FARAI CHIDEYA, 34, moderated the third Democratic Presidential Debate last September, and has contributed political analysis and commentary for CNN, MTV, Fox, MSNBC, BET, CBS and ABC. She was named to Newsweek's "Century Club" of 100 people to watch, placed number seven in PoliticsOnline.com's worldwide survey of "25 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics," and received awards including a National Education Reporting Award, a Unity Award in Media, a GLAAD Award, and a MOBE IT Innovator award.

Chideya has been covering politics professionally for fifteen years, and first wrote about politics for a national publication at the age of sixteen. She's published articles in newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, Time, Spin, Vibe, O, Mademoiselle and Essence. Chideya has also published three books: "Don't Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation About African Americans," (Plume Penguin, 1995), "The Color of Our Future," (William Morrow, 1999), and "Trust: Reaching the 100 Million Missing Voters" (Soft Skull, 2004), which illustrates why half of Americans are cut out of the political system - and what we can do about it. Chideya completed a Freedom Forum Media Studies Center fellowship, examining why young Americans are tuning out the news, and anchored the prime time program "Pure Oxygen" on the Oxygen women's channel.

In addition to her work as a television political analyst, she currently hosts Your Call Radio, a political and cultural call-in show, on San Francisco's KALW 91.7 FM. In conjunction with San Francisco State University, she has also re-launched PopandPolitics, an online journal of news and opinion founded in 1995.