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Bob Schieffer.

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"I still think there's a place for the evening news. When you look at the combined audience of the three [network newscasts], they don't have nearly the audience that they did when there were only three or four stations on your television dial. But a sizable number of people out there want a summary of the important news of the day."

You've agreed to moderate the presidential debate at Hofstra University, in New York, on October 15. Why do you enjoy that sort of thing?

Let me tell you, it's more fun than anything you can do as a reporter. I don't see how it gets any better. This year we're going to have a different format. We're going to divide the debates into eight 10-minute segments. I'll pose the first question at the beginning of the segment and leave it to the candidates to answer. Then they will ask each other follow-up questions, and we'll just see where it goes on that subject. If they don't ask follow-ups, I can interject and ask the follow-ups for them. So I think we'll really get to see a contrast.

It's a big deal, isn't it, when you're asked to be a moderator.

I moderated one of the debates between Bush and Kerry in 2004, and I must say, I'd covered a lot of big stories in my career, but from the standpoint of intellectual challenge, that was the biggest one ever. The second part of it was, I was standing backstage getting ready to go on, and for the first time in 25 years, I actually got butterflies.

I would have thought you'd seen it all.

It's funny. People always ask me, "Do you get nervous on television?" The truth is, I don't. I've done it so long. It's like professional sports: First you learn to play the game, then you learn to play in front of people, and then you don't think about the audience anymore. But that night, thinking the debate might well decide who was going to be the next president, I really did get nervous. I walked onstage, the red light came on, and the professionalism kicked in.

One of the benefits of debates is that you get a really good understanding of who these candidates are. In this case, though, don't we already know an awful lot about them?

We do. But the thing is, you'll see them on the same stage at the same time, and you can really compare. "Okay, Mr. Obama, you want to do this about Iraq. Mr. McCain, you want to do...

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