The 32-page agreement sets out the rules for the debates with great specificity, down to details such as the temperature of the hall, what kind of paper can be used to take notes and who can stand in the wings.

And oddly the networks seem to be growing something resembling a backbone:

“Because of journalistic standards, we’re not going to follow outside restrictions,” said Paul Schur, a spokesman for Fox News, which is manning the pool camera for the first debate Thursday in Miami, Florida.

“This is a news pool, and we are not subject to agreements between candidates,” NBC News spokeswoman Barbara Levin said. “We will use pictures as we see fit.”

Update: Here are The Top 10 things they don’t want you to know about the debates, which is serious food for thought. Example:

(10.) They aren’t debates!

“A debate is a head-to-head, spontaneous, structured argument over the merits of an issue,” Rice says. “Under the ridiculous 32-page contract that reads like the rules for the Miss America Pageant, there will be no candidate-to-candidate questions, no rebuttal to your opponent’s points, no cross questions or cross answers, no rebuttals, no follow-up questions — that’s not a debate, that’s a news conference.”