The debate from within: two podiums, a lights stopwatch and a thousand journalists in a stadium

The logistics of a presidential debate In the United States it is not a simple thing and even less so in the first and decisive face-to-face meeting between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump this Thursday.

This is what the studios where this historic event will take place in the city of Atlanta look like, which have already been sealed off by the police with several surrounding streets closed to traffic.

Two meters between Biden and Trump

The debate will begin at 9:00 p.m. local time (01:00 GMT on Friday) in a CNN television studio on the Techwood campus, in downtown Atlanta, without the public and will last 90 minutes with two commercial breaks. .

The candidates, the oldest in history, will debate standing on two podiums separated by 2.4 meters and will have a decoration behind them with the slogan ‘CNN Presidential Debate’.

The Democratic campaign was chosen by drawing lots to select the candidates’ positions and opted for Biden to be on the right side of the television screen and Trump, on the left side.

The candidates will enter the studio through opposite entrances and it is unknown if they will greet each other by shaking hands.

Right in front of them, the debate moderators, journalists Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, will be sitting at a table. They will ask the candidates questions, and they will have two minutes to respond.

The unprecedented silence button

Biden and Trump will not have a stopwatch as such: above the cameras they will see lights that will turn yellow when they have 15 seconds left to speak, flash when there are five seconds left and turn red when their time has run out.

Only the candidate who has the opportunity to speak will have his microphone on, and his opponent’s will have it off. Anything he says will be practically inaudible to television viewers.

This is an attempt to avoid a repeat of the shouting and interruptions that occurred in the two tense face-to-face meetings between Biden and Trump in the 2020 elections.

Neither candidate will be allowed to speak to their advisors during the two breaks and they are not allowed to take notes beforehand, although they will be given a notebook and pen to take notes.

‘Spin room’ in a basketball stadium

Nearly a thousand journalists from dozens of different countries have been accredited for the debate, demonstrating the great international interest in this event, which could break audience records.

But reporters won’t be in the CNN studio, but rather in an adjacent basketball arena, the Hank McCamish Pavilion, where the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets usually play.

It is not a typical press room. Journalists work from the stands where spectators usually watch the games, but this time what they will see on the stadium’s giant screens is the face-to-face between Biden and Trump.

The court where the matches are played has been covered with a red carpet to house the famous ‘spin room’ and the programs of the major American television networks.

It will be in that space, where advisors from both campaigns will walk around to give interviews and present arguments to convince journalists that their candidate was the clear winner of the day.

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