The moderators shined in doing something the first 2024 debate moderators didn’t do: a little fact-checking in real time Email not displaying correctly?
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** OPINION
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** Looking back at Tuesday night’s presidential debate, including ABC News’ solid performance
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Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, during Tuesday night’s presidential debate in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Now that was an interesting debate.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump clashed for two hours Tuesday night in a presidential debate that, incredibly, might have as much impact as the first presidential debate of this election cycle. And that’s saying something considering the first debate pretty much ended President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.

Did Tuesday night end anyone’s candidacy? No. But it was not a good night for the former president.

With the exception of Trump’s diehard supporters, most seemed to agree that Harris dominated this showdown.

Afterward, CNN’s Chris Wallace told Jake Tapper, who moderated that first Biden-Trump debate, “Jake, I didn't think I was ever going to witness a debate as devastating as the one that you and Dana (Bash) moderated back in June, where Joe Biden basically tanked his reelection campaign. I think tonight was just as devastating, (but for Trump).”

CNN’s Van Jones said, “She whooped him. She just whooped him. … She baited him then she spanked him.”

Tapper said of Harris luring Trump into losing his cool, “If you're a fisherman, as I struggle to be, you would be lucky to have your bait taken so often.”

Even on Fox News, Brit Hume said, “Make no mistake about it, Trump had a bad night.”

Who had a good night? Well, clearly Harris supporters (and even others) will say Harris. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow called it a “lopsided” victory for Harris.

Hard to argue with that.

But I’m talking about the third party on the stage: ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, who had a mostly good night.

Mostly? Let me explain.

There was a whole lot of good. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good.

Let’s start with the questions: tough and fair of both candidates, including lengthy sections on the economy, immigration, reproductive rights, the wars overseas, health care and the climate.

But where the moderators shined was in doing something that Tapper and Bash, purposefully, did not do in the first debate: a little fact-checking in real time. On at least four occasions, Muir and Davis fact-checked an untrue statement. It just so happened that all of them were in response to something Trump said.

The moderators called out Trump, while talking about abortion, for saying babies were being murdered after they were born. They corrected Trump on crime statistics. And they fact-checked him when he repeated lies about the 2020 election.

And, in what surely was the most bizarre moment of the night, Trump repeated a crazy conspiracy that has cropped up in recent days that accuses Haitian immigrants of killing people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio.

Trump said, “​​In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Muir quickly said there was no evidence of such things. (And, I can’t believe this needs to be reported, but Jessica Orozco of the Springfield News-Sun wrote ([link removed]) , “The Springfield Police Division said Monday they have received no reports related to pets being stolen and eaten.”)

Now, to be clear, the moderators didn’t spend the entire night fact-checking Trump, even though they could have. CNN’s Daniel Dale said on air that in his first view of the debate, Trump told at least 33 lies, while Harris said one in addition to a few misleading and/or needed-context statements. So it’s hard to praise the moderators too much for calling out just a handful, but that was better than none.

The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta tweeted ([link removed]) , “One way to look at it: ABC moderators fact-checked Trump 2-3 times and Harris zero times. Another way to look at it: ABC moderators fact-checked Trump 2-3 times instead of 500 times.”

NPR media reporter David Folkenflik tweeted ([link removed]) , “The ABC duo is fact checking, pretty much just Trump so far, but it's focused, crisp and brief, so it doesn't feel as though it's interfering.”

The New York Times’ Michael M. Grynbaum wrote, “It is striking how Muir and Davis, in calm and authoritative tones, have constructed factual guardrails around several of Trump’s baseless claims. Trump rarely sits for interviews with mainstream news anchors outside the partisan environs of cable news. The ABC anchors are providing a model here for real-time fact-checking of the candidates that we have not glimpsed in previous debates.”

(For more fact-checking, here is PolitiFact’s roundup of the debate ([link removed]) .)

The moderators fact-checking Trump at all seemed to irritate some Trump supporters. On CNN, political commentator David Urban complained about them.

The New York Times’ Reid J. Epstein wrote, “In the spin room, Trump surrogates are complaining about the moderators. ‘It was a poor performance by the moderators,’ said Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran for the Republican nomination himself in the primaries. He called the event ‘a three-on-one debate.’”

Trump spokesman Brian Hughes told reporters after the debate, “You had moderators live rebutting as if they’re on the team together.”

But CNN contributor and GOP strategist Scott Jennings said, “It is a little hard to complain about the refs when you’re not making your own jump shots.”

If there was one complaint about the ABC moderators it was that they seemed to allow Trump chances for rebuttal when they weren’t supposed to. Several times, Trump bullied his way past the moderators who said they wanted to move on to the next topic. ABC said microphones would be muted when it wasn’t a candidate’s turn to talk, but Trump was allowed to speak and his microphone went from being off to being turned on.

As a result, MSNBC reported that Trump spoke for 43 minutes and 3 seconds, while Harris spoke for 37 minutes, 41 seconds. That more-than-five-minute difference was because Trump was allowed to talk when he wasn’t supposed to.

But, in the end, it’s hard to say that anything the moderators did tipped the balance of fairness. Aside from a few lapses allowing Trump to speak out of turn, they kept the debate moving, hit pertinent topics, and the result was that viewers got an accurate sense of where the candidates stand at this moment.

Media analyst Oliver Darcy wrote, “ABC News showed how it is done.”

A MESSAGE FROM POYNTER
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** Putting a spin on it
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The post-debate spin room is usually for supporters of the candidates to give their, well, spin on how the night went.

But Trump himself showed up in the spin room Tuesday night.

NBC’s Hallie Jackson said, “Donald Trump is walking into the spin room here, which is a very interesting moment. Very unusual, you know the adage: You see a candidate in spin when they feel like they need (to do) spinning.”


** Endorsement of the day
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For weeks, we’ve wondered if pop star Taylor Swift, one of the most famous people on the planet, would endorse Kamala Harris for president.

On Tuesday night, just moments after the debate, Swift announced to her 283 million followers on Instagram that she was voting for Harris.

She wrote, in part, “Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”

Swift, holding a cat in a photo on her post, signed it, “With love and hope, Taylor Swift. Childless Cat Lady.”

How big is it to get this celebrity endorsement?

CNN’s Dana Bash said, “It’s not just a celebrity. It’s the biggest celebrity in the world.”

Bash said Swift’s endorsement could mean a large number of younger people, particularly women, might become more engaged, adding, “This is the endorsement that the Harris campaign (was) hoping for more than anything else.”

CBS’s Nancy Cordes said, “I think the question now is, how active does she get? Is it a one-time thing or will she be hitting the road, using her enormous microphone to get voters, particularly young voters, to register and go to the polls? That will be the measure of how impactful this endorsement is.”


** Grim tweet of the night
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This, from The Washington Post’s John Woodrow Cox ([link removed]) : “At tonight's presidential debate, the word ‘dog’ was said three times. The words ‘school shootings’? Not once.”


** And now for other media news, tidbits and interesting links …
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* The Washington Post’s Sarah Ellison, Amy Gardner and Clara Ence Morse with “Elon Musk’s misleading election claims reach millions and alarm election officials.” ([link removed]) The Post reporters wrote, “Musk’s online utterances don’t stay online. His false and misleading election posts add to the deluge of inaccurate information plaguing voting officials across the country. Election officials say his posts about supposed voter fraud often coincide with an increase in baseless requests to purge voter rolls and heighten their worry over violent threats. Experts say Musk is uniquely dangerous as a purveyor of misinformation because his digital following stretches well beyond the political realm and into the technology and investment sectors, where his business achievements have earned him credibility.”
* The New York Times’ Madison Malone Kircher with “The Internet Spent Years Searching for Her. She Had No Idea.” ([link removed])
* From NPR’s “All Things Considered,” media reporter David Folkenflik with “The legal battle between Rupert Murdoch and 3 of his kids.” ([link removed])
* Also from The New York Times, Elizabeth Harris talks to the author of “Big Little Lies” for “Liane Moriarty Has Sold 20 Million Books. She Would Rather Not Talk About It.” ([link removed])
* The Los Angeles Times’ Jenny Jarvie with “Philanthropists invest $15 million in L.A. County local news.” ([link removed])
* NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” returns for its 50th season on Sept. 28, just in time for the final run-up to the 2024 presidential election. The show will add three new featured players: Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim and Jane Wickline. But featured player Chloe Troast announced on social media that she was not asked to return this season. Punkie Johnson and Molly Kearney previously announced they would not be returning. Main cast members returning include Michael Che, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner, James Austin Johnson, Colin Jost, Ego Nwodim, Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson and Bowen Yang. Marcello Hernández, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker will go from featured players to main cast members. Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva has more ([link removed]) .
* The opener of “Monday Night Football” averaged 20.5 million viewers on ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN+, ESPN Deportes and NFL+. That made the game — a San Francisco 49ers victory over the New York Jets — the second-most watched week one matchup in ESPN’s 19 seasons airing “MNF.” The most-watched was last year’s opener between the Buffalo Bills and the Jets when Aaron Rodgers made his debut as the Jets quarterback and tore his Achilles tendon just four plays into the game. Nearly 23 million watched that game. Interestingly, as pointed out by ProFootball Talk’s Mike Florio: “ESPN’s Week 1 Monday Night Football ratings release omits ManningCast numbers.” ([link removed]) No word on why numbers for the ManningCast — the broadcast featuring former NFL quarterback and brothers Peyton and Eli Manning — were not included. It also should be noted that because of a contrac
t dispute between Disney and DirecTV, the game was unavailable to the approximately 11 million subscribers of DirecTV.
* Nothing like a good media feud, even if it seems to be over something not all that serious. Awful Announcing’s Brandon Contes has all the details in “Dave Portnoy enflames feud with 670 The Score’s Dan Bernstein after bizarre interaction with Barstool Eddie.” ([link removed])
* Paul Tash, chairman of the Poynter Institute, has joined Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center as a distinguished fellow. Tash was the longtime editor, and then CEO and chairman of the Poynter-owned Tampa Bay Times, which won eight Pulitzer Prizes while he was CEO and chairman. Tash served on the boards of several journalism organizations, including The Associated Press, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Pulitzer Prizes, where he was chairman.


** More resources for journalists
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* Webinar tomorrow: Find compelling climate change stories on any beat at Beat Academy ([link removed]) .
* Lead With Influence ([link removed]) is for leaders who manage big responsibilities but have no direct reports. Closes Friday!
* Build a framework for ethics and standards around AI in Level Up ([link removed]) .

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .
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