Should Presidential Debates be Fact Checked?
The 2016 Presidential debates were strikingly different than any in living memory. While it’s true that the final stages have never before held a woman or a reality-TV star, these became some of the least noteworthy diversions from the typical campaign trail this year. Donald Trump has less political experience than the average white house intern (The White House, 2015). Furthermore, his radically discriminatory positions and scandalous past have rallied an unprecedented portion of his own party’s officials against him. Hilary Clinton, though wildly popular among Democratic Party officials, has lost the support of many young liberals brokenhearted over her controversial defeat of Bernie Sanders. A long and dizzying campaign season wrought with scandal, dishonesty, fear mongering and corruption has left many Americans unsure whether to support Clinton or Trump – or increasingly whether they should reject the two party system altogether. Ideally, the purpose of presidential debates is to help them make that decision. They do this by demonstrating the candidates’ personalities, testing their knowledge, and examining their policies. Many argue that this should be done with minimal interference from the debate moderator. Others assert that the moderator’s duty as a journalist is to aid the American people in extracting the truth from the candidates’ rhetoric. A smaller subset believes that debates should focus on entertainment value, sacrificing meaningful discourse in the hopes of attracting more Americans to the political process. These diverse views have culminated in a debate over the practice of fact-checking. It is widely accepted that factual claims made during the debates should be checked, but there’s disagreement over whether or not this is the debate moderator’s responsibility. However, because presidential debates in the information age are responsible for not just entertaining but educating the American people, it is necessary that they be immediately fact-checked as publicly as possible, a task that would be most neutrally and efficiently carried out by debate moderators.
The Clinton-Trump debates strayed far from the thoughtful, poised – if at times dull – discourse that has defined the information era. In fact, they more closely resembled the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. Michael Schudson describes these historic debates in The Good Citizen saying, “They also made ad hominem attacks, raised conspiracy theories that had little basis in fact, and tried to maneuver their opponent into politically embarrassing admissions. Much of the debate time was occupied with Lincoln and Douglas ‘haranguing each other on purely divisionary points,’ and frequently the debates focused entirely on personal rather than politically substantive matters” (Schudson, 137). This passage resonates strongly with the sex scandals, private email conspiracies, baseless claims and disrespectful language (i.e. “nasty woman”) of the 2016 debates (Clinton & Trump, 2016). Trump’s candidacy further echoes Lincoln in that he very much represents “a profound disillusionment with leading political institutions of the day” (Schudson, 142). Schudson suggests that, despite only a minority of the audience being able to hear the candidates, the entertainment value of the Lincoln Douglas debates outdoes today’s comparatively bland political events in terms of engagement. However, the difference is that no one who attended the Lincoln Douglas debates was responsible for voting for them (Schudson, 136). Their debates were essentially the tailgate before a football game that none of the attendants had a stake in. And while the outcome of a football game won’t depend on how much beer the fans have consumed or whether or not they’ve studied the other team’s strategies, the coach would likely be condemned for doing a keg stand before making vital decisions that would impact the team. We are no longer the fans; we are the coaches. Therefore engagement must denote a responsibility more involved than simply showing up to be entertained.
Thus, while it’s true that the debates’ inherent drama helps draw citizens into the political process, they are also responsible for leaving them more capable of deciding between the candidates than they were when they tuned in. The debate moderator prepares thoughtful questions about the candidates’ policy positions, relevant personal histories and ideological beliefs precisely for this purpose. However, candidates rarely answer with unwavering honesty – demonstrably less so in the 2016 debates – and the average American citizen can’t be expected to have the information necessary to independently discern between truth and compelling lie. As Walter Lippmann put it, we can’t expect citizens to be omnicompetent (Lippmann, 172). Schudson concurred with Lippmann, advocating instead for a country of “Monitorial Citizens,” individually specialized in their fields, which together comprises an informed democracy. “Surely there is some line of willful ignorance that, once crossed, crosses out democracy itself.” He wrote, “We should have in view plausible aims that integrate citizenry competence with specialized expert resources” (Schudson, 310-311). In other words, we need people who do know enough to blow the whistle on the candidates. For candid and enlightening debates, we need fact-checkers.
The question then becomes, who should be the experts responsible for upholding honest discourse during the debates? Some suggest that in a ‘true debate’ the candidates would fact-check each other. Chris Wallace – despite historically supporting fact-checking by debate moderators – said of his role in the third debate, “I do not believe it is my job to be a truth squad. It’s up to the other person to catch them on that” (Wallace, 2016). Several veteran debate moderators have echoed this view as well. Bob Schieffer said in a recent interview, “The chief fact-checkers should be the candidates themselves. If candidate A says something, you should give candidate B the opportunity to correct them… people want to know if the other guy knows the answer” (Schieffer, 2016). However, as demonstrated repeatedly in the 2016 presidential debates, allowing the candidates to fact-check each other results in a stunningly literal form of he-said-she-said reporting rather than an enlightened discussion. For example, the following exchange took place during the first Clinton-Trump debate:
Clinton: Under the current mayor crime rate has continued to drop, including murders. So there is –
Trump: You’re wrong.
Clinton: No, I’m not.
Trump: Murders, murders are up. (Clinton & Trump, 26 Sept. 2016)
This is representative of several exchanges over the course of the three debates, and it is woefully ineffective at finding objective truth. Additionally, a 2011 study by Raymond Pingree suggests that he-said-she-said style coverage causes viewers to tune out altogether. The study concluded, “There are consequences to journalism that just reports what each side says with no fact-checking. It makes readers feel like they haven’t figured out what the truth is. And I would speculate that this attitude may lead people to tune out politics entirely, or to be more accepting of dishonesty by politicians” (Pingree, 2011). Thus, relying on two completely subjective parties to be the gatekeepers of objective fact is detrimental not only to viewers’ understanding of the debates, but to their engagement as well. Therefore, an impartial third party must check factual claims made during the debates.
A modern solution following this reasoning has come in the form of claim-by-claim analyses by independent sites like NPR and PolitiFact. These sites provide a crucial check on today’s debates, as they are completely neutral, relatively immediate and carried out by experts trained in finding objective truth. For these reasons, they are compelling candidates for the experts advocated for in Schudson’s Monitorial Citizen model (Schudson, 311). However, they require citizens to actively seek the answers to questions they may not know they should have. For example, Trump suggested in the first debate that America is experiencing the worst economic revival since the Great Depression and that raising interest rates at all would crash the stock market (Clinton & Trump, 26 Sept. 2016). Though both of these claims are blatantly incorrect, they went unquestioned by Clinton or debate moderator Lester Holt, as the focus quickly shifted to Trump’s infamous tax returns (NPR, 26 Sept. 2016). This economic diagnosis would likely scare many Americans, yet if they didn’t habitually fact-check the debates, viewers would have no reason to corroborate the claim because there was no on-air indication that it was untrue. Even Schudson’s idealistic Monitorial Citizen would be unlikely to take this extra step, as she “engages in environmental surveillance more than information-gathering” (Schudson, 311). If we accept this citizen as our expectation for the demands of democracy, then outside fact-checking sites are a necessary but not sufficient way to hold candidates accountable during presidential debates.
To hold the candidates truly accountably, the truth should be dispersed as quickly and widely as the lie. This would be accomplished most effectively if the debate moderator fact-checked the candidates in real time. Some worry that this would sacrifice the moderators’ neutrality (Brand, 2016). However, their jobs as journalists require them to impartially seek and report truth on a daily basis which, as CBS political reporter Sopan Deb points out, is the reason that seasoned reporters serve as debate moderators rather than other celebrities (Sopan, 2016). This rationale dates back to the first televised presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon, when the moderator was introduced to create “a moral division of labor in which the journalists would play tough minded heavies and willingly shoulder the dirty work” (Schudson, 235). Debate moderators provided the most effective fact-check on the candidates on several occasions this year. For example, Trump introduced his plan to reinstate Stop and Frisk – one of his only concrete policy ideas – during the first debate. In typical fashion, he bolstered his position with scare rhetoric and inaccurate – though vigorously repeated – statistics. Afterward, Holt made a point to subdue the rallying cry for a policy that is consistently condemned as discriminatory and ineffective saying, “I do want to follow up. Stop and Frisk was ruled unconstitutional in New York because it largely singled out Black and Hispanic young men” (Clinton & Trump, 26 Sept. 2016). To a fearful American, uneducated in current crime rates or the history of Stop and Frisk, Trump’s rhetoric could make it seem like a viable style of policing. It’s especially important that scare tactics like these be immediately debunked before the public has a chance to internalize them, which can only be done credibly by the debate moderator.
Even among those who support the moderator’s role as fact-checker, there is widespread debate about how best to execute this responsibility. False balance has become an especially strong concern this year. Trump lies demonstrably more than Clinton (PolitiFact, 2016). However, journalists are often pressured to symmetrically validate both sides of an argument, despite one side being objectively more valid. This could lead to moderators interrogating Clinton more harshly, or potentially to Trump supporters simply dismissing any corrections as hostile media bias (Vallone, Ross & Lepper, 1985). Additionally, it may be difficult to decide which statements are misleading enough to warrant an intervention. Janet Brown, Head of the Commission of Presidential Debates, voiced this concern saying, “What is a big fact? What is a little fact? I don’t think it’s a good idea to get the moderator into essentially serving as the Encyclopedia Britannica” (Riddell, 2016). There are inevitably times when this line would get hazy. For example, Trump suggested that Hillary attacked and laughed about a 12-year-old rape survivor saying, “Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously… one of the women… was raped at 12. Her client she represented, got him off, and she’s been seen laughing on two separate occasions, laughing at the girl who was raped” (Clinton & Trump, 9 Oct. 2016). In the situation he was referring to, Clinton was the court appointed lawyer for an accused rapist and was seen laughing with him about a likely unrelated topic (NPR, 2016). While little of Trump’s statement is quantifiably false, the picture it paints is distorted. The moderator didn’t intervene in this case, and it’s difficult to see how they could have without appearing overprotective of Clinton’s image. Perhaps in these cases, the moderator should follow up with clarifying questions rather than simply denying the claim. Angie Holan, a fact-checker for PolitiFact, suggests that the best thing a moderator can do is to know enough to detect misleading or evasive answers, and ask tough follow up questions to redirect them towards the truth. “I think moderators should fact-check the candidates, and they can fact-check them most effectively by asking them tough follow-up questions.” She says, “A prepared moderator should know as much – or even more – about the topics raised as the candidates themselves… the best moderators listen intently to the candidates’ answers to see if they’re answering the actual questions” (Holan, 2016). Chris Wallace attempted this in the third debate when trump repeatedly avoided taking a stance on Roe v. Wade. Wallace restated the question three times, which, although trump never conceded a firm preference, combatted his elusive rhetoric with admirable persistence (Clinton & Trump, 19 Oct. 2016). Holt employed this strategy as well when Trump sidestepped a question about Obama’s birth certificate. After about a minute of Trump’s trademark circumlocution, Holt interjected saying, “The birth certificate was produced in 2011, you continued to tell the story and question the president’s legitimacy in 2012, 13, 14, 15, as recently as January. So the question is, what changed your mind?” (Clinton & Trump, 26 Sept. 2016). Holt knew the history well enough to catch fallacies in Trump’s answer, and rephrased the question in a way that would make it harder to evade. Thus through asking tough follow up questions, moderators can ensure that the content of the debates is not only accurate, but meaningful and enlightening.
The 2016 debates have fundamentally shaken the presidential campaigning process. However, like Lincoln in 1858, Donald Trump’s (and previously Bernie Sanders’) success does not represent an impetuously radical shift, but rather the final combustion of steadily climbing tension within the two-party system. This has not been a campaign of candor, rationality, or thoughtful discourse. It has however been a year of reflection and improvised coping mechanisms. This campaign cycle has forced America to confront the racism and fear that bubble quietly at the bottom of the melting pot. It pushed Democrats and Republicans alike to analyze their party ties. Above all, it opened a window into the dystopian society where the line between fact and fiction can be bullied into nonexistence. While not everyone has taken the 2016 presidential race as decisive proof of the need for fact-checking, it opened up a much more serious discussion about its place in the debates. Some argued that the candidates should be responsible for fact-checking each other. However, this has been shown to lead to disengagement and confusion rather than enlightening debate. Independent fact-checking sites like PolitiFact provide an unbiased, expertly researched audit, but they require an extra step that many citizens are unlikely to take and are thus insufficient at dispensing the truth as widely as is necessary. Finally, there’s the debate moderator. The moderator can fact-check the candidates in such a way that they are corrected before their lies have a chance to penetrate the American conscious, that they are held immediately accountable for their words, and consequently that they would be discouraged from lying on so public a stage. In a recent interview, University of Wisconsin Professor Lucas Graves described the power that this type of fact-checking can have. “Debates are a rare opportunity to assemble a large and diverse audience that crosses party lines, watching the same thing at the same time.” He said, “Fact-checking is not just about spreading accurate information but about forcing politicians to account publicly for the things they say. That’s when fact-checking can really make a difference” (Graves, 2016). There is no question that the 2016 presidential debates will mark the history books for generations to come, and probably not as a golden age of any kind. But perhaps some good came from forcing us to reconsider the value of systems that never seemed so urgently necessary. Maybe this election cycle was rock bottom for American democracy. But if the debate over fact-checking and the merit of truth continues beyond November, this could be the first step in building a new democracy more candid, thoughtful, and accountable than ever before.
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