Samantha Bee explains why the media is failing America with its Donald Trump coverage

Full Frontal was back on Monday night after a month-long break, and Samantha Bee took a look at how the news media has been covering the race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. She wasn't impressed. She began with last week's NBC Commander-in-Chief forum, "which is kind of like a debate, except the two candidates appear separately, the audience are trained in self-discipline, and the moderator is a man whose crack journalism skills include getting up early and asking tough questions about recipes," a dig at Matt Lauer.

"Critics were meaner to Lauer than he deserved, including me," Bee said, undermining her contrition with a clip of Fox News personalities praising Lauer's "fair and balanced" moderating, calling that "the unkindest cut of all." But "the truth is, Lauer did a fantastic job at the meaningless campaign coverage we've come to demand from our media," Bee said. "At some point, networks decided they could ask questions, and the answers would just be somebody else's problem — specifically, yours."

Journalists are hesitant to fact-check the candidates — the moderator of the first debate, Chris Wallace, said he doesn't view it as his job to be a "truth squad," for example. Bee disagreed. "Guys, we are swimming in bad information," she said. "Why can't the media just tell us what's true and what's bullshit?" MSNBC's Chris Matthews said that journalists aren't supposed to have opinions, she noted, but "calling a liar a liar isn't an opinion if you can prove it — that's what we call a fact." She concluded: "The point is, news organizations are simply not equipped to cover a candidate whose entire being is a lie. They're built to present us with a choice between two qualified, decent public servants with different ideologies who could both do the job of president without starting World War III on their first day in office because a random Iranian flipped off one of our boats." Her full critique isn't entirely safe-for-work, but you can watch it below. Peter Weber

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up