CNN has the spotlight for the presidential debate, but can it stand the heat? 

A popular 1950s television program was titled “The Millionaire.” It featured the fictional accounts of average people who were randomly selected to receive a million dollars from an anonymous benefactor.

CNN executives must have felt like they were in that show when they were gifted the opportunity to host the first joint appearance between Joe Biden and Donald Trump of the 2024 presidential election. 

Now it is up to CNN to measure up to this unexpected and perhaps undeserved windfall.  

On the 1950s TV show, some of the newly minted millionaires did much good with their newfound wealth; others squandered the possibilities and became miserable. CNN’s performance in the limelight could springboard the once proud news channel back to respectability. A botched showing will relegate the channel back to its current bottom-feeder status in the journalism world.  

CNN’s ratings and prestige have been declining for years. The network now averages fewer than a half million viewers at any point during primetime, a decline of 27 percent in just the last year. An average American would be hard pressed to name a single CNN anchor or correspondent.   

There are reasons CNN is rated as left-leaning on the Allsides Media Bias Chart. Those are the same reasons why the Biden campaign handpicked CNN to host this important political event. The president's handlers surely expect CNN to be a friendly venue. 

It was just two years ago that CNN brought in Chris Licht as chairman and CEO. He tried for a year to wrestle the channel back to a more centrist approach to journalism, hoping to appeal to a broader range of viewers. He got the gate a year ago after an internal revolt from CNN staffers.

Licht was replaced by Mark Thompson, whose professional resume includes prominent roles at the BBC and the New York Times. It is probably too soon to tell how the Thompson era will shake out at CNN, but based on his journalistic pedigree, it would be difficult to see CNN moving in a down-the-middle direction.

Hosting the Biden-Trump event allows CNN to put itself in front of an audience likely to top 70 million viewers, including countless Americans who haven’t thought about CNN for years. CNN will permit other television channels to simulcast the program but is solely responsible for the production, including having an on-screen CNN logo prominent during the duration of the forum and in all advance promotion, even on competing channels. The runup to the debate and the program itself is basically one big promotional announcement for CNN.  

Much hinges on how well CNN anchors and debate moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash execute their duties. Both are considered to be left-leaning, but that’s pretty much the case for most establishment journalists. They are taking preemptive heat from the Trump camp — Tapper, in particular, has had some harsh commentary for the former president in recent years.

It would behoove the moderators to resist their journalistic instincts and the temptation to turn the debate into parallel news conferences. Such an approach lends itself to gotcha questions targeted at each candidate and opens up the moderators to accusations of bias. Instead, questions should be framed more like collegiate debate resolutions, in which there is an equal burden of response on both candidates. 

There is no reason for Tapper and Bash to become pseudo-debaters. After all, the political opponents will be right there facing each other. If Trump or Biden makes an unsubstantiated claim, it frankly is not the moderator’s job to challenge the assertion. It should be up to each candidate to rebut one another and probe the other's policy or character weaknesses. If Trump or Biden fail to do so over the 90-minute event, the moderators should avoid filling in the gaps for either candidate. NFL referees don’t call plays for favored quarterbacks or point out where a blitzing linebacker might be coming from. 

There is little doubt the condition of political rhetoric in the nation has declined in recent years. The establishment media share some of the blame for that decline. Today, a presidential debate has been reduced to whether one candidate can stay awake for 90 minutes and the other can be halfway civil for that time.

CNN can’t do anything about the candidates that will be on stage, but it does have a role in staging the event and trying to manage a productive discussion. The nation needs CNN to pass this test. 

Jeffrey M. McCall is a media critic and professor of communication at DePauw University. He has worked as a radio news director, a newspaper reporter and as a political media consultant.