One-sided fact checks raise questions over neutrality in presidential debate.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump’s presidential debate continues to generate attention as some media critics allege bias against the Republican candidate by ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis.
The duo undertook the first live fact-checking of presidential candidates by debate hosts.
Previously, that function had been left to journalists behind the scenes, who published their findings separately from the debate itself.
Much of the criticism has been leveled at the moderators.
“They weren’t necessarily in control of what was going on, and they only fact-checked one of the two candidates,” Andrew Selepak, a professor of journalism at the University of Florida, told The Epoch Times.
“A good moderator asks serious questions on serious topics and doesn’t ‘fact check in real-time,’” Tim Graham of the conservative Media Research Center told The Epoch Times.
“They were excellent. Kept the debate moving on track,” Robert Shapiro, a political science professor from Columbia University, told The Epoch Times.
“Asking good questions that most Americans want answered, pushing the candidates to try to actually answer them but then move on, control the candidates to follow the rules and keep within the time limits,” are what make for good moderation, Steven Fein, a professor at Williams College, whose specialties include media and presidential debates, told The Epoch Times.
The controversy over this debate may point to the larger problem of effectively holding presidential candidates accountable for their remarks in real time, essentially correcting sound bytes with sound bytes on live TV.
Fact-Checking
Moderators challenged four of Trump’s responses and none of Harris’s, which prompted the claim of bias.
When speaking of abortion, Trump referred to a former state governor saying: “He said the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby. In other words, we’ll execute the baby.”
He was referring to former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s 2019 comment on a proposed law concerning late-term abortion in cases of severe deformity or a non-viable fetus.
In a radio interview, Northam said: “The infant would be delivered; the infant would be kept comfortable; the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desire, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
ABC moderator Davis said, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”
By Lawrence Wilson, Jacob Burg and Jackson Richman
