cut Watson off because of what he said about Jesus. If you've got some experience in media and you know how these things work, as I do . . . boy, I don't know. But I sure know how it looks.