The Radicalization of Sunday Morning Talk -- And Not a Moment Too Soon

Lately I have experienced feelings of amusement, optimism, and aggravation when observing the parallel worlds that exist in the universe of cable and network television political talk shows.

I am writing this on Sunday morning, June 10.  

On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” and ABC News’s “This Week, with George Stephanopolous;” on CNN’s “State of the Union,” there are panels of guests that I think of as the Usual Suspects. (NBC’s workhorse Sunday political talk program, “Meet the Press” was pre-empted on June 10 but it’s long track-record of offering up homogeneous guest lists is well-documented. )  Of those ‘establishment’ political talk programs, only “This Week,” at ABC featured one guest who can safely be described as ‘non-traditional’  -- Van Jones (though denizens of certain media and political circles in DC understand that Jones is quite established, if not exactly a member of the Establishment.)  David Axelrod, Senior Strategist for President Obama’s re-election campaign, even managed to appear on two programs in this same morning, CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ and ABC’s “This Week.”

Meanwhile, on the cable television network MSNBC, the line up of guests on two relatively new weekend political talk programs – “Up, with Chris Hayes,” and "The Melissa Harris Perry Show" -- on June 10 were refreshingly non-traditional.  More than just this past weekend’s guest line-ups, though, there is another important feature of "Up," and "The MHPS:"  Both programs' consistent delivery of high level conversations about current affairs that are meaty, expansive and (sometimes) counter-intuitive.  

The discussions taking place at “Up” and “The Melissa Harris Perry Show’ effectively highlight the increasing irrelevance of the counterpart political talk programs on NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN.  Leaving aside the political partisanship aspect – for surely no one will argue that Hayes and Perry are not presiding over liberal-oriented discussions – the nagging absence of meaningful explorations of important topics on the ‘traditional’ political talk programs is now starkly evident.  Further, while Hayes and Perry may indeed hold liberal ideas and values, their discussions are scrupulously fair-minded and their guest-lists occasionally bipartisan.

In full disclosure, I have to say here that Hayes is a former colleague at the Nation, and he served as my informal envoy to covering national electoral politics in DC back in 2008 when I was a Fellow at The Nation Institute. Perry, while not a personal acquaintance, also writes for my alma mater, The Nation, and maintains a professional network that overlaps my own. However I am also a media critic, and it is under the media critic’s hat that I am sharing my opinions on these two programs at this time.

Until now, I refrained from commenting on these new political talk shows -- and about the disparate, parallel worlds that are now starkly visible -- for two reasons: A)  I am inherently ambivalent about national political talk programs that are partisan, and B), I wanted to observe both programs for several editions, since I am aware of the challenges of mounting a start up, and of the steep learning curve to finding one’s editorial and operational footing in the merciless fishbowl of a national broadcast medium. 

But after watching both programs for many weeks now, I am happy to report that both are bringing much-needed fresh air and warming sunlight to a genre that had been stuck in the 20th Century.  I cannot say that “Up’ or “The Melissa Harris Perry Show” will be the saviors of the national political television talk show but they have updated -- and I daresay vastly improved --  the field.

“Up” in particular, is fascinating. Hayes, for all his newness in big time television (or maybe because of his newness)  has successfully grasped a cultural development that producers and hosts at the other leading political talk programs overlook:  Viewers are residing in the US at a time of epic demographic and economic change, and they are hungrier than ever for individuals and discussions in media that reflect their concerns and their experiences.

More pointedly, growing numbers of viewers understand intrinsically that national ‘experts’ on the pressing domestic and international topics of the day – the economy, education, war, and poverty – are not exclusively the Usual Suspects, i.e., middle aged white male politicians, policy wonks, educators or corporate leaders. On “Up,” and at “The Melissa Harris Perry Show,’  the hosts and producers (aka ‘bookers’) have successfully displayed, weekend after weekend since these shows debuted, line-ups of guest ‘experts’ that are probably revelatory for millions of Americans -- viewers who had become accustomed to only hearing from the David Frums and Anne Colters and David Gergens of the New York-DC pundit ranks.  

Yes, this distinction to some degree is superficial, and I am aware that saying such a thing might give rise to accusations that I am advocating for a brand of on-air affirmative action quotas in political talk show guest lists. So fire away on that, if you wish.  What I am describing is an important shift within a leading (if imperfect) mass media space.  Cable and network television news organizations are struggling to hang on to and/or grow audiences; a cynic might also argue that bringing ethnic and class inclusion to the content and guest-lists of two national political talk programs is a gimmick designed to appeal to the growing populations of black and brown residents of the USA.

But come now.  Economic considerations drive any network’s programming decisions. And in a fundamentally pragmatic sense, whatever the political motivations for baking race and class inclusion into the content and guest-lists of “Up” and “The Melissa Harris Perry Show,”  the truth of the matter is that it makes smart business strategy to build programs that have a shot at appealing to the looming New Majority in America – Latinos, Asians, and tech-savvy young people of all ethnic stripes.

There is also this: News and information on national broadcast systems has, for at least three decades now, been inching inexorably into the entertainment section of mass media, as Marty Kaplan of the University of California’s Norman Lear Center succinctly laid out during a recent edition of  PBS' “Moyers & Company.”  As a veteran journalist, I am well aware of this creep, and find it worrying indeed, particularly during this era when global social and economic developments whipsaw around and land in our front yards faster than the speed of light, rendering the need for accurate, well-reported news and yes,  opinion, more important than ever.

But we've got to work with what we have;  most of us have little choice but to live where we are.  The ascension of social media has amplified this shift of news into the 'entertainment box,' as Kaplan put it, and it is wise to develop strong media literacy chops and a grounded set of values when considering the current landscape of what passes currently as 'news,' whether in opinion or 'just the facts' formats. 

Thus, here is what I personally find ‘entertaining’ about “Up” and “The Melissa Harris Perry Show’ (in contrast to the conventional fare at other cable and network political programs):  The spectacle of panel after panel of ‘experts’ who know their stuff….and who also happen to look, talk, and ‘present’ like people that I move among every day. More pointedly, guest panels that represent the best and brightest of what America can offer, from across the spectrum of key disciplines.

  

How radical is that?  

Go Ahead, "Lean Forward." But Watch Your Back...and Don't Get Taken In.

The videos of the ill-fated OWS street action in Oakland the other day churned my stomach.

I mean, really. So many urgent questions, starting with, Who is training these activists?

Followed fast by, Will any cable TV political chat show hosts take responsibility for having ginned up the OWS-ers, for having worked them up to such a degree that they felt safe enough to face off with cops?


From what I have viewed of the recent Oakland situation, and the Wall Street, pepper-spray incidents of a few weeks ago, there are apparently more protestors concerned with turning cameras on cops than on getting the hell out of the way.

I chalk this up to youthful ignorance -- but also to the influence of partisan cheer-leading found on a multitude of news-ish sites on the Interwebs, and on the 24/7 cable TV news channels.

In particular, MSNBC's prime time programming is to be singled out for its egging on of the OWS-ers coast to coast.

"Lean Forward" is the cable network's marketing "house-ad" message-frame, and the spots (which air daily, across all the cable network's programming) feature hosts Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow, and Ed Schultz, earnestly sharing their (liberal-tinged) thoughts about how America is in a battle between Good and Evil. I am a San Francisco Liberal, and media Old Head, which is to say that I appreciate the ads for their slick ability to convey clearly the high stakes bound up in our present political landscape.

Yet I do worry that the "Lean Forward" ad campaign -- accompanied by a weeknight prime time line up that is vociferously, unapolagetically Left-leaning -- is not serving well the American people. No, I am NOT going neo-con, and I am equally opposed to the Fox News Channel's equally one-sided (Conservative) political bent.

But the Liberal me lives within the same spirit, brain, memory, and body as my Journalist. And I am inherently -- well, from training and experience -- reluctant to let the Liberal in me drive the Journalist unquestioned.

The cops in SF, Oakland and Berkeley are widely known (among natives) for being militarized. This is not news....unless you don't know the history, or have the wherewithal to look it up...or don't care to report it.

The videos of the Oakland "Occupy" protest demonstrated to me foremost that even the best-intentioned among us -- including high-profile Liberal, "activists turned TV news people" -- are ignorant about key aspects of our recent American history. The folks we see in the recent Occupy Oakland videos are not mindless 'bots but I bet you dollars to donuts that they felt emboldened by what they view on MSNBC and what they have heard in the past two weeks on other liberal-leaning broadcasts. They did so at their own peril.

Has anyone in MSNBC's editorial braintrust at 30 Rock in New York watched the KRON TV footage showing how the cops responded during the multitude of protests in the '60s and '70s in the Bay Area? (KRON was the NBC affiliate in SF for many years.) How about footage of the cops' handling of the homeless camps that sprang up around San Francisco City Hall during the 1980s, anybody at MSNBC bother to watch those images? Probably not.

I ask because I know from those situations that cops will brutalize OWS activists; I know this because I have seen them brutalize homeless advocates, ACT-UP members, and the shaggy Food Not Bombs kids. So what I want to know is:

Why wouldn't a responsible "newscaster" in 2011, especially one who flies proudly the flag of "activist," not warn their viewers/followers of this, even as they gin them up with segments and reports clearly designed to spur street activism?

Sure, Frank Rich delivered a sweeping piece in the recent edition of New York magazine on a long-ago showdown between Real People fed up with being left out by the Fat Cats. Rich tells the story of the Bonus Army, those Depression-era, middle and working class Americans who thronged the District of Columbia in protest of income inequality and job losses in the bleak years following an orgy of excess from early corporate titans and Robber Barons.

Rich's piece is instructive, if thin on the role of media back then. The piece does mention a favorite touchstone figure of postmodern Liberal media columnists, Father Coughlin, a "populist" who railed against class inequality on a popular radio program during the '30s.

Well guess what? The speed, vehemence, and utter pervasiveness of media today is even more influential than in Father Coughlin's day, far outstripping what existed in the '30s or in the intervening years. And more acute, too, is the vast income gap that exists between those who hold media perches that have wide reach -- such as cable TV political show hosts, and top editors and writers at the NY Times and the Washington Post -- and the rest of Americans.

David Carr at The NY Times wrote a cute, timely column early this week suggesting that Journalists should consider an "Occupy the Newsroom" movement, spurred by the crazy lucrative exit packages and bonuses received by some media company executives even while their editorial operations are vanishing. I think Carr didn't go far enough: The experienced, trained, well-paid Journalists still hanging on in "legacy" news organizations should protest the disappearance of black, brown, and others from their ranks who are "non-traditional," aka, from working-class families.

Yes, I am pissed off. No, I don't give a crap if you think that All Black Women are Pissed Off. My professional profile is what it is, I am quite accomplished, thank you very much; I am capable of (and spoiling to, frankly) standing up on this. The alleged "thought-leaders" of media today -- whatever the delivery platform -- are either "vets" who helped screw up the old model or "digital natives" who are so clueless about life that they might just screw up whatever comes next.

Much as the Fox News "journalists" ginned up the Tea Partiers in the summer of '09 with their highly-partisan, ill-informed reports, the "journalists" at MSNBC have ginned up the OWS-ers who are now getting their asses kicked on the streets of our cities.

Rachel Maddow, Lawrence, O'Donnell, Bill Maher, and their kin at FOX, ABC, and NBC have not, to my knowledge, ever been street reporters.

They claim to be "truth-tellers," yet the 50-thousand foot altitude of much of their rhetoric is absent a crucial element known to any Old School Journalist who has covered large-scale domestic disturbances in the US during the past half-century: Verify and report. Yes, people, Cops in many cities nationwide are militarized. They have been militarized since the street actions of the '60s.

It doesn't matter if you are politically opposed to this admittedly unfortunate reality. If you are a "news anchor," what matters is that you refrain from presenting reports that are wholly designed to inflame your (politically partisan) viewers to engage in confrontations with these local armies....without letting them also know that the local cops will fuck them up.

The decimation of the ranks of qualified, trained journalists of color is not discussed by Maddow and others, likely because they are the beneficiaries of this development. While we were learning the ways of Corporate Journalism -- whitewashing, downplaying, masking, the grit and resolve that led us to become Journalists in the first place -- these late-coming arrivistes were hanging out in their parents' homes, or attending college or knocking around in activist or entertainment, or corporate environments.

And when the winds of corporate media turned away from "objective, Just the Facts Ma'am" reporting that had been the standard for more than a century, toward a product that is infused with entertainment, the gatekeepers looked not for black and brown trained journalists -- many of whom also have "agendas" -- but to academics and activists who were telegenic, and "familiar," if highly partisan.

If you care about the process of verification (which is what Journalism IS, people, not a big mystery, but not easy to carry out faithfully, day after day), you might ask yourself this:

What will it mean in the future if everyone in the US who calls herself a "Journalist" is really not interested in verifying anything more than what they already think they know?

"Lean Forward," indeed, Dear Viewer.

Just be sure to verify, as much as you trust. And do your best not to blindly fall in.