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Concerns around media bias were apparent in the wake of yesterday’s vice presidential debate between Republican VP candidate J.D. Vance and Democratic candidate Tim Walz, hosted by CBS News (Lean Left).
Back in September, ABC News (Lean Left) drew heat for apparent moderator bias during the Harris/Trump debate, in which moderators live fact checked Trump multiple times and Harris not at all, as reported by Reason (Center). In a move that was likely meant to avoid the backlash ABC received, CBS News promised not to do any live fact checking of candidates, instead offering a QR code that linked to an online fact check page.
But CBS journalists did slip up at least once by live fact checking Vance around immigration; in addition, CBS showed some bias in its online fact check of the debate by omitting certain checks and slanting others, explained below. Overall, CBS did not show nearly as much bias as ABC.
Still, Americans on average rated CBS as Lean Left in a 2021 AllSides Blind Bias Survey. (Support our research by joining AllSides.) That bias was apparent in the CBS VP debate fact check article and in one live fact check by debate moderators.
RELATED: Were CBS Moderators Biased in the VP Debate?
CBS Moderators Fact Check Vance, Despite Promising Not To
Despite saying moderators would not live fact check during the debate, CBS slipped up by fact checking Vance on temporary protected status of Haitian migrants in Springfield, OH, which he pushed back on, leading CBS to mute his mic.
The live fact check, which omitted context around how migrants are issued temporary protected status, made CBS moderators appear biased against Vance.
HOLY SH!T
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 2, 2024
JD Vance demolishes the moderators for lying to the audience. CBS mutes him. pic.twitter.com/Hey0Uh3XoB
CBS Says Harris Wasn’t “Border Czar,” Contradicting Its 2021 Coverage
CBS’ debate fact check directly contradicted its 2021 coverage on Kamala Harris’ role at the border.
CBS marked as false Vance’s claim that Harris “became the appointed border czar” — an informal term used in American politics to denote someone in charge of something. While the administration never used the term “czar,” which is okay to note, CBS’ own headline in 2021 stated, “Harris to lead administration’s efforts to migration at the border.” CBS shows bias by issuing a fact check that is technically accurate, but misleading, showing bias by slant.
RELATED: Were CBS Moderators Biased in the VP Debate?
CBS Fails to Fact Check Walz on Claim Capitol Police Officers Were Killed
During the debate, Walz claimed, “One hundred and forty police officers were beaten at the Capitol that day, some with the American flag. Several later died.”
The claim that a pro-Trump mob killed “several” Capitol Police officers on Jan. 6, 2021 is untrue. It was based on vague and conflicting statements from law enforcement and questionable reporting from major news sources, which AllSides wrote about here. In reality, zero deaths were officially attributed to protestors; Washington D.C. chief medical examiner Francisco Diaz announced that Brian Sicknick, 42, a Capitol Police officer who died the day after responding to the riot, died of natural causes associated with two strokes, not being beaten, as reported by CNN (Lean Left). According to the Washington Post (Lean Left), Diaz stated that “all that transpired played a role in [Sicknick’s] condition.”
CBS ought to have included this in its online fact check.
CBS Fails to Fact Check Walz on Facebook Content Moderation
During a conversation on censorship and First Amendment rights, Vance said to Walz, “You guys wanted to kick people off of Facebook for saying that toddlers should not wear masks.” To which Walz responded, “Yeah, well, I don't run Facebook.”
CBS’s online fact check piece could have added context to Walz’s remark by noting that Facebook admitted the Biden administration pressured it to censor COVID-19 content during the pandemic. Instead, CBS ignored his claim.
CBS Fails to Clarify Project 2025 is Not A Trump/Vance Project
In a case of bias by omission, CBS’s article fact checked Walz’s claim that Project 2025 makes it hard to get contraception and access to fertility treatments, but failed to fact check Walz’s claim that Project 2025 is “their [Trump and Vance’s] project.”
Donald Trump has stated he does not endorse Project 2025; it is a project of the conservative group The Heritage Foundation (Right bias), not the Trump campaign. While ex-Trump administration officials contributed to the project, to state that it is Trump’s project is false.
CBS Fails to Fact Check Walz on Amber Thurman Death
Walz made claims about a woman named Amber Thurman that CBS did not clarify nor fact check.
Walz claimed Thurman died due to restrictive abortion laws, stating, “There's a young woman named Amber Thurman. She happened to be in Georgia, a restrictive state. Because of that, she had to travel a long distance to North Carolina to try and get her care. Amber Thurman died in that journey back and forth … There's a very real chance, had Amber Thurman lived in Minnesota, she would be alive today.”
RELATED: Did Georgia’s Abortion Law Lead to Two Women’s Deaths?
The nature of Thurman’s death could have used clarification from CBS in its fact check article. Thurman did not die in the journey back and forth, as Walz claimed; while she did travel to North Carolina for an abortion, she was offered the abortion pill regime there, and developed a rare complication: she needed a procedure called dilation and curettage (D&C), but for an unknown reason, doctors did not administer a D&C until 20 hours after her hospital arrival, at which point it was too late to prevent her death.
In the online fact check (not live debate moderation), CBS could have added context around this, and noted that any claim that she died due to abortion laws is pure speculation. While some, like ProPublica (Lean Left) argue that she died due to strict abortion laws that make doctors wary of performing procedures that could be interpreted as abortion, others, like conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey, argue that abortion itself killed Thurmond.
CBS issued a lopsided fact check by ignoring this but fact checking Vance on his claim that a Minnesota law Walz signed says "a doctor that presides over an abortion where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide life-saving care to a baby who survives a botched, late-term abortion."
Conclusion
While CBS was not as biased as ABC in its debate moderation — many questions asked were fair and balanced, read AllSides’ commentary on the debate questions here — it slipped up at least once live on air, and its fact check piece left much to be desired, showing bias by omission and slant. Be sure to read news and fact checks across the political spectrum so that you can get the full view.
Julie Mastrine is the Director of Marketing and Media Bias Ratings at AllSides. She has a Lean Right bias.
This piece was reviewed by Evan Wagner, News Editor and Project Manager (Lean Left) and Editor-in-chief Henry A. Brechter (Center).