The 1st presidential debate. 9/26/2016. Format question.

I’m not real sure I like the format of the upcoming debate.

The first debate will be divided into six time segments of approximately 15 minutes each on major topics to be selected by the moderator and announced at least one week before the debate. The moderator will open each segment with a question, after which each candidate will have two minutes to respond. Candidates will then have an opportunity to respond to each other. The moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for a deeper discussion of the topic.
underlining mine.

Announcing the questions a week before the debate won’t allow us to hear the candidates spontaneous view but the sanitized view of his/her handlers. “Tell them what they want to hear, not what you think” will work well for one of the candidates. This is also the format for the third debate. This is disappointing to me. Has it always been like this?

That says the *topics *will be announced, not the questions themselves.

Maybe a mod could correct the date in the title to 9/26/2016.
Thanks

Yeah-they’ll surely be able to prepare ahead for those narrow topics.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/09/topics-for-first-presidential-debate-announced-228378

Done.