In this election cycle, the media are part of the story. Whether journalists are lobbing softball questions to the candidates or parroting ridiculous “gotcha” lines, the public increasingly has to scrutinize the media almost as much as our future leaders.

Last night, 2,500 people tuned in to the vice presidential debate with a watchful eye on the moderator, Gwen Ifill of PBS. Free Press launched the “Citizens Media Scorecard” to allow viewers to weigh in on how each moderator handles the debates. The few journalists selected to participate in the debates -- and the media narrative that follows -- play a major role in determining our next president. They must be held accountable.

Did Ifill ask relevant questions? Did she play favorites, as many in the blogosphere feared she would? The results are in:

Overall, her performance was praised. Ifill received higher marks from Obama partisans for conducting an extremely serious and relevant debate (74% vs. 56% for McCain's), for showing no favoritism (94% vs. 52%), and for overall excellence (55% vs. 23%).

But both groups tended to criticize her for being too reticent (70% of Obama voters, 75% of McCain's) in challenging the factual accuracy of the debaters' statements.

Both groups scolded Ifill for skipping the topics of Social Security (84%) and immigration (81%). The major disagreement was on the topic of poverty: Half of the McCain voters in our panel thought its treatment was "just right" (53%); most of the Obama voters called it "not enough" (83%).

About half of Obama's supporters (51%) criticized Ifill for failing to spend more time questioning Palin about her readiness and qualifications to be vice president, whereas many fewer McCain supporters (29%) offered equivalent criticism concerning questions about Biden.

Yet large majorities of both groups of supporters approved of Ifill's choice of questions as giving just the right amount of time to six major issues: nuclear proliferation (76%), global warming (74%), war & peace (73%), the global war on terrorism (73%), tax policy (70%) and energy policy (70%).

Read the rest of the results here.

There are two more debates left, and two more chances to rate them. We can’t simply hope that our journalists deliver the debate performances that will lead to more informed voters. We have to demand it.

The moderators need to know we’re tuning in to the debates to watch them. Sign up to rate the debates today.