Why CBS News will be at the forefront of the VP debate

Sen. J.D. Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will trade back and forth over barbs and cat references during Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, but it will be CBS News — and its top anchors — front and center.

Tuesday’s 9 p.m. debate, which will be broadcast from the famed CBS Broadcast Center in downtown Manhattan, will be the most high-profile — and highly visible — test of his journalism since the acclaimed interview with Pope Francis in May.

But a lot has changed for the network since then. For example, new owners are on the way, and the hosts moderating the debate are offering competing visions of the network’s future. One is a rising star in reporting, while the other seems to be on the way out.

The debate will be co-moderated by CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell, 50, and Confront the nation anchor Margaret Brennan, 44. According to The New York Times, It’s under Brennan’s supervision Confront the nation producer Mary Hager, who serves as the organization’s managing editor for politics, and David Reiter, senior vice president of CBS News in charge of events.

The 90-minute event takes place less than two months after billionaire David Ellison’s Skydance concluded its months-long quest to acquire Paramount Global, the organization’s parent company, and after the company completed two rounds of job cuts, none of which CBS News has reported. was spared. Over the past eight months, journalists like Catherine Herridge and anchor Jeff Glor have left, and a third round of budget cuts at the end of the year could put further pressure on the home of journalists like Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow .

TJ Kirkpatrick/CBS via Getty Images

Such chaos can even be visible on the screen. O’Donnell, one of the debate’s moderators, was demoted in August after her evening news program never managed to leave third place. (She’s also one 60 minutes contributing correspondent.)

The network touted the move as a new opportunity for O’Donnell, who will focus on major interviews after the election (for example, her touted sit-downs with Francis and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson). But it was clear what the move meant for O’Donnell, especially after the network replaced her with a group of men.

It also stands in stark contrast to Brennan, CBS News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent, who leads Sunday Confront the nation every week. It’s Brennan’s producer who helps spark the debate, and the split-screen between the hosts — who are said to have a tenuous relationship — signals who CBS is prioritizing. Be that as it may, the debate is also the only debate so far in this cycle – and possibly at all – that is moderated exclusively by women.

Josh Huskin/CBS via Getty Images

Known for her astute interviewing style, Brennan has already managed to stir MAGA through her interview with South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem after Noem admitted in her memoir to killing her dog Chester. She also conducted a separate, equally controversial interview with Vance earlier this month after he and former President Donald Trump alleged Haitian migrants were killing pets in Springfield, Ohio.

But Tuesday’s debate is not an interview with Vance or Walz, as the network has tried to make clear. “The purpose of the debate is to allow for good debate between the candidates, and the moderators will give them the opportunity to fact-check each other in real time,” Claudia Milne, the network’s head of standards and practices, told reporters. , at the Times on Monday.

To do that, the network will have a team of about 20 reporters fact-checking the two candidates in real time. But viewers — and only CBS viewers — can only see those fact checks by scanning a QR code on their screen, which takes them to the CBS News website.

It’s a split-the-baby decision that sets the network apart from debates conducted by CNN (which offered no fact-checking) and ABC (which only fact-checked Trump, fueling the former president’s ire). The idea, Milne told the newspaper Times, is to give the audience a ‘second screen experience’.

But the network has chosen to be original in its own way. Both candidates’ microphones will remain on throughout the debate, giving Walz and Vance the opportunity to cause chaos on their own.