ABC News' Lindsey Davis and David Muir moderated the presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on September 10. The debate, the second of the year, The collapse of the traditional Commission on Presidential Debates The debates were established in 1987. The commission had originally planned to hold a series of debates this fall, but neither party agreed to do so because of election campaigning.
This breakdown in process has resulted in the current setup of the media network debates currently hosted by CNN and ABC. Most analysts perceive Muir and Davis as providing partisan fact-checking to the Trump campaign, raising fundamental questions about how the upcoming debate between vice presidential candidates Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz (D) will be moderated by CBS News reporters Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan.
The CNN debate and the recent ABC debate have shown positive progress toward improving debate moderation. In 2020, Chris Wallace spent 25% of the debate presenting his case. Moderator Steve Scully Disciplinary action taken He was arrested before the debate for plotting to attack candidate Trump.
The idea of journalistic moderators “interfering” and “fact-checking” candidates originated from the work of Candy Crowley, who moderated the debate between Republican candidate Mitt Romney and President Obama in 2012. The first debate between Romney and Obama led to polls. Suggesting that Obama lost Rather conclusively, believing the results were tainted by a lack of “fact-checking” Crowley promised. She intended to fact-check the debate live, despite assurances from the moderators that such behaviour was not permitted.
A similar dynamic was seen between the June 27 debate and the September 10 debate hosted by ABC, where there was less fact-checking by CNN. President Biden was decisively defeated in that debate and withdrew from the election. Lindsey Davis said after the September 10 debate, I believe She argued that CNN hosts had failed to fact-check and that her own fact-checking had been a good thing: she and Muir fact-checked Trump five times but never Harris, despite the fact that Harris has made many provocative statements that deserved fact-checking.
For example, Harris said, “Donald Trump has left us with the worst attack on democracy since the Civil War,” on the eve of the September 11th anniversary. attackThis is perhaps the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.
“And as of today, there are not a single U.S. military member serving on active duty in a combat zone in any war zone anywhere in the world. This is the first time in this century,” she said. Thousands of active-duty U.S. military personnel They had served in combat zones in Syria and Iraq, and some had come under fire just a month before the debate.
This shows that live fact-checking is at odds with the original purpose of political debates, where candidates make inherently controversial claims that cannot be easily verified, such as the “best economy” or the “worst war.”
In a real debate, there are always fact-checkers: the opposing debaters and the voters themselves. Biden and Trump had equal opportunities to fact-check each other. For journalistic moderators to reject their ethical responsibility to be impartial is a departure from the nonpartisan role of journalism.
Furthermore, when television debates for the presidential election began in 1960, meeting The president amended the election campaign laws to allow a debate between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy. The main legal obstacle was the stereotype that broadcasters should not abuse their power to unfairly influence presidential elections. Muir and Davis' actions go against the general ethics of academic debates, which are practiced by high school and college students around the world. No debater expects a judge or timekeeper to interrupt the debate and declare certain statements to be misleading or false.
All of these issues raise legitimate ethical concerns: Television broadcasters and their employees should not inappropriately interfere in political campaigns, a concern that has existed since the beginning of television debates.
Like CNN, CBS is now facing a dilemma over how to run the vice presidential debate on October 1. Ideally, the moderator would say very little and the candidates would have more time for opening statements outlining the specific policies that most voters want to hear about.
CBS journalists conduct live fact checks An already dire outlook Public opinion of journalists covering American politics. Survey of journalists There is an increasing desire to openly identify with the Democratic Party (from 28 percent in 2013 to 36 percent in 2022), while there is a decreasing desire to identify with the Republican Party (from 7.1 percent in 2013 to 3.4 percent in 2022).
It is clear that people want fairer political debate in America. High viewership It demonstrates a public willingness to engage in fair debate. Journalists need to adhere to the important ethical role of acting as a free press, not an ideologically-driven one.
Failure to meet that ethical requirement is not only problematic in terms of providing adequate information to voters; Violation of Law Our election laws were enacted to protect the public from abuse of broadcasting rights. Currently, the election law states that all political debates “must involve at least two candidates and must be structured so as not to favour or give an advantage to one candidate over the other.”
ABC's conduct during the September 10 debate arguably did not meet this legal standard. CBS has a legal, ethical and civic obligation to question the conduct of its moderators during the October 1 vice presidential debate.
Dr. Ben Vos is Professor of Rhetoric and Director of Debate at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He is the author of six scholarly books on rhetoric and argument, including James Farmer Jr.: The Great Debater (Lexington, 2017) and Debate as a Global Education: The Rise of Rwanda (Lexington, 2021), which detail how public debate can bring about positive change in public policy.
