Advertisement

Donald Trump’s latest victim could be an interviewer

Matt Lauer is being ripped to shreds by the American media.

Matt Lauer is being ripped to shreds by the American media. Photo: Getty

American TV host and journalist, Matt Lauer, has been labelled “pathetic” and “humiliating” for his disparate treatment of Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton in consecutive interviews.

The host of NBC’s The Today Show and contributor to Lateline was hosting the NBC presidential forum on Wednesday night US time.

Lauer was criticised for repeatedly pushing Hilary Clinton on her use of a private email server but letting Mr Trump off the hook when it came to his attacks on the Muslim parents of a fallen US soldier or statements that were either factually incorrect or arguable.

The discrepancy between the two 30-minute interviews was quickly picked up by viewers, who united online under the banner, ‘Lauering the Bar’.

In the aftermath, Lauer has been accused of false balance and of not doing his due diligence for the interviews.

News site The Daily Beast summarised the extent of the outrage.

Lauer deserves to be remembered for this. It belongs in the first paragraph of his Times obit when the day comes. He should apologize to America for a performance that was indefensible by any known journalistic standard,” wrote special correspondent, Michael Tomasky.

‘Nobody expects you to know that’

After devoting one third of Clinton’s interview to the issue of her private email server, Lauer then continually interrupted her mid-answer.

The New York Times noted that when an Army veteran in the audience asked Clinton to describe her plan to defeat the Islamic State, Lauer interjected before the candidate could begin her reply.

“As briefly as you can,” he said.

But it was an unchallenged comment by Trump regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin that especially riled viewers.

Lauer interrupted Ms Clinton four times, causing her to urge "let me finish". Photo: Getty

Lauer interrupted Clinton four times, causing her to urge “let me finish”. Photo: Getty

“I think it’s inarguable that Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country,” Trump said. Lauer let it pass, but Tomasky didn’t.

“God help us,” he wrote, “Putin’s at 82 percent (popularity) because the other 18 percent are in jail or dead.

“But more than that, Russia is an adversary. Imagine Nixon having said in 1968 that Brezhnev was a much stronger leader than LBJ. It would have been thought of as verging on if not crossing over into outright treason,” Tomasky wrote.

Lauer was also accused of ignorance across a variety of topics, and of failing to pull Trump up on the assertion he had never supported the Iraq War – disproved in the media months ago and revisited by Lauer’s own employer NBC this week.

Trump also criticised Clinton for supporting the deployment of troops into Libya, despite also supporting that decision himself – a fact Lauer either failed to know or to mention.

Comparatively, Clinton was forced to ask Lauer to “let [her] finish” by the fourth time he had interrupted one of her answers, leading to accusations of “subtle sexism” from a number of media outlets.

Critics suggested Lauer should go back to interviewing pop stars such as Zac Efron. Photo: Getty

Critics told Lauer to go back to interviewing stars such as Zac Efron. Photo: Getty

“Would our ‘fair-minded’ journalist have treated a male candidate the way he treated Hillary Clinton?” asked Slate Magazine.

Despite focussing on Clinton’s email server controversy, Lauer failed to mention Trump’s damaging dispute with a Muslim American family that lost a son in the Iraq War, nor his claim that former Republican candidate John McCain was “not a war hero” because had been captured in Vietnam.

Incredibly, Lauer even prefaced a question regarding foreign policy with the suggestion that “nobody would have expected” Trump to have read deeply into foreign policy issues before running for president.

https://twitter.com/poniewozik/status/773721763716993024

Stinging backlash

The New York Times called Lauer’s performance “humiliating”, while  Vox concluded he “totally blew it”.

“There’s a difference between an interviewer who has questions and one who has knowledge, and Mr. Lauer illustrated it,” wrote James Poniewozik for the Times, suggesting Lauer had demonstrated expertise akin to someone with a “passing knowledge of the morning politics headlines”.

When asked at a press conference on Thursday, Hilary Clinton said she had been “heartened” to read the many articles pointing out the “disparate treatment”, but believed the “double standard” was simply a part of the US political landscape.

Much of the coverage pointed to the issue of false balance in the American media, where journalists can seem overly cautious not to be seen favouring one side.

Quartz labelled the interviews a display of “the worst habits of American journalism”, or the media’s “obsessive, sometimes desperate need to be balanced“.

https://twitter.com/CeeLeeMusic/status/773870641661566976

Stay informed, daily
A FREE subscription to The New Daily arrives every morning and evening.
The New Daily is a trusted source of national news and information and is provided free for all Australians. Read our editorial charter
Copyright © 2024 The New Daily.
All rights reserved.