in 2024 Election, Media
ABC News assigned David Muir and Linsey Davis to moderate the debate between President Trump and Vice President Harris last week. In the event, they not only posed questions, they fact-checked one and only one of the candidates. That would be President Trump. Their purported fact-checks deserved to be fact-checked. Who will fact-check the fact-checkers?
It’s a form of election interference to which we have grown accustomed. In the words of the cliché, there ought to be a law.
Davis herself discussed the moderators’ fact-checking in a paywall-protected interview with the Los Angeles Times that is covered by Gabriel Hays at Fox News. Despite the calculated lies Harris regurgitated without correction during the debate, Davis contends that her team intended to fact-check both sides during the debate — “despite zero fact-checks for Harris,” as Hays puts it.
Only a fool would buy it. Fox News reached out to ABC News for comment and its story reflects none. I infer ABC’s one-sided interference in the debate was no accident.
Now comes an alleged ABC whistleblower with an affidavit dated September 9, the day before the debate. Black Insurrectionist has posted the affidavit here on X (text here). The affidavit makes out that the whistleblower has worked for ABC News in a variety of administrative and technical position. The alleged whistleblower contends that ABC tilted the terms of the debate to favor Harris in coordination with the Harris campaign. The particulars include:
• The Harris campaign received sample questions indicative of topics to be covered in the debate.
• The Harris campaign imposed restrictions on the scope of questioning that precluded inquiries concerning Joe Biden’s health and Harris’ tenure as “as Attorney General in San Francisco” [sic].
• ABC was instructed on which questions to avoid during the debate.
In addition:
• The whistleblower has recordings supporting his allegation that the Harris campaign pressured moderators to fact-check Trump.
• The whistleblower sent a certified letter to Speaker Mike Johnson dated September 9 to establish a record that the correspondence was sent before the debate commenced.
These are all unsubstantiated allegations that conform to what we observed during the debate. The whistleblower claims he has transcripts to support them. If such an affidavit existed, it is not clear why it would be leaked to Black Insurrectionist and posted on X to bring it to the attention of the public. Here we have both an unknown affiant and a pseudonymous X account as our sources. One should doubt the authenticity and veracity of the affidavit until we have more information with which to assess it.
In the only straight news account I could find this morning — this at Newsweek, when rumors of the affidavit first surfaced last week — it is reported that “Newsweek reached out by email to ABC News on Thursday for comment regarding these allegations.” As of this morning, Newsweek reports no response.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/09/fact-check-this-2.php
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