Donald Trump is winning his war on reality, and can thank America’s biggest news outlets for it. Ahead of tonight’s presidential debate, Trump’s campaign has taken umbrage at the idea that NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt might fact-check him, or venture to ask follow-up questions. “All that we’re asking is that, if Donald Trump lies, that it’s pointed out,” Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, modestly proposed on ABC’s This Week yesterday. “A lot of people,” Trump warned in response, “are watching to see whether or not [Holt] succumbs to that pressure.”
Even more bizarre than Trump’s bullying is that networks have caved in to it, rejecting calls for live, on-screen fact-checking (with the exception of Bloomberg TV). That task will now fall entirely to Holt, who’s already facing pushback on the idea that he should intervene in the all-too-likely event that Trump spews nonsense.
The Commission on Presidential Debates head, Janet Brown, told CNN that, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to get the moderator into essentially serving as the Encyclopedia Britannica,” adding that it’s the “candidates’ job to fact-check each other – not the moderator’s job to fact check them”.
Under normal circumstances, Brown’s argument might hold up: like Lincoln and Douglas did in 1858, two candidates could come together and – with some loose facilitation – hash out their visions for America’s future. But this is no normal election, and Trump is no normal candidate.
Any journalist with half any eye toward the future of their profession should have more than a few concerns about what Trump’s authoritarianism and aversion to basic accountability will have on their industry. Worth remembering here is that his campaign has seen a reporter forcibly grabbed, the Washington Post banned and sexist insults launched at women journalists who dare cross him. If Trump does become president, it isn’t too hard to imagine the White House press corps shrinking to Sean Hannity, Milo Yiannopolous and a handful of misogyny-fueled alt-right Redditors.
Still, Trump isn’t an aberration so much as an extension of the Republican party’s toxic last 50 years. Even if he loses in November, the racist myth-making that Trump has brought to the mainstream’s surface will linger on – and it will be the media’s job to call it for what it is.
As a young journalist who’s spent most of her career writing for small progressive outlets, the bar to do my job – fact-checking myself, and being subject to fact-checking from others – is currently higher than the one set for a man looking to lead the free world. The bar for a Trump success coming into this debate, in fact, might be the lowest of any set for a presidential candidate in history. According to MSNBC, his only tasks tonight are to “stop lying”, “show humility” and “fill in gaps in his policy proposals”.
Clinton’s job, conversely, is to out-compete an embodied YouTube comments section. There aren’t two candidates facing off tonight. There’s a presidential hopeful on one side of the stage, and an existential threat to democracy and the fourth estate on the other. If moderators choose not to intervene, it will be at their own risk.
