ORANGEBURG, S.C. — There were five hours to go before the first debate of the 2008 presidential campaign season, and the campus of South Carolina State University was buzzing with activity. The marching band performed a rousing concert as young activists jostled before the cameras with a thicket of signs bearing messages like "Clinton Country."
But the mood was hushed inside a wood-paneled room in the college's administration building, where NBC anchor Brian Williams huddled with producers, reviewing the questions he would pose to the eight Democratic candidates that evening.
The anchor popped an Excedrin as he scanned the pages marked up with blue ink, his leg bouncing rapidly under the table. This would be the third moderation of a presidential debate for Williams, a political junkie who can quote passages of the Almanac of American Politics almost verbatim. But he seemed uncharacteristically apprehensive as he contemplated the task ahead.
"I'm not wild about the potential exposure," said Williams, already clad in the dark blue suit and violet tie he would wear onstage. "People shoot the messenger these days."
Thursday's debate, which aired on MSNBC and local NBC affiliates in South Carolina, kicked off a jam-packed year of televised candidate forums that will probably test the media that conduct them as much as the contenders themselves.
With robust online communities on the left and the right poised to pounce on any signs of bias, major news organizations face aggressive challenging of their fairness like never before.
"There's a lot of pushback," said Democratic strategist Bill Carrick. "We always had the conservative talk show clamor that the mainstream media is liberal. This is beyond that."
He continued: "There's just a higher level of scrutiny.,"
Earlier this year, CBS anchor Katie Couric was bombarded with criticism after she pressed former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) about why he decided to stay in the race after his wife's cancer returned. Liberal activists raised such a ruckus about Fox News moderating Democratic debates -- they said the channel had a conservative bias -- that one scheduled for August in Nevada was canceled.
To Williams, the stepped-up focus can be healthy.
"It makes you incredibly careful," the 47-year-old anchor said.
Still, going into Thursday's debate, he aimed to block out the inevitable second-guessing that would follow.
