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IS CBS NEWS ABDICATING ITS MURROW CRONKITE LEGACY IN WALZ VANCE DEBATE?

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It’s a cliché, but true. CBS News has been the legendary “gold standard” of journalism. It had some bumps along the way, but to say “CBS News” still conjured up images of stalwart role-model 20th century journalists such as Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. They were of the Greatest Generation and members of the Greatest Generation of journalists. News was then considered a network stewardship.

But that shifted moving into the 80s, 90s, and the 21st century. Now news is less a stewardship and more an entertainment component that generates big ratings and big bucks for networks and cable. Even so, overall, CBS News had the image of a class act.

Is that about to end?

CBS News is seemingly trying to play it down the middle as it’s caught in a political pincer.

The CNN hosted debate between Donald Trump and President Joe Biden sparked an uproar where MAGA world praised it and others considered it a disgrace since Trump told many lies and was not fact checked. In hosting the debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris ABC News did fact checking in response to the uproar over CNN. Many Republicans and MAGA world was outraged because Trump was fact checked more. Footnote: Trump told more inaccurate and fact-challenged assertions (i.e. lies) than Harris.

Some will say there wasn’t a ton of fact checking in past debates as there was on the ABC debate. There’s a reason: there’s never been a candidate in recent history who says as many inaccurate things or assertions at variance with the facts as Donald Trump. One day CNN fact checker Daniel Dale will have a nervous breakdown.

When I got my masters in Journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in 1973, professors hammered home the need to do your homework, be prepared, ask comprehensive questions and follow up questions. The art of the follow-up question – and persistent follow-up questions – has seemingly fallen by the wayside among many in today’s news biz.

Poynter:

But here’s the debate about the debate: Should the moderators fact-check the candidates?

CBS News said it will be up to the candidates — and not the moderators — to fact-check one another.

In the first presidential debate of this campaign cycle between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, CNN moderators did not fact-check the candidates. But during the debate between Trump and Kamala Harris, ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis fact-checked Trump on at least four occasions, including Trump’s claims that pets were being eaten in Springfield, Ohio, and false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

The way Muir and Davis handled it seemed perfect, even though Trump supporters cried foul. The moderators called out obviously false statements. While, yes, they are moderators, they also are journalists and have the responsibility to note when a candidate says something that clearly is not true.

They didn’t dwell on their fact-checking. They didn’t drag it out into long statements. They simply took what was said and corrected it and moved on.

Instead of leaving it up to the candidates to correct one another, it seems just as productive to correct blatant lies and then let the candidate respond to that if they wish. (It should be noted that CBS said its CBS News Confirmed will provide real-time fact-checking during the debate on its live blog and on social media, and then the post-debate analysis will include some of that fact-checking.)

In trying to play it down the middle in a political culture far different than even 9 years ago, has CBS News shot itself in the eye?

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