“Memo To Chuck Todd”: Your Job Is The Thing You Think Isn’t Your Job
With the word that NBC correspondent Chuck Todd will replace David Gregory as the host of the withered carcass that is Meet the Press, the chattering classes left and right are offering their advice on reanimating the corpse of the once-proud Sunday talk show. Ultimately, though, there is only piece of guidance for the Beltway’s new goateed gatekeeper. Simply seek the truth. Unfortunately, that is precisely the task Chuck Todd has argued is not part of his job description as a journalist.
Todd’s acknowledgement that the media’s role is to merely amplify the sound bites of political partisans came during a discussion of the Affordable Care Act last September. Almost four years after Politifact named “death panels” its 2009 Lie of the Year and three years since “government takeover of health care” won its 2010 crown, the future Meet the Press talking point purveyor explained to viewers that unearthing and communicating objective truth is not the media’s job. When Ed Rendell lamented that Americans were misinformed about Obamacare, Todd protested:
“But more importantly, it’s stuff that Republicans successfully messaged against it and they wouldn’t have heard…they don’t repeat other stuff because they haven’t even heard the Democratic message. What I always love is people say ‘it’s your fault in the media.’ No, it’s the President of the United States’ fault for not selling it.”
That same day, Todd took to Twitter to repeat his point:
Somebody decided to troll w/mislding headline: point I actually made was folks shouldn’t expect media to do job WH has FAILED to do re: ACA
But after eight hours of absorbing a pounding online, he returned to Twitter to clarify his clarification:
I was NOT saying it isn’t job of journos to call out lies, I said it was not job of media to sell WH’s health care message, it is WH’s job
Despite that embarrassing episode, Chuck Todd hasn’t always represented a net subtraction from the sum of human knowledge. He has, in fact, committed acts of journalism. As the GOP’s “Defund Obamacare” campaign ramped up over the summer of 2013, Todd used his NBC “First Read” column to actively illuminate rather than passively mislead. As he put it on July 9:
Here’s a thought exercise on this summer morning: Imagine that after the controversial Medicare prescription-drug legislation was passed into law in 2003, Democrats did everything they could to thwart one of George W. Bush’s top domestic achievements. They launched Senate filibusters to block essential HHS appointees from administering the law; they warned the sports and entertainment industries from participating in any public service announcements to help seniors understand how the law works; and, after taking control of the House of Representatives in 2007, they used the power of the purse to prohibit any more federal funds from being used to implement the law. As it turns out, none of that happened.
That’s exactly right. Despite their opposition to the Part D legislation, Democrats didn’t just refuse to obstruct Bush’s wildly unpopular and completely unfunded $400 billion windfall for insurers and pharmaceutical firms. In Washington and in the states, Democrats helped ensure the successful implementation of a Republican program whose 2006 launch even John Boehner acknowledged was “horrendous.”
Todd was right to highlight the polar opposite partisan responses to President Bush’s Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and President Obama’s Affordable Care Act of 2010 to provide Americans with context for the unprecedented Republican obstruction of Obamacare. The truth, it turns out, will set you free.
And seeking the truth– not fluffing John McCain’s pillow–is exactly what “junkie” Chuck Todd the “virtual vacuum sweeper when it comes to political facts, figures and analysis” should do every Sunday morning.
By: Jon Perr, Crooks and Liars, August 16, 2014
“Basically Unwatchable”: Cancel ‘Meet The Press’; Why This Icon Of Beltway Insiderism Has To Go
It feels like we go through this same routine every few months or so. “Meet the Press” reaches some new low point for ratings, and chatter starts building about how time is running out for host David Gregory. The newest round of speculation comes courtesy of the New York Post and Page Six, which cites “an NBC source” in reporting that Gregory will be given the boot after the midterm elections. NBC, of course, denies all this as mere rumor-mongering and says that they’re sticking with Gregory.
The network’s commitment to Gregory as host of “Meet the Press” is a bit confounding, given that during his tenure the show has collapsed in viewership and has become basically unwatchable. NBC would be completely justified in giving him the boot. And after it does that, it should take the next logical step and just cancel “Meet the Press.”
Forget about a new host, forget about juggling the format, forget about more celebrity guest panelists. They should burn it down from top to bottom.
The problem with “Meet the Press” is that it’s too much of an icon of insider D.C. culture. Its role as a public affairs program has been usurped by a small army of vacant pundits who serve up shallow, predictable opinions that never stray too far from accepted conventional wisdom. And it’s always the same rotating cast of talking heads. Since the beginning of 2013, Newt Gingrich has appeared five times on the program. Rudy Giuliani has made four appearances. Harold Ford Jr. has been on seven times. Nobody gives a thin damn what these people have to say. The past few months have seen Gregory host both Tony Blair and Paul Wolfowitz to discuss violence in Iraq and how the U.S. should fight terrorism. It’s almost as if he’s inviting you not to take him seriously.
Essentially, the show has become a playground for people whose primary calling in life is to be around people in power. And when you look at the names most often mentioned as replacements for Gregory, you don’t see much hope of this dynamic changing. Chuck Todd, who is considered the front-runner for the gig owing to his reputation as a “political junkie,” is as much a devotee of Beltway insiderism as Gregory, and exhibits the sort of forced-centrist behavior that serious pundits believe insulates them from accusations of bias.
The other names that frequently get tossed around? “Morning Joe” hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, who basically already host their own version of David Gregory’s “Meet the Press” – unwatchable, power-worshiping, dripping with elite condescension, and weirdly tolerant of Harold Ford.
This is a problem facing all the Sunday shows: They’ve become basically indistinguishable from each other, and they’re all fighting for the same dwindling segment of the population that still cares to spend their weekend mornings watching a bunch of (mostly male and white) establishment figures politely argue about politics. Each one is an hour-long exercise in confirmation bias for wealthy old people who want their opinions mouthed back at them by other wealthy old people.
“Meet the Press” under Gregory has tried to shake things up a bit while still hewing to the same tired format, and it’s been a disaster. The average show can feature as many as eight or 10 guests and segments that shift rapidly from one topic to the next without ever pausing to really engage with any of them. The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi described a prototypical show this past April, during the last round of speculation surrounding Gregory’s future:
After opening with Gregory’s taped interview with Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the host moved swiftly to live dual-screen chats with Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). Then it was on to the journalists’ roundtable discussion, followed by an interview with Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) about health care and the midterm elections.
Then, still more segments: A new recorded feature called “Meeting America” in which reporter Kevin Tibbles looks at something happening outside Washington (in this case, a debate in Kentucky over the building of a Biblical theme park using tax subsidies); more roundtable discussion; and a photos-of-the-week feature called “Images to Remember.” The program closed with a short interview with New York Times reporter Jo Becker about her new book about gay marriage, “Forcing the Spring.”
A program that frenetic virtually guarantees that nothing interesting will happen. “More interviews, more voices, does not automatically lead to more ‘interesting’ content,” Dave Weigel wrote back in May. “It leads to more content in less time—and less exploration of each subject covered. It robs the Sunday shows of their old advantage, their ability to lock subjects in a well-lit room for most of an hour and boil away their talking points.”
“A Shallow Television Political Reporter”: NBC Analyzing Poor David Gregory To See What Makes His Show So Bad
If it’s Monday, it’s NBC embarrassing itself in front of everyone. Today, the Washington Post’s Paul Farhi brings us the story of a network that can’t figure out why “Meet the Press” isn’t the runaway ratings smash it used to be. (This is not the first piece of this year exploring that subject.) Is the problem host David Gregory? They sent in experts to figure it out:
Last year, the network undertook an unusual assessment of the 43-year-old journalist, commissioning a psychological consultant to interview his friends and even his wife. The idea, according to a network spokeswoman, Meghan Pianta, was “to get perspective and insight from people who know him best.” But the research project struck some at NBC as odd, given that Gregory has been employed there for nearly 20 years.
Well, how absolutely humiliating, to have this reported in the Washington Post. (NBC disputes the use of the word “psychological,” claiming they brought in a “brand consultant.”)
Is there something psychologically wrong with David Gregory? No, besides the usual superhuman vanity of a television professional. He is just not a great host of a news talk show! He is incurious. He asks predictable questions and is not informed enough to ask follow-ups that go beyond the scope of his briefing materials.
“Strangling, Even Without A Tie”: NBC Is Sticking With David Gregory As “Meet The Press” Slowly Dies
NBC’s “Meet the Press” is in trouble. After dominating the Sunday morning ratings war for decades, it has lately faltered, coming in third in the fourth quarter of 2013. Critics and media writers think host David Gregory ought to be replaced. But NBC executives, according to Michael Calderone, are sticking with Gregory. “We’re doubling down on David Gregory right now,” says NBC News senior vice president Alex Wallace. (Wallace may not understand that the phrase “double down” refers to knowingly making a high-risk bet. If that’s the case, she is not alone.)
While they are sticking with Gregory, NBC executives are not too proud to make some desperate grabs for a younger audience. Millions of people still watch the Sunday shows, but few of those viewers are under the age of 55. Network news executives and producers are keen to reach a younger demographic, but unwilling to make some of the more radical changes — like having a non-idiot host and not inviting John McCain on every goddamn week — that may attract a more youthful audience. Instead, NBC’s gambit is having David Gregory do additional interviews and panel discussions to be aired on “the Internet,” a global computer network known to be popular with the non-retired set. To emphasize that he is, as the kids say, “with it,” Gregory will sometimes not wear a tie.
Gregory has long done web-only interviews (“Press Pass”) for the “Meet the Press 24/7″ page, and has been conducting interviews over Twitter (“Tweet the Press”) in the past few months. On Thursday, NBC News launched “Meet the Press Express,” a mid-week digital video series, hosted by Gregory, which features a rotating group of journalists from the network’s Washington bureau.
In a play on the NCAA tournament, Gregory, sans tie, spoke with Roll Call’s Christina Bellantoni, The Atlantic’s Molly Ball, and the Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery about their political brackets, and the group sized up the futures of key political players. The “Meet the Press Express” discussions are expected to be more casual than the Sunday roundtable and to feature a younger generation of political journalists who may someday appear on the television show alongside, say, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman or historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Brackets … but for politics? That’s just the sort of outside-the-box approach to political analysis that appeals to a guy like me, an 18-54-year-old male consumer.
All the network Sunday shows, “Meet the Press” included, are notorious for their conservative (in every sense of the word) booking choices. Old, white center-right men dominate the interviews and panels, with the same few faces appearing again and again. So it’s nice to hear that “Meet the Press” will finally feature some younger, fresher voices. But … only on the Web, apparently. Because they are, in some sense, auditioning to be allowed to sit at the Sunday morning grown-ups table with respected elders like Bill Kristol.
But “Meet the Press” is not losing viewers to “Face the Nation” and “This Week” because those shows skew younger — Bob Scheiffer is no one’s idea of a teen idol and those shows have nearly identical booking practices. “Meet the Press” is declining because it’s not the definitive version of its thing — the Sunday morning political chat show — anymore, and its competitors offer essentially the exact same product, giving no one a reason to remain loyal to one over the others.
So I will give NBC some credit. The solution is not to replace Gregory with someone like Chuck Todd, the human incarnation of the odious phrase “politics junkie.” That show would be largely the same. Instead, the network will apparently allow Gregory to continue to guide “Meet the Press” toward its inevitable, long-overdue demise. Which is fine! If there has to be a “Meet the Press” I’d prefer a good one to the current bad one, but there doesn’t actually have to be a “Meet the Press.”
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, March 21, 2014
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