From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.

Brooke Gladstone is away.

I'm Bob Carfield.

This was a busy week controlling the message-wise.

Following last week's CNBC debate, deemed a debacle by the Republican presidential hopefuls

and their party, the competing campaigns got together to dictate more favorable terms for ensuing encounters.

GOP lawyer Ben Ginsberg drafted a list of demands that was leaked to the Washington Post.

The representatives considered a list of format demands, ranging from the forms of questions and time allotments to the types of microphones and maximum temperature inside the room. That's a 67 degrees, by the way.

As of this recording, no campaign had formerly attached itself to the letter, but that didn't stop their demands from being roundly mocked.

Fox News Channel's Megan Kelly.

The network should commit that they will not ask handraising questions, yes or no questions,

allow candidate to candidate questions, and then maybe like the foot massage or like a little...

Yes, the ridicule of control freakdom even included Fox.

And presently, we shall join the chorus.

But, as it turns out, this year's candidates' wish for control isn't so especially freakish.

Alan Schroeder is a professor at Northeastern University's School of Journalism

and the author of Presidential Debates, 50 Years of High Risk TV.

He says that the candidates desire to reduce their exposure to disaster is altogether routine.

As a debate geek who reads these documents a lot, there really wasn't anything particularly

surprising on that list of demands. The one that did

catch me a little off guard was candidates would have control over the on-screen graphics,

the little descriptors that are shown on the screen while they're talking. And apparently that came

...