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http://www.fair.org/press-releases/debate-fact-checking.htmlMEDIA ADVISORY:
Post-Debate Fact-Checking Is Media's Main Job
September 29, 2004
Who "wins" the presidential debate on Thursday may well depend on how well
media do their job on Friday.
In past debates, post-debate commentary has frequently focused on the
candidates' style, body language and other cosmetic issues. The L.A. Times
(9/29/04) suggested that these seemingly unimportant details can swing a
campaign: "Who could have predicted that in 1992 the camera would catch an
apparently unengaged President George H.W. Bush checking his watch during
a debate with Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton? (Bush lost the election.) That
in 2000, Gore would be remembered for inappropriately grimacing and
sighing during his first debate with Bush? (Gore lost.)"
Of course, if one were told that the media would play tape of these
moments over and over again, than it would be relatively easy to predict
that these would be the moments that voters remember. Something that isn't
widely remembered is the fact that initial post-debate polls showed Gore
winning that debate in the minds of voters (Daily Howler, 9/28/04); it was
only after media commentary focused obsessively on Gore's reaction shots
that the perception was created that his performance was a disaster.
The fact is, voters don't need to be told whether they are put off by a
candidate's style or mannerisms; they are fully capable of analyzing their
own reaction without pundit intervention. What the public cannot easily do
is determine whether factual claims made during a debate are accurate or
not-- and in this far more critical role, media commentators have often
fallen down on the job.
In one of the most dramatic moments of the 1992 vice presidential debate,
Vice President Dan Quayle (10/13/92) charged that Al Gore's book, Earth in
the Balance, proposed that "the taxpayers of America spend $100 billion a
year on environmental projects in foreign countries"; when Gore maintained
that he hadn't written that, Quayle cited a page number where the proposal
could be found.
One of the few media outlets to look up what the book actually said was
the New York Times, which reported the next day (10/14/92) that while the
book did say $100 billion a year was needed for global environmental
projects, "Mr. Gore notes in the book that such levels of spending would
be impossible given the country's economic distress and calls on the other
industrialized countries to contribute." But the Times neutralized its
attempt at fact-checking by prefacing it with the statement, "There are
elements of truth in the statements of both men," and labeling the passage
"Truth on Both Sides."
George W. Bush made a series of false or deceptive claims in his debates
with Al Gore in 2000: He asserted, for example, that in his tax plan, "by
far the majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom end of the
economic ladder" (10/11/00), when Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation
(5/3/00) had found that the bottom half of the economic spectrum would
receive only 10 percent of Bush's income tax cut.
At another point (10/11/00), Bush declared that "we spend $4.7 billion a
year on the uninsured in the state of Texas." But the state of Texas
itself spent less than $1 billion a year on those without medical
insurance; only by adding together all federal, local and private spending
can you come up with Bush's figure (Window on State Government, 5/10/00).
Few outlets bothered to examine what "we" meant in Bush's statement.
One of the most dramatic moments during the Bush/Gore debates was when the
two candidates heatedly clashed over what Bush's Medicare plan offered. It
was this dispute that produced Gore's infamous sighs, which received far
more attention than the question of who was actually telling the truth in
the argument. Bob Somerby of the Daily Howler (9/28/04) summed up the New
York Times' coverage:
"In the next day's fact-checks, Robin Toner reviewed the heated drug
debate, summarizing what the hopefuls had said. (Toner: 'Mr. Bush accused
Mr. Gore of using "Medi-scare tactics," while Mr. Gore accused Mr. Bush of
advancing a plan that offered little or no help to most Medicare
beneficiaries.') But incredibly, she never said who had been right in the
factual battle the two hopefuls waged, and we have never found any place
where the Times told readers that Bush had been wrong on the basic facts
of this matter."
This kind of coverage evades journalism's most important responsibility--
to separate truth from falsehood. If the November election is decided on
the basis of trivia, post-debate coverage that fails to do its job will
bear much of the blame.
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