Date : 11.12.08
Printable version

From January, BBC World News will broadcast Intelligence Squared, a series of topical debates, taking place in London and New York, which are set to stimulate and challenge the channel's audience across the world.

Intelligence Squared is an established debate forum founded in the UK six years ago. It attracts many of the world’s finest speakers and includes audience participation and a vote on the outcome.

The first debate’s motion is “George W. Bush is the worst American president of the last fifty years”. It will be broadcast on BBC World News from 10 January and speakers include Karl Rove, former-Deputy Chief of Staff to George W. Bush; William Kristol, Editor of The Weekly Standard; Jacob Weisberg, author of The Bush Tragedy; and British journalist, Simon Jenkins.

This will be followed in February with a debate from London, with the motion “The United Nations is terminally paralysed: the democratic world needs a forum of its own”. In March the motion will be “Major carbon reductions are not worth the money.”

The debates will be chaired by BBC World News presenter Zeinab Badawi in London and ABC News’ John Donvan in New York.

Mary Wilkinson, Commissioning Editor, BBC World News says: “We are extremely excited about broadcasting the Intelligence Squared debates to the BBC World News audience. Combining current and provocative issues with high-profile panellists, we are confident the series will appeal to the channel’s 78 million weekly viewers around the globe.”

Intelligence Squared is broadcast on radio in the US, and is an initiative of the Rosenkranz foundation. Chairman Robert Rosenkranz says: “The BBC World News series will engage a global television audience in the same high level discourse that radio listeners in the US have so appreciated.”

Series Editor, Nick Pisani, was Editor of BBC 1’s Question Time for six years, and is CEO of Intelligence Squared in London. The US debates are produced by five-time Emmy award winner Dana Wolfe, a former producer at ABC News Nightline.


For more details contact bbcworldnewspressoffice@bbc.com