Dear CNN, giving Trump a town-hall platform is the height of irresponsibility | Siva Vaidhyanathan

No more town halls, interviews or rallies. Coverage should be driven by clear editorial choices that serve US democracy

With 18 months to go before the next US presidential election, it's already clear that - barring a physical collapse or two - Joe Biden will represent the Democrats and Donald Trump will carry the hopes of Republicans.

This will be the first presidential election after one of the candidates, the president at the time, tried to foment a violent insurrection to overturn the last election. It will be the first election since 1912 in which a former president (in that case Theodore Roosevelt) challenges a sitting president (in that case William Howard Taft). It will be the first election in American history in which one candidate has already been impeached - twice, in fact. It will be the first election since 1800 in which one of the major candidates can reasonably be called a threat to or disloyal to the United States of America (Aaron Burr in 1800 was the first). And Burr had not yet revealed his propensity for treachery in 1800. It will be the first election in which one of the candidates has been indicted on state criminal charges (and possibly federal charges by the time of the election).