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.
Yes, I agree. What is wrong with the quality of trolls? Their posts are so low-effort, and also reveal so much about their fragile mental state. On the plus side, it makes it easier to diagnose, block, and move on.
I’d prefer to not use the internet if people like Henry@lemmy.ca were the only posters left.
A lot of the trolls recently also have very weird histories. The accounts are often over a year old yet have no post or comment history. They just woke up within a few days ago to start trolling.
Henry here has a 3 year old account with zero activity until just 4 days ago, and every comment has been trolling.