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Presidential debate moderators don't really appreciate Twitter feedback

January 29, 2013 | 5:23 pm | Modified: January 29, 2013 at 5:25 pm
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Three of the four 2012 presidential debate moderators -- Jim Lehrer, Martha Raddatz and Bob Schieffer -- don't exactly have warm and fuzzy feelings about Twitter, they revealed during an appearance at the National Press Club Monday night.

"Scrutiny by name is Twitter," Raddatz offered, as Schieffer discussed during a taping of "The Kalb Report" how his audience no longer holds back. "Somebody showed me later some of the Twitter messages that people were tweeting -- if that's what you call it -- on the night of the debate," Schieffer said. "One of them said, 'who is that old guy? Is he one of those old guys on "the Muppets?" ' "

Raddatz had similar complaints. "It did not affect me as a moderator," she said. "I'll tell you how it affected me, it affected me as a mom," she continued, explaining that she was worried about what her college-aged son, an avid Twitter user, would see people posting about his journalist mother. But son Jake calmed her down. "He's like, 'mom, these people have three followers that you're looking at, quit answering them, and they're all living in basements with 75 cats,' " she said he reassured her. Raddatz added that she'd love to host a reality television show seeking out these haters. "What do you mean you don't like my hair?" she laughed. "Yours isn't so great either."

And then there was Lehrer, who really seemed to have no use for it. "I got millions of critical tweets, I understand," he said. "I never read any of them, got no report on them. I didn't want to know about them," he said.

The fourth debate moderator, CNN's Candy Crowley, was also supposed to appear on the panel, but canceled due to a family emergency.

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