Breaking news: Another presidential candidate has lied about something. Not really news, right?
Well, to the American public, it is very important to know if a candidate for public office is telling the truth about their past and frankly, we as journalists don’t care if it ruins their career or seems like we’re targeting a specific candidate.
Are you taking notes, Ben Carson?
Enough with bashing the media for trying to destroy one’s reputation or going easy on one candidate compared to another; that’s a job for entertainment industry titans TMZ and Rush Limbaugh.
Carson was caught in a lie (several of them, really) and that’s his own fault. What did he think was going to happen? He claimed he had a violent temper as a child and nearly killed some of his classmates, was offered a scholarship from West Point and met with General William Westmoreland. Did he think journalists weren’t going to say, “Wow that’s cool for the voters to hear! Let me do my job and make sure it’s all true before telling them?”
The information needed to fact check him was all too easy to find. Calls were made to his childhood teachers and victims could not be found. West Point records rejected his notion of a scholarship offer and Westmoreland’s schedule that day says he was in Washington, D.C. when he claimed to have met with him.
Our beloved Walter Cronkite once said, “When you’re bringing in a fairly unknown candidate. … The population needs a lot more information than reduced coverage provides.”
We are not here to make life miserable; Carson did that himself by deciding to run for the most stressful job in the world after fixing people’s brains for a living. Especially being the new Republican front-runner, the other candidates have no sympathy for his troubles. This is child's play compared to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's Benghazi and email scandals or Christie's "Bridgegate" scandal. Also, his campaign manager should be fired for not having prepared him for this kind of scrutiny but more so because he let him spew lies on record.
Christie on Carson scrutiny: 'I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy' https://t.co/YqxQbXPKyh | AP photo pic.twitter.com/anPEz3lUiu
— POLITICO (@politico) November 9, 2015
Yes, the media has its flaws but that falls on politicians’ heads as well, dating as far back as the 1780s when political parties were founded. The media molded to the left-wing-right-wing system that emerged and very few middle-ground sources are available, let alone popular, to the American public.
No matter, the media still does its job to fact check politicians whether it’s at debates or during press conferences, because the American people deserve to know the truth about the public servants they elect to represent them in Washington.
Cronkite also said, “Our job is only to hold up the mirror — to tell and show the public what has happened.” So I ask you, Carson, what do you think the public sees?
Reach the columnist at abkbundy@gmail.com or follow @abkbundy on Twitter.
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Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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