“Sixty Festering Minutes Of Crap”: Why Do The Sunday Shows Suck So Much?
In the American media landscape, there is no single forum more prestigious than the Sunday shows—particularly the three network programs, and to a slightly lesser extent “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union.” The Sunday shows are where “newsmakers” face the music, where Washington’s most important people are validated for their importance, where issues are probed in depth. So, why do they suck so much?
I live and breathe politics, yet I find these programs absolutely unwatchable, and I can’t be the only one. On a typical episode, there is nothing to learn, no insight to be gained, no interesting perspective on offer, nothing but an endless spew of talking points and squabbling. Let’s take, for instance, yesterday’s installment of “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” We start off with dueling interviews with Obama adviser Robert Gibbs and Romney adviser Ed Gillespie. Were you expecting some candid talk from these two political veterans? Of course you weren’t. “If you’re willing to say anything to get elected president,” Gibbs says about Mitt Romney, “if you are willing to make up your positions and walk away from them, I think the American people have to understand, how can they trust you if you are elected president.” Which just happens to be precisely the message of a new Obama ad. What a fascinating coincidence! And you’ll be shocked to learn that Gillespie thought Romney did a great job in the debate: “Governor Romney laid out a plan for turning this economy around, getting things moving again. He had a fact-based critique of President Obama’s failed policies that the president was unable to respond to.” You don’t say!
Then we move to the roundtable, featuring, naturally, the stylings of James Carville and Mary Matalin. I just have to know what these two are thinking, because whatever it is, it certainly won’t be just “Your guy sucks! No, your guy sucks!” Of course, that’s exactly what it will be. Add in Peggy Noonan and her empathic super-powers to determine what the country is feeling and feel it right back at us, Jonathan Karl to repeat some poll numbers and conventional wisdom, and Paul Krugman to grow increasingly exasperated as he attempts without much success to yank the discussion back to reality, and you’ve got yourself a barn-burner of a debate.
Switch channels, and you’ll find some politicians angling for a 2016 presidential nomination come on one of the other Sunday shows to get asked questions about the polls and repeat the same things their co-partisans are saying. If you’re lucky (actually, it won’t take luck, because you can find it every Sunday), you can watch one of the two party chairs deliver those same messages. Has there ever been a single human being in America who has said, “Wow, that interview with Reince Priebus was really interesting”? Or said the same thing about an interview with Debbie Wasserman Schultz? It’s not because they’re terrible people, it’s because as party leaders their job is to come on the air and spout talking points with maniacal discipline, no matter what they get asked. And they’re good at that job. But if you listen to them for a while, it begins to feel like a virus of cynicism is eating its way through your brain.
I wonder what the producers of these shows say to each other as they’re putting together their programs. “Hey boss, we locked down Reince Priebus for Sunday!” “Awesome—the show is going to be great!” “I hope Carville and Matalin aren’t busy—they’ll bring the heat!” “Ooo, you know who we should try for? John McCain! He’s only been on our show 12 times this year, and I know people are dying to hear what he has to say.”
There could be another way. For instance, “Up With Chris Hayes” on MSNBC shows what the Sunday shows could be. Hayes doesn’t bother interviewing politicians or party hacks; instead, he brings on people who know a lot about whatever issue they’ll be discussing, aren’t constrained by the need to score partisan points, and might have something interesting to say. With a little creativity, you could come up with any number of models for how to make programs that are interesting and informative.
But the Sunday shows don’t seem to have any desire to change the 60 festering minutes of crap they splurt through the airwaves every weekend. The three network programs combine for around eight and a half million viewers every week, and I’m sure everyone involved thinks they’re a great success.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, October 8, 2012
“A Moment Of Silence, Please”: MSNBC And Pat Buchanan Part Ways
It’s officially the end of an era for MSNBC and Pat Buchanan. How … anticlimactic:
My days as a political analyst at MSNBC have come to an end.After 10 enjoyable years, I am departing, after an incessant clamor from the left that to permit me continued access to the microphones of MSNBC would be an outrage against decency, and dangerous.
The calls for my firing began almost immediately with the Oct. 18 publication of Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?? […]
Pat then goes on to blame loudmouthed Obama supporters, homosexuals, Jews, and I don’t know, maybe werewolves. Yeah, let’s say werewolves.
Buchanan’s recent book may have been MSNBC’s excuse for finally taking him off the air for good, but it seems mostly to be a “final straw” sort of thing. Buchanan has been mourning the downfall of white America for a considerable time now, so this latest book was hardly new ground for him. He has been accused of anti-Semitism even by such conservative stalwarts as William F. Buckley, and got in hot water a few years ago for a bizarre column proposing that Hitler was misunderstood. No, his pissy statement sells himself rather short on the number of ridiculously bigoted things that would regularly come from his mouth. No matter what he said on air or off, though, the network would always prop him up in front of the television cameras.
Well, it’s not like he died or anything. We’ll still be hearing from him. Maybe Fox News will give him a home, since that seems to be where discredited pundits who have otherwise worn out their welcome in polite company go to ply their trade.
By: Hunter, Daily Kos, February 16, 2012
“We Deceive, You Believe”: Is Fox News Too Balanced?
It’s not easy being Fox News in today’s highly politicized media environment. When it says it’s “fair and balanced,” the mainstream media sneer disbelief. When the cable news ratings leader reveals figures proving its coverage is balanced on a specific hot-button issue, it gets slapped for pandering to conservative dogma.
That’s a conclusion one might reach from a first-of-its-kind study in the authoritative International Journal of Press/Politics of how Fox, CNN, and MSNBC cover the issue of global warming. The bottom line: Being balanced and providing supportive and critical views of global warming is actually biased because it gives critics a louder voice. Worse: Fox covers global warming about twice as much as CNN and MSNBC combined, meaning those critics get much more airtime, another sign of bias.
“Although Fox discussed climate change most often, the tone of its coverage was disproportionately dismissive,” says the study by four professors, two from George Mason University, the others from Yale and American University. They wrote, “Fox broadcasts were more likely to include statements that challenged the scientific agreement on climate change, undermined the reality of climate change, and questioned its human causes.”
The new study looked at global warming stories on the three networks in 2007-08, the peak of coverage of the issue. Of 269 stories, 182 were on Fox, 66 on CNN, and 21 on MSNBC. About 60 percent of the Fox stories had a “dismissive” tone, while less than 20 percent were “accepting” of global warming. Over 70 percent of those on CNN and MSNBC accepted the global warming argument, which the study authors also endorse. There were no “dismissive” stories on MSNBC, and just 7 percent on CNN, a proper balance, the study suggests.
The authors also looked at the opinions of guests. Here Fox again out-balanced the competition. Of Fox’s 149 guests, 59 believed in global warming, 69 didn’t, with the rest someplace in the middle. Of CNN’s 53 story guests, 41 were “climate change believers” and nine were “doubters.” On MSNBC, 11 of 20 guests were believers.
The study acknowledges that Fox was the most balanced from the numbers perspective, but the network still gets an F. The reason, it says, is because viewers are influenced by what they see, and seeing more critics of global warming makes more viewers critics. “The more often people watched Fox News, the less accepting they were of global warming. Conversely, frequent CNN and MSNBC viewing was associated with greater acceptance of global warming,” the study concludes.
By: Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers, U. S. News and World Report, January 6, 2012
Tea Party-Backed Rep Joe Walsh Lists No Child Support Debt On Financial Forms
Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), a Tea-Party darling who has made a name for himself on the talk show circuit lecturing Democrats to get the nation’s finances in order, has been under fire in recent weeks over charges that he’s a deadbeat dad, owing more than $100,000 in child support.
Last Thursday, Walsh told constituents at a townhall that he plans to “privately and legally” fight his ex-wife’s claims that he owes more than $100,000 in child support, which he called “wildly inaccurate.” A recent Chicago Sun-Times article reported that his ex-wife is suing him for $117,000 in unpaid support.
Yet, even if Walsh owes just $10,000 in unpaid child support, he could face the added headache of House Ethics Committee scrutiny. Walsh, who was elected in 2010 in a narrow victory over former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL) in the Tea Party-induced wave, does not list any child support debt on his financial disclosure form, as required for any liability worth more than $10,000.
“Rep. Walsh is required both by law and by congressional ethics rules to list debts in excess of $10,000 on his financial disclosure forms, including child support back payments,” said Public Citizen’s Craig Holman.
“Technically, he could be taken to task by the Ethics Committee or even the Justice Department for failure to file proper disclosure forms, but in all likelihood the Ethics Committee and Justice would be satisfied if Walsh were to file amended forms,” Holman explained.
But Walsh is in a bit of a bind. Filing an amended form would require him to admit to owing at least $10,000 in back child support, what would amount to an ugly political liability that could knock him out of his role as one of the top spokesmen for the Tea Party GOP freshmen class.
Some talking heads are already taking action. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell last week said he had banned Walsh from his show until the Republican pays the child support he owes his wife and children. He also played a video of Walsh saying, “I won’t place one more dollar of debt on the backs of my kids” before noting that Walsh allegedly owes those kids $117,347 in child support, the Huffington Post reported.
Walsh’s ex-wife, Laura Walsh, says he failed to provide full child support for roughly five years from 2005 to 2010, from 2008 to 2010, the time of his election, she said he paid no support. After he was elected to Congress, which pays a salary of $174,000 a year, Walsh resumed full payments for their three children.
Laura Walsh’s suit also accuses Walsh and a girlfriend of taking international vacations while Walsh said he was too poor to pay child support.
Laura Walsh filed for divorce in December 2002 after 15 years of marriage. According to her suit, Walsh was $1,000 a month short of his commitment for 28 months during November 2005 to March 2008. Walsh allegedly paid nothing from 2008 until resuming in late 2010. She has asked the court to garnish his wages.
Susan Crabtree, Talking Points Memo, August 9, 2011
Why Does Bigot Pat Buchanan Still Wield Influence?
For a number of years, Patrick J. Buchanan was considered “The Man” in the conservative movement; he took a back seat to no one. He ran for the GOP’s presidential nomination and attracted a large following; he hosted and appeared on several cable news shows, including being one of the original co-hosts of CNN’s “Crossfire”; his books have been bestsellers; and, perhaps most famously of all, Buchanan’s “Culture War Speech” at the 1992 Republican Party convention both enthralled his followers and chilled a good part of the rest of the nation.
In a recent column about the events in Norway, after a perfunctory condemnation of the bombing and murder spree unleashed by Anders Behring Breivik, Buchanan was classic Buchanan suggesting that, “Breivik may be right.”
Over the years, as Jamison Foser recently pointed out at Media Matters for America, Buchanan has expressed an, “almost unbelievable dislike of Nelson Mandela and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.”; took up the cause of John Demjanuk, who was”convicted earlier this year of complicity in the murder of tens of thousands of Jews while serving at a Nazi death camp”; defended the white supremacists beliefs of Nixon’s Supreme Court nominee, Harold Carswell; and,”praised Klansman David Duke for his staunch opposition to ‘discrimination against white folks.'”
In a June column posted at CNSNews.com, titled “Say Goodbye to Los Angeles”, Buchanan commented on the June soccer match at Pasadena’s storied Rose Bowl that saw the Mexican team beat the U.S. He wrote that fans rooting for Mexico should consider returning there and they should”let someone take his place who wants to become an American.”
Buchanan pointed out that “By 2050, according to Census figures, thanks to illegals crossing over and legalized mass immigration, the number of Hispanics in the U.S.A. will rise from today’s 50 million to 135 million.” Never one to miss an opportunity to be excessively dramatic/hyperbolic, Buchanan concluded: “Say goodbye to Los Angeles. Say goodbye to California.”
When Pat Buchanan spoke, many may have turned their heads, but his core audience, anti-immigrant, white nationalists perked up and listened, and later echoed his remarks.
Despite the reams of “culture war” commentary, including anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and anti-gay rage, for some inexplicable reason, the Washington Beltway crowd has always considered him”a good old boy.”
“A cutting edge figure among a significant sector of extreme paleoconservatives”
“Although Buchanan doesn’t have the influence he did in the 1990s when he commanded a following inside the Republican Party, he remains an influential, even cutting edge figure among a significant sector of extreme paleoconservatives,” Leonard Zeskind, president of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights told me in a telephone interview.
“His ideas may not be adopted outright, but they find their way into the mouths of others, that do have a following,” Zeskind, author of the invaluable Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream, added. “Think of him as a cutting edge figure, with a following on television news and an influence on others who have larger followings,” said Zeskind.
Buchanan Hearts Breivik
Buchanan’s column about Breivik may in part be an attempt to grasp renewed relevance. The piece, “A fire bell in the night for Norway,”which was posted at WorldNetDaily, maintained that Breivik is an, ” evil … though deluded man of some intelligence, who in his 1,500-page manifesto reveals a knowledge reveals a knowledge of the history, culture and politics of Europe.” Breivik, perhaps unknown to Buchanan, also revealed an ability to purloin a chunk of the manifesto from other published sources and claim them as his own.
“He admits to his ‘atrocious’ but ‘necessary’ crimes, done, he says, to bring attention to his ideas and advance his cause: a Crusader’s war between the real Europe and the ‘cultural Marxists’ and Muslims they invited in to alter the ethnic character and swamp the culture of the Old Continent,” Buchanan maintained.
Now that the “atrocious” deed has been done, Buchanan is, as many other conservatives have been doing, attempting to disassociate Breivik from the conservative movement in the United States and Europe: “His writings are now being mined for references to U.S. conservative critics of multiculturalism and open borders. Purpose: Demonize the American right, just as the berserker’s attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson was used to smear Sarah Palin and Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing was used to savage Rush Limbaugh and conservative critics of Big Government.”
But, Buchanan wrote, the left will not get away with “guilt by association,” a methodology Buchanan charged, “has been used by the left since it sought to tie the assassination of JFK by a Marxist from the Fair Play for Cuba Committee to the political conservatism of the city of Dallas.”
While Buchanan admitted that there are, “violent actors or neo-Nazis on the European right who bear watching,” he declared that “native-born and homegrown terrorism is not the macro-threat to the continent.”
According to Buchanan,”Europe’s left will encounter difficulty in equating criticism of multiculturalism with neo-Nazism. For Angela Merkel of Germany, Nicolas Sarkozy of France and David Cameron of Britain have all declared multiculturalism a failure. From votes in Switzerland to polls across the continent, Europeans want an end to the wearing of burqas and the building of prayer towers in mosques.”
Buchanan concluded by pointing out that “Breivik may be right,” in asserting that “a climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world that is growing in numbers and advancing inexorably into Europe for the third time in 14 centuries,” is coming down the pike.
Buchananism “will live long after [he] has departed this mortal coil’.
“Buchanan’s brand of Christian nationalist xenophobia has been picked up by others, guaranteeing it will live on long after Buchanan has departed this mortal coil,” Rob Boston, Senior Policy Analyst at Americans United, told me in an email. “That’s his true legacy. … The trail he blazed is now well traveled by Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Dinesh D’Souza and a host of others.”
Boston noted that: “The Breivik shooting is a textbook example of what’s wrong with today’s cultural warriors of the far right. An angry and hate-filled man killed more than 70 people — many of them young — in cold blood. Yet so many on the right seem unable to condemn this without adding a ‘but.’ That we have come to this pass — and that so few public commentators have the guts to stand up and call the right out for the cranks that they are — is a telling indicator of the great moral confusion these so-called guardians of public virtue have spawned.”
Leonard Zeskind pointed out that while Buchanan is not the Buchanan of the past, he still has a following: “Even if he does not have three million votes behind him, he still has [many] people who listen to [him] everyday. At the same time, he has been eclipsed by the Tea Partiers, who embody, in part, his constituency of yesteryear.
The Tea Partiers are the Buchananites of the past, moving into the future.”
By: Bill Berkowitz, Talk To Action, AlterNet, August 5, 2011
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