It was correct. It was also factual, not “opinion-based”. And yes, it’s proper for a journalist to act like one.
Fact vs. lie is not a mere difference of opinion. Lies do need to be called out as soon as they appear.
The Honest Journalist Gambit can be effectively negated by the Gish Gallop Strategy. If Lauer had stopped him every time he lied, they’d still be talking. And it was supposed to be about veterans asking questions. I can see a rationale.
Veteran’s issues, presumably. To which Hillary’s e-mails are only abstractly related. So that part was fucked up.
As I said, her position was arguably correct. So were Obama’s positions on a lot of things Romney disagreed about, where you probably also think Obama’s position was ‘the fact’ (and others think Romney’s was). But her position was not a simple indisputable fact, it was a matter of parsing words in Obama’s initial announcement about the Benghazi attack. The WAPO did a good piece on it at the time.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/post/did-crowley-fairly-fact-check-romney-a-textual-analysis/2012/10/17/ee968ada-180f-11e2-a55c-39408fbe6a4b_blog.html?utm_term=.e719a61fe505
But rather than go around and around about whether your opinion is a ‘fact’, let’s stick with a simple actual fact. Obama was present to contest that and any other claim Romney made, as was Romney to contest any made by Obama. The moderators in debates should simply let the candidates do that, and not weigh in on who they think is right, IMO.
Again in an interview it’s a different story.
Jim Lehrer’s advice to the 2016 debate moderators:
I get that that the moderator usually shouldn’t waste time fact-checking every word that comes out of each candidates mouth. Still, I worry that this approach will backfire horribly in the Clinton/Trump debates. Trump may speak at a fourth grade level, but he can also turn out twenty lies per minute. If she’s not careful, Hillary could get snowed under trying to refute them all. With Trump being Trump, she could have primary sources for everything and he’d still insist he was right.
The moderators are going to be walking a tightrope, trying to avoid being compared unfavorably to Matt Lauer, while also trying not to overstep their bounds. Trump will say that it was unfair regardless, but that’s no surprise. He’s already whining about Matt Lauer’s softballs. I’m just worried that the “don’t fact check live” philosophy will favor Trump by letting him get away with blatant lies.
I count two moderators (one of them in the VP’s) and one candidate who are women, am I miscounting?
Keeping in mind that Candy Crowley later said that Romney was “right in the main” but chose the wrong word. (Cite, not that it will do any good.) And the co-chair of the debate committee said that choosing her was a mistake. (Likewise.)
It probably won’t happen again unless Hillary blows it during the first debate. The press does not perceive the same need to jump in and assist her when she gets into trouble the way they did with Obama.
But in the main, you are correct - a moderator is supposed to let the candidates debate on their own behalf, not jump in to assist one side or the other, especially when the moderator is wrong.
Regards,
Shodan
Romney was “right in the main” that the administration publicly leaned towards the tape being the cause (for a time), but wrong that this means the administration refused to call it terrorism – there’s no reason that the tape couldn’t have inspired a terrorist response (though with later information the terrorist act doesn’t seem to have been inspired by the tape, at least not alone), and the administration did not refuse to call it terrorism.
Too bad Obama wasn’t capable of making that point on his own without assistance.
Regards,
Shodan
Right, I forget that he would have lost the election (or failed to make this point which he had already made) if Crowley hadn’t backed him up. :rolleyes:
He probably would have lost the second debate like he did the first one. But the MSM recognized that their expectations of him being able to debate on his own were too high, so jumped in to assist and reassure him, and things went better from then on.
Like I say, it probably won’t happen in the Clinton-Trump debates, although if Trump’s poll numbers go up after the first debate, that might change.
Regards,
Shodan
He won the debate on “please proceed, governor”, and Romney’s “binders full of women” – the Crowley fact-check was just icing on the cake. He’s actually a pretty smart and sharp guy, and was just really off his game for the first one.