Moderators must moderate; it is imperative

“CBS News says it’s up to Vance and Walz to cross-examine each other in a full debate.”

AP, 09/27/24

I have two reactions to the news that CBS decided not to fact-check JD Vance and Tim Walz during Tuesday night's vice presidential debate:

First: If this is true, this is an act of cowardice and (again) a degradation of journalism.

Secondly, I don't believe it. (Or maybe I don't want to believe it.)

I have written before about debates and what I now call “The Moderator Imperative.” The fact that we're still, um, debating this is a testament to how intimidated some members of the media are by Donald Trump and his supporters' constant harassment of the mainstream media and their failure to understand our duty to point out differences of degree.

Journalists moderating a debate should not simply ask questions and then be demoted to timekeepers. This seems like an obvious point, but this task could be done by a primitive computer, let alone an AI-driven one. (I have often argued against certain time limits – for example, 1-minute answers and 30-second rebuttals – because moderators should have the power to lead the debate and cut off participants if they stray far from the question they are asking asked to reinforce topics of conversation.)

Moderators – and I've been there dozens of times – should try to get out of the way and let a conversation take place. But politicians are politicians, they will distort, they will distort, they will lie. To suggest that journalists should simply be silenced in this case shows how far we have come from the days of Cronkite, Murrow, Huntley and Brinkley.

Our job is to ensure that these events are as informative as possible about the candidates, whether they reveal a lack of political knowledge, a lack of consistency or a lack of character. When we demand that they check each other's facts, they are likely to make matters worse by… twisting, twisting, and, yes, lying.

This is why preparation by moderators is essential – they need to know both the topic of their questions and the person they are asking. This way they can challenge anything that is out of the ordinary and show the audience what is fact and fiction.

Many believe that Donald Trump should not change this calculus – that the job is the job. This is undoubtedly true and undoubtedly false. Let me explain:

Our job as fact-checkers should not change because of Trump's serial mendacity. The moderator imperative remains. But because Trump creates a virtual reality and then believes (or appears to believe) that it is reality, and because he lies at a speed and volume that has not yet been recorded, we must adapt.

We have to adapt. We can't just pretend he's the same.

There is a palpable difference between a politician who tries to escape his commitment or explain flip-flops and a fabulist who lies as if most of us were breathless. So when I see ABC presidential debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis criticized for vetting Trump more than Harris, I sympathize. As I said, I think they missed some opportunities to stop Harris and get her to answer certain questions. But in the heat of a live debate, it's difficult to keep track of all of Trump's falsehoods, and his lies are always far more obvious or more insidious, whether they're about election denial or illegal immigrants.

If we treat these things as if Harris is not taking a stand on certain issues for campaign reasons or changing his previous positions, then we are conflating typical political behavior with dangerous and demonstrable insanity. We shouldn't.

And frankly, I don't think CBS anchors Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan will sit idly by while Vance and Walz debate. The vice presidential candidates are not the same as Trump and Harris, but there are some similarities, especially because Vance has all but admitted that he is making up stories (cats and dogs being eaten by Haitians in Springfield) to help Trump.

It's disheartening to see Republicans who consider themselves patriots trying to defend any of this. Some Republicans of the Hugh Hewitt/Lindsey Graham ilk know what Trump is, but have taken a knee because they are more interested in their own careers than the country, more consumed by their hatred of the left and Harris' emptiness are convinced that they justify ignoring or downplaying Trump's abhorrent behavior.

So be it. Let them eat their own words.

The job of journalism is not to be intimidated by criticism or this challenge; It's about facing the situation and blocking out the noise. If we don't do that, if we allow Trump and his minions to change what we know we need to do, history will not be kind.

Jon Ralston is CEO/Publisher of The Indy.