Good news! The Presidential Debate Commission announced today that Candy Crowley of CNN will be the first woman to moderate a presidential debate in 20 years. Crowley is CNN’s chief political correspondent and anchors the hour-long show “State Of The Union.” She’ll moderate the second town hall meeting-style debate on October 16 at Hofstra Univeristy in NJ. Crowley will join Jim Lehrer of PBS and Bob Schieffer of CBS in moderating one of three presidential debates; she’ll be the first woman to do so since Carole Simpson of ABC moderated a presidential debate in 1992. Another woman, Martha Raddatz of ABC, will moderate the vice presidential debate; Gwen Ifill of PBS moderated the VP debates in both 2004 and 2008.
I hope the Presidential Debate Commission was influenced by the three New Jersey 16-year-olds who started a Change.org petition – which collected 130,000 signatures — to hire a female moderate. Congratulations, ladies! [Washington Post; Poynter.org]
