Commission names moderators for presidential debates
By Hadas Gold
09/02/16 09:29 AM EDT
NBC's Lester Holt, ABC's Martha Raddatz, CNN's Anderson Cooper, Fox News' Chris Wallace and CBS' Elaine Quijano will moderate presidential and vice presidential debates this fall, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Friday.
Holt, anchor of NBC's "Nightly News,” will moderate the first debate at Hofstra University in New York on Sept. 26, which will be a traditional debate divided into six segments of 15 minutes each on major topics to be determined by Holt.
Quijano, an anchor on CBS' live streaming service CBSN, will moderate the vice presidential debate on Oct. 4 at Longwood University in Virginia, which will be a traditional debate as well — divided into nine timed segments of 10 minutes each.
Raddatz, ABC's Chief Global Correspondent and co-anchor of "This Week,” along with CNN anchor Cooper, will moderate a town-meeting style debate on Oct. 9 at Washington University in St. Louis. There, the questions will be posed directly by citizen participants made up of uncommitted voters based on topics "of broad public interest as reflected in social media and other sources."
Wallace, host of "Fox News Sunday,” will become the first Fox News host to moderate a general election debate since the network's founding. He will host the final presidential debate on Oct. 19 at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. The format of the final debate will be the same as the first.
"The CPD has a simple mission, to ensure that presidential debates help the public learn about the positions of the leading candidate for president and vice-president," CPD co-chairs Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr. and Michael D. McCurry said. "These format will allow an in-depth exploration of the major topics in this year's election."
http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/09/commission-sets-dates-formats-moderators-for-presidential-debataes-227679
