It wasn’t a hard call.
At this point in the history of televised debates, a history that began with the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates ( 64 years ago!!) and has continued on with a seemingly endless stream of both Republican vs. Democrat nominee debates plus Republican vs. Republican and Democrat vs. Democrat nomination debates, one would think ABC would have learned a thing or two.
But, alas, no.
The result of the much ballyhooed ABC Trump vs. Harris debate was, well aside from the verdict on the candidates themselves, a bursting of the liberal media bubble.
Sample headlines:
From The Hill:
Conservatives rail against ABC moderators after Trump, Harris debate
From Newsweek:
MAGA Attacks ABC Moderators After Debate: 'Three on One'
From Fox News:
ABC debate moderators spark fury for aggressive fact-checking of Trump, easy treatment of Harris
David Muir, Linsey Davis repeatedly challenged Trump's claims while letting Harris off the hook
The Wall Street Journal:
ABC’s Bias Deprived Voters of a Fair Debate
They called Trump out on every falsehood but let Harris get away with one lie after another.
Headlines similar to these went on- and on and on.
And oh yes. Not to be forgotten was the reaction of former President Trump himself. Here are but two headlines:
From USA Today:
Trump: 'Take away' ABC broadcast license for 'unfair debate' treatment
In just the latest attack on the media by former President Donald Trump, he said the fact-checking by ABC's moderators was 'unfair' and the network should lose its license to broadcast.
From The Hill:
Trump rips ‘low-life’ ABC moderators in first postdebate speech
In short, forget the candidates. The debate was a solid black eye for sponsoring network ABC.
The real question here is: How could this happen?
After all, for those interested in the historical record, the American Broadcasting Company first came to life as a radio network in….1943! That would be a full 81 years ago. As the technology advanced the network moved into television. Where it became famous over the decades for any number of journalism stars with names like Peter Jennings, David Brinkley, Frank Reynolds, Sam Donaldson, Harry Reasoner, Barbara Walters, Ted Koppel, Cokie Roberts, Brit Hume, Diane Sawyer, Chris Wallace and Howard K. Smith to name a few.
With that history behind them, how could this 2024 Trump-Harris presidential debate result in such a blizzard of criticism? Criticism targeted at both the network itself and the debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis?
The answer is not hard to figure out if outside the bubble that is the liberal media.
The answer is that as the two moderators, their staff and network executives prepped for the debate, any sign of anti-Trump bias and pro-Harris bias was simply not recognized. Why? Because the moderators, staff and network executives themselves all operate in a liberal media bubble where anti-Trump bias is not seen as bias. Any criticism of Harris is seen as out of bounds - racist, sexist yada yada yada.
With that being the case, Muir and Davis were headed for a sure-thing media car wreck - because the country as a whole is not living and working 24/7 in the liberal media bubble. So when the two drilled in on Trump - but would not treat Harris in the same relentless critical fashion - millions of Americans noticed.
And now? One more headline, this from Real Clear Politics:
Mark Penn: ABC News Should Do A Full Investigation Into Debate, "I Don't Know What They Told The Harris Campaign”
That gem of a story reports:
Pollster and former Clinton strategist Mark Penn called on ABC News to hire an outside law firm to look into internal communication between the network and the Harris campaign and to "what extent" they planned on "rigging the outcome of this debate.
Not good for ABC. Not good at all.
Not to mention, outside the liberal media bubble, easily seen as a completely avoidable situation.
Memo for networks in the 2028 presidential election?
Remember 2024 and the ABC debate debacle. And get out of the liberal media bubble.
