Truth in politics? NBC host Matt Lauer savaged for lack of fact-checking during Donald Trump interview, triggering debate about role of moderators
Republican candidate insisted he opposed the war in Iraq from its beginning, despite evidence of him supporting the war in a 2002
Traffic cop or truth detector? The rough reception given Matt Lauer for his back-to-back interviews with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump laid bare a disagreement over whether journalists who moderate presidential debates should call candidates out for telling lies.
Online critics hit Lauer for spending too much time on Clinton’s email server and trying to cut her answers short during Wednesday’s NBC forum on national security issues. The bulk of the attacks, however, centred on Lauer’s failure to challenge Trump on the Republican’s assertion that he opposed the war in Iraq from its beginning, despite evidence of him supporting the war in a 2002 interview.
I don’t think fact-checking is the function of the moderator ... If the moderator fact-checked all the time, you’d never get through it
“Everyone, and I mean everyone, knew this would happen,” tweeted Paul Krugman, columnist for The New York Times. “And Matt Lauer didn’t have a follow-up planned?”
The NBC Today show host wasn’t talking on Thursday, laying low on a day the hashtag “Lauering the Bar” trended on Twitter. He made one knowing reference while interviewing Dana Carvey on Today. The comic, impersonating Russian leader Vladimir Putin, commended Lauer for his work at the forum. “You have a fan,” he said.
“One,” replied Lauer, holding up his index finger.
The response illustrated the pressure moderators will face during the three upcoming presidential debates, starting with Lauer’s NBC colleague Lester Holt on September 26. Even before Wednesday’s forum, which was watched by 14.7 million people, the role of moderators as fact-checkers was being talked about after Fox News’ Chris Wallace, who will be in charge of the third presidential debate on October 19, said in an interview that: “I don’t believe my job is to be a truth squad.” Others consider that a dereliction of duty.
“By not adjudicating, the moderator leaves the viewing public with a ‘he said, she said’ situation when the journalist picked to be onstage could say, decisively, who is right,” wrote Michael Calderone of The Huffington Post.