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 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.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    So they’re just going to let Vance fearmonger the country into a race war.

    Cool. Cool cool cool.

  • nieceandtows@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I think this is how it should be. Moderators fact checking inevitably leads to accusations of being biased to one party, since anything and everything can be fact checked. Unless you keep tally and do an exact number of fact checks for both sides, it’s futile to fact check. Let the opponent do that. They should have prepared for all the lies they know their opponents would peddle.

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Debates don’t have unlimited time. That would simply allow them to lie every time a person has the last say on a topic. Making the other person have to use their time to speak on the next topic about a previous topics bologna, making minimal time to actually reply and a constant distraction from answering the questions which were hopefully designed to allow voters to better understand the positions of the candidates.

      Tally’s don’t really work well either because lies aren’t always black and white. Say for instance someone says x number of people or $x were spent on something or were effected by something. If they say 400,000 but it was really 389,000… You would have to mark that as a lie equivalent to a lie saying John Snow wasn’t a character in game of thrones.

      • logicbomb@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        This is the real answer.

        CBS not fact checking gives the liar a strong advantage.

        The moderators not fact checking is fine for things like debate competitions because the judges are experts.

        But in a public debate, an opponent even responding to a lie legitimizes the lie. “Of course he’d say that.”

        When a candidate lies and the facts are readily available to the moderators, it is imperative for the public good that they fact check.

    • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      I’ll try and assume that you’re not just a Maga type who hates facts, for just a second.

      You can’t prepare for the lies that the opponent will peddle, because Vance uses the tactic where he just throws an avalanche of bullshit, with a tiny bit of truth in there. Its literally what he’s been doing so far. No normal human being will be able to fact check all that in real time and give any rebuttal, waltz would look like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about even though in reality Vance would just be lying his ass off.

      This is why you have moderators who do fact checking. If it seems to you that the fact checking is rather one sided, then you’re very close to underi the issue, you just need that one last extra step where you understand that trump & co are full of bullshit

    • MudMan@fedia.io
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      3 days ago

      This is a requirement of modern right-populist politics. They won’t play defense, so they just say crap and you’re always chasing the latest nonsense and never get to make a point.

      Of course the counter to this is for Walz to make this a non-stop couch-fucking roast from minute one. I’m talking opening statement is about upholstery, fabric texture, visualize choices for lubricant and material combos. Just go all in on the furniture abuse right away.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        <Walks walks onto stage and goes to shake Vance’s hand> “Hey, how was the tour of Ashely Furniture? Sorry I couldn’t join you… Did you find any attractive couches?”

  • ThatOneKrazyKaptain@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I will say this debate is inherently riskier than the last one simply because JD Vance is already at his floor. He’s the most unpopular VP or VP candidate in history. Worse than Sarah Palin, worse than Spiro Agnew, worse than Aaron Burr.
    He loses, nothing changes, he cannot go lower barring Mark Robinson tier revelations and even then I have doubts. He wins, Walz slips a point or two, Harris by extension maybe 1/4th of a point.

    Really anything that can stop the bleed for the Republicans is a win for them, October is critical. Harris rode a 6 week high after getting in at the end of July, spent the first two weeks undoing the pit Biden had dug, then got boosts from the VP pick and convention that lasted until early September. Trump finally had trends on his side and the debate utterly wrecked that. That’s finally fading again so they really are seeking a win, a screw up here could be too late to wait out and Vance getting some good press could bury stuff like the Uncle Robinson(no relation) disaster.

    The other problem is that he’s young, really young, Teddy young. JD Vance is young enough he can fake it for a little bit in a way Trump is just too old to do these days. He’s baitable, but not to the level of Trump or even Biden in this environment. Young Narcissists can put on a face for a while in a controlled space like this, 80s Trump did it all the time and I’d argue Vance might be sharper than him.

    I don’t think it’s a bad matchup, Walz is very wholesome and more experienced(and the reverse would be very unideal for the Democrats. Vance would be better at avoiding the massive tangents Harris baited Trump into, meanwhile Walz isn’t as high energy or effective on the pursuit against Trump as Harris is) , but he definitely ‘looks’ and ‘sounds’ older than he is, especially compared to Harris. So Walz is walking in with that already there.

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    vance cant fact check anyone being the admitted liar he is. just like his orange bff he cannot be trusted to be honest