OPINION | CNN Did Voters A Grave Disservice by Refusing to Fact-check Debate
A face-off between candidates isn‘t useful if it’s only a tissue of lies
Lost amidst the early coverage of President Biden’s alarmingly halting effort in Thursday evening’s presidential debate is another performance at the face-off that is at least as disappointing and neglectful.
That is the decision by debate host CNN to decline to fact-check the candidates during the course of the 90-minute encounter.
That moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper wouldn’t fact-check Biden and Trump rendered the entire affair useless.
More: the pair callously abdicated both their roles and ethics as journalists.
CNN tried to claim that fact-checking wasn’t their job: “The role of the moderators is to present the candidates with questions that are important to American voters and to facilitate a debate, enabling candidates to make their case and challenge their opponent. It is up to the candidates to challenge one another in a debate.”
That statement, however, obfuscates a critical point: A debate benefits voters only when they know what’s being said is true or not true.
And that’s certainly the case for Donald Trump, who stood there and essentially lied for the entire 90 minutes.
Trump made more than 30 false claims during the debate — far more than Biden.
But because of CNN’s irresponsible and negligent decision, voters were not necessarily aware of that since the moderators let falsehood, after falsehood, pass unchallenged.
CNN also claims that, since its reporters fact-checked the candidates after the fact, that that ought suffice.
As one of the candidates himself might say, “Malarkey!”
Millions of Americans — particularly casual voters and so-called “low-information” voters — tuned in for the 90 minutes of debate and tuned right back out again.
The chances that they would see those post-debate fact-checks are remote — and that’s something Trump and his team were counting on.
Finally, there’s been a suggestion that it was the responsibility of the candidates to fact-check each other, in real time.
That’s equally irresponsible, as the candidates are self-interested, and the voters know this. So any fact-checking against a liar as unrepentant as Trump without independent corroboration would devolve into an exercise in finger-pointing and “He said, he said.”
It can’t be denied that President Biden turned in a horrible performance Thursday. But the same must be said for CNN and the debate moderators.
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