In a move that shocked exactly zero people on Twitter but left the world of broadcast journalism reeling, ABC News has reportedly fired debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis following their controversial performance during Tuesday night’s presidential debate. The network’s statement, released late Wednesday, didn’t mince words: “David Muir and Linsey Davis are a disgrace to their profession.”
Yes, you heard that right. The once-respected news anchors, known for their cool professionalism and journalistic integrity, are now being thrown out of the hallowed halls of ABC like last week’s trending hashtags. Their crime? Fact-checking Donald Trump and occasionally asking Kamala Harris a question or two. It seems that in today’s media landscape, truth-telling has become the fastest route to unemployment.
It all started innocently enough. Muir and Davis, tasked with moderating the debate between Trump and Harris, decided that this time, they’d do something a little different. Instead of nodding politely while the candidates spewed half-truths, outright lies, and questionable anecdotes about Springfield, Ohio’s pet situation, the moderators took it upon themselves to fact-check the candidates—in real-time.
Throughout the 90-minute spectacle, Trump, as expected, hit the stage with his usual flair for storytelling. Whether he was waxing poetic about Democrats “executing babies after birth” or describing how migrants were allegedly turning America’s pets into a buffet, Trump’s performance was, shall we say, creatively untethered to reality.
Muir, in a moment that will surely go down in fact-checking history, stopped the debate dead in its tracks to inform viewers that no, there was no state in the U.S. where post-birth baby executions are legal. And no, Springfield’s immigrant community is not engaged in a clandestine culinary war on household pets. To the reasonable viewer, these clarifications might seem helpful—necessary, even.
But according to ABC News executives, this “helpful” behavior is precisely what led to Muir and Davis’s unceremonious exit.
In a scathing memo that was somehow both formal and dripping with disdain, ABC explained its decision to terminate Muir and Davis: “Moderators are meant to guide the debate, not embarrass candidates by calling out falsehoods. The American public deserves to hear both sides—truth and fiction—without interference. David Muir and Linsey Davis crossed a line when they decided to turn their role as moderators into that of participant, and that is simply unacceptable.”
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