CNN to Sponsor Presidental Debates

Billing it as "an unprecedented early kickoff to a wide open race for the White House," CNN will team with WMUR TV Boston and the Manchester Union Leader newspaper to sponsor the first presidential candidate debates, the network said Friday.

Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer will moderate back-to-back debates among the Republican and Democratic candidates, or at least the ones who have declared by then, on April 4 and 5, 2007.

CNN did not immediately have information on who which candidates would be participating

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.