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Samantha Bee Explains Why Matt Lauer and the Media Consistently Fail to Fact-Check Trump
“News organizations simply are not equipped to cover a candidate whose entire being is a lie.”
By Laura Bradley, September 13, 2016
Suffice it to say, Matt Lauer’s Clinton-Trump forum inspired plenty of criticism. Last Wednesday, journalists piled on after Lauer grilled Hillary Clinton on her private e-mail server, then rushed her through complex policy questions—and lobbed softballs at Donald Trump without fact-checking any of the candidate’s responses. On Monday night, though, Samantha Bee kicked off Full Frontal’s return from hiatus by pointing out that while Lauer “is a man whose crack journalism skills include getting up early and asking tough questions about recipes,” his performance last week was pretty much par for the course.
“The truth is, Lauer did a fantastic job at the meaningless campaign coverage we’ve come to demand from our media,” Bee said. “At some point, networks decided they could ask questions, and the answers would just be someone else’s problem—specifically, yours.”
Bee cut to clips from CNN and MSNBC, in which pundits recommended viewers read up on complex issues to come to their own conclusions—which sounds logical, until you think it through for even a few seconds. As Bee said, “in your plentiful spare time when you’re not working your two jobs, or watching your screaming kids, why not spend 20 or 30 hours studying the Geneva Conventions? . . . That’s so much easier than asking reporters and moderators to do their fucking jobs.”
Why are some news organizations so reluctant to call Trump out? According to Chris Matthews in an MSNBC clip, it’s because calling Trump a liar sounds like an opinion—something journalists are not really supposed to traffic in, lest they be accused of bias. But, as Bee says, “Calling a liar a liar isn’t an opinion if you can prove it. That’s what we call a fact. The idea that news network execs traded their balls for ratings—that’s just my opinion.”
The fact is, it’s easier for the media to be tough on Clinton because she’s the kind of candidate journalists are trained to moderate. Trump, on the other hand, is a completely new challenge—one that’s proving very tough for journalists to check in the same way they’ve always checked the political establishment.
“News organizations simply are not equipped to cover a candidate whose entire being is a lie,” Bee said. “They’re built to present us with a choice between two qualified, decent public servants with different ideologies who could both do the job of president without starting World War III on their first day in office because a random Iranian flipped off one of our boats. Maintaining the image of fairness requires them to portray Hillary and Trump as equally flawed candidates, even though they know that’s incorrect.”
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