Here’s How CBS Plans to Approach Fact-Checking the VP Debate Between Vance and Walz

AP Photo/Carlos Osorio (L)/AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson (R)

How much time moderators should spend fact-checking presidential candidates at the debates has been a subject of heated debate this election season. CBS News has opted for a unique approach that blends fact-checking with a more hands-off managing of the candidates for its upcoming vice presidential debate set to air Tuesday night.

For the most part, a source familiar with the preparations told Mediaite, CBS moderators will leave it to Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance to take the lead in fact-checking one another.

According to CBS News, the debate format will offer each candidate two minutes to respond to questions and the opposing candidate two minutes to respond.

Then, each candidate will be offered one minute for further rebuttals. At the discretion of the moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan , candidates may get an additional minute each to continue a discussion.

Throughout the 90-minute debate at CBS News studios in New York, moderators, however, may step in to offer clarifications if facts go unchecked or “if something egregious is said,” the source noted.

“The goal of a debate is for the candidates to debate and to hold one another accountable, and CBS News is going to provide opportunities for that,” the source familiar explained. “A debate is not an interview, and the format is very different.”

Elsewhere, CBS will provide real-time fact-checking of the proceedings. The CBS News Confirmed unit, consisting of forensic journalists and data experts, will be verifying claims and addressing misinformation on a live blog, on social media and in post-debate coverage on the network.

The source was clear to contrast the format with the ABC News-hosted presidential debate on September 10 between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris . In the wake of that debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis came under fire from Republicans for live fact-checking the candidates , which fixated mostly on Trump.

“ABC News went too far,” another industry source remarked to Mediaite. “They became the story.”

In that sense, the CBS News debate appears set to land somewhere in between the CNN debate, which had virtually no fact-checking from the moderators, and the ABC News event, which had brief but punchy interjections from its hosts.

CBS News, it appears, is ready to set itself apart and let the candidates do the jousting, keeping moderator fact-checking interruption to a minimum in making an editorial distinction between debate and coverage.