NoCoPilot
Posts : 20276
Join date : 2013-01-16
Age : 69
Location : Seattle
 | | Subject: Hell Yeah Fri Sep 09, 2016 5:35 pm | |
| - Move On wrote:
- Dear MoveOn member,
During this week’s Commander in Chief Forum hosted by NBC News—the first joint forum for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump—moderator and "The Today Show" host Matt Lauer failed to do his job as a journalist. He let Donald Trump’s lies—including his comment that he never supported the Iraq War—go unquestioned, while continuing to ask the Republican candidate soft, open-ended questions.1
Will you join me in asking NBC News Anchor Lester Holt, moderator of the first presidential debate, and presidential debate hosts Martha Raddatz (ABC News), Anderson Cooper (CNN), and Chris Wallace (Fox News) to do their jobs and fact check at the presidential debates?
Presidential forum and debate moderators have an obligation to hold candidates accountable and correct misinformation. We encourage Lester Holt and every other presidential debate moderator to avoid repeating Matt Lauer's mistakes and to instead ask serious, substantial questions and hold candidates accountable with real-time fact checking of misleading and factually inaccurate statements.
Sign the petition
As the The New York Times editorial board warned today, there is "a debate disaster waiting to happen" unless the moderators do better then Lauer, who "largely neglected to ask penetrating questions, call out falsehoods or insist on answers when it was obvious that Mr. Trump's responses had drifted off."2
During the forum on military issues and foreign policy, NBC's Matt Lauer:
Failed to hold Donald Trump accountable by allowing him to repeat his lie that he always opposed the Iraq War. (NBC News later fact checked the comment after the forum and deemed it false.)3
Failed to ask Donald Trump any serious questions about some of the candidate's most troubling foreign policy comments and track record—neglecting to address Trump's attack on Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan, his attack on Senator John McCain's prisoner-of-war status, and Trump's multiple deferments from the Vietnam War.4
Spent one-third of Secretary Clinton's time pressing her on her use of a private email server—and then asked her to be "brief" responding to questions on ISIS posed by a veteran in the audience.5
Ask NBC News' Lester Holt—and other presidential debate hosts Martha Raddatz (ABC News), Anderson Cooper (CNN), and Chris Wallace (Fox News)—to commit to asking serious, substantial questions of all candidates and to hold candidates accountable for misinformation by calling out distortions and lies in real time.
Leading journalists agreed that Lauer and NBC failed to give Americans a well-moderated forum by failing to fact check basic falsehoods, mainly Trump's Iraq War assertion:
"Trump was NOT against the war in Iraq. Honestly, #MattLauer, you could have Googled that. #NBCNewsForum" – Boston Globe's Renee Graham6
"This #NBCNewsForum feels like an embarrassment to journalism." – New York Times' Nicholas Kristof7
"OK great @MLauer call, quoting a Trump tweet about how rape is the natural consequence of having women in the military. No followup" – The Nation's Joan Walsh8
"'I was totally against the war in Iraq,' Trump says, saying something that is not true. Matt Lauer offers no follow up." – BuzzFeed Politics' Andrew Kaczynski9
Americans rely on moderators of presidential forums and debates to hold candidates accountable and correct blatant lies like Trump's Iraq War statement. Yet already, one of the four debate moderators, Fox News' Chris Wallace, said it's "not my job to be a truth squad" and correct any "falsehoods or unfounded accusations," on which Trump's campaign has been built.10
It's time for debate moderators to do their jobs. Click here to add your name my this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.
Thanks!
—Brian Stewart, Media Relations Director
MoveOn.org Political Action
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