Show Me the Women: The Presidential Debates

On August 14, The Women’s Media Center (WMC) launched “Show Me The Women,” an email campaign by our supporters challenging the Commission on Presidential Debates in its selection of three men – Bob Schieffer of CBS, Tom Brokaw of NBC, and Jim Lehrer of PBS – to moderate the upcoming Presidential debates.   The WMC urged the public to insist that each moderator have a partner reflecting the diversity of our country -- which is more than half women. 

The Commission on President Debates did choose Gwen Ifill of PBS to host the Vice Presidential debate, a decision that the WMC applauds.  The Commission clearly did not know when they chose her for this role how highly anticipated the VP debate would be.  Regardless, this does not excuse the notable absence of women’s voices in ALL THREE presidential debates.

The public responded to “Show Me The Women,” and so did one of the moderators – Bob Schieffer of CBS. He is moderating the October 15 debate which focuses on domestic issues, and he invited The Women’s Media Center and its supporters to give him suggestions for questions he should ask at the debate. We have contacted the other moderators and requested that they accept our questions as well. To date, none have agreed.

The deadline to submit questions was October 1st . Thanks to our members, The Women’s Media Center collected hundreds of questions and are in the process of reviewing them now.  As the result of your actions, a more diverse group of people will be able to participate in this critically important part of our democratic process.  To see some of the questions people have submitted, check out our blog, Majority Post.

For more information, please contact WMC Media Director Tristin Aaron at tristin@womensmediacenter.com.