Vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz are set to debate this Tuesday. Ahead of the Oct. 1 event, the broadcaster announced that moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan will not fact-check either candidate — Walz and Vance will be responsible for fact-checking one another. The moderators are expected to provide opportunities for the candidates to fact-check each other, including in rebuttals, instead of fact-checking them in real-time themselves.
The news prompted political scientist Norman Ornstein to lament that though CBS was once “the gold standard for television news,” both “those days and their standards are long gone.”
Ornstein isn’t the only voice objecting to CBS’ announcement, with the condemnation of their choice widespread on social media after CNN previously declined to fact-check candidates during the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump earlier this year, followed by ABC opting to include brief fact-checks from moderators in the presidential debate between Trump and Kamala Harris.
According to CBS News’ editorial standards, the moderators are there to facilitate the conversation/debate between the candidates, as well as enforce the debate’s rules. However, they leave the responsibility to the candidates when it comes to fact-checking as part of the broadcast. CBS does plan to offer its own form of live fact-checking — but it will be online, rather than directly from the moderators, via its CBS News Confirmed Unit journalists in an online blog.
New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen chimed in of moderators fact-checking candidates during a debate, “ABC showed it could be done.”
As Biden ad writer and columnist Cliff Schecter put it, “CBS announced they’re not a news org, don’t think they need to *give viewers truth or protect democracy.* My cats could moderate, same result as CBS ‘news.’ D campaigns, please take note. No future CNN/CBS debates. If there’s not truth, it’s not a debate, it’s mud wrestling. Speaking of mud, JD Vance has shown he’ll make s–t up anytime, anywhere. Then admit he lied, like Springfield. Good to know CBS is all NOT over that.”
Author Gary Shteyngart offered one version of how the debate might go without any fact-checking. “Vance: Haitians eat cats. Walz: Let me spend all my allotted time proving that’s untrue.”
Author Denver Riggleman said, “Ironic that @CBSNews airs this segment on ‘safeguarding the truth’ and won’t fact check the Walz-Vance debate — guess real journalism and upholding the integrity of the 4th estate is subordinate to ratings at CBS. F the truth, right?”
Perhaps the New Yorker’s Philip Gourevitch summed up the critics’ sentiment best when he tweeted, “CBS announces it no longer is in journalism business.”
