Getting to the heart of why Sunday morning shows exist

November 12, 2007

Barack Obama made his first appearance on Meet the Press in quite a while yesterday, and subjected himself to Tim Russert’s aggressive questioning. Most political observers probably tune into interviews like these, watching to see if the pugilist will knock his opponent down — in this case, if Russert will “nail” Obama with a subject that throws the candidate off his game, catches him in a contradiction, forces him into a gaffe, etc.

As it turns out, the hour-long interview was relatively tepid, and didn’t produce any startling revelations. But more importantly, Matt Yglesias makes a very compelling argument that the whole purpose of Russert interviews is dubious.

The crux of the matter is this reputation for being a “tough questioner” and the notion that Russert’s brand of toughness is worthy of emulation. And it’s true that Russert is a tough questioner. Watch any Russert-moderated debate or a typical candidate appearance on Meet The Press and you’ll see that he goes way out of the way to put the politician in a tough corner — he’ll ask about some unimportant issue that’s politically awkward, he’ll drag up a quote from five years ago to try to trip you up, he’ll ask about stuff your husband said, he’ll harp on whatever recent story has most damaged your candidacy — he’s tough.

But while I wouldn’t want to say that “tough questioning” is a bad thing, making toughness the goal is perverse. The goal should be to inform the audience. Climate change, for example, is a hugely important question. As a result, candidates ought to be subjected to questions about their climate change plans. And as it happens, the plans released by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards are all based on good science and good economics. So asking them questions aimed at elucidating their plans shouldn’t lead to any embarrassing incidents. Shouldn’t, that is, unless the candidates are unprepared to discuss their own plans in an intelligent manner which really would be worth knowing about.

But Russert won’t ask those questions, unless he thinks there’s a possible “gotcha” lurking underneath.

It may seem silly, but this leads to an awkward question: what is the point of a show like Meet the Press? Ostensibly, it’s to provide useful information to the public, so they can in turn make informed decisions.

But that’s an idealistic fantasy. Americans don’t actually learn anything from these interviews.

Yglesias added:

It wouldn’t be “tough” to provide politicians with an opportunity to explain their plans. Rather, the “tough” thing to do would be to leap straight ahead to whatever question is most likely to create problems for the politician irrespective of the importance of the issue. The reason, of course, is that Russert doesn’t care — at all — about whether or not his actions inform the American electorate. Rather, he cares about creating a “news-making” event — likely something embarrassing for the politician — and about burnishing his reputation for toughness.

He attracts a circle of admirers who share his perverse and unethical lack of concern for whether or not his work helps produce an informed public, gobs of less-prominent television journalists seek to emulate his lack of concern with informing the public, print journalists eagerly court opportunities to appear on the non-informative shows hosted by Russert and his emulators, and down the rabbit hole we go.

It’s as if these shows exist to impress other journalists and Washington insiders, which of course, they do.

Indeed, the “Russert primary” has entered the political lexicon, as a way to describe the phenomenon of candidates enduring a predictable routine, whereby they’re reminded of random comments they made years ago, or are presented with provocative quotes given by allies whose names are not revealed until after they’ve spoken.

What’s more, as Kevin Drum added, “Russert’s schtick perpetuates the idea that the worst possible sin in a politician is displaying even a hint of inconsistency. But you know what? It turns out there are worse things.”

There has got to be a better way of covering politics.

Journamalism 101. Day 1. Emulating Russert.

  • Steve… We need someone like you to start an “I watch the Sunday talk shows so you don’t have to” column.

    Thanks.

  • As the internet becomes more important, it seems to me a “no-brainer” that more of these interviews should and will be through the various blogs.

    Already, Josh Marshall at his “Talking Points Memo” website has some very interesting and illuminating interviews. “Truth Out” also does a very good job with their interviews.

    I would have to think that eventually those with even a modicum of awareness will realize that the “drivel” provided by the MSM (aka – the traditional media or my own moniker for that venue – OOD media – the out-of-date media) is not worth the time and will start to flock to these various sites – perhaps establishing its own Sunday morning tradition with some sort live stream technology complete with viewer participation.

  • what is the point of a show like Meet the Press? Ostensibly, it’s to provide useful information to the public, so they can in turn make informed decisions

    HA!

    What is the point of a show like Meet the Press?

    To sell ad time to advertisers.

    How do you sell ad time to advertisers?

    You need to do two things – draw in eyeballs from viewers and not piss off advertisers.

    “Gotcha” questioning draws in eyeballs (“oooh – is Obama gonna screw up THIS time?”)
    “Gotcha” questioning never puts the advertisers in a bad place since it doesn’t concentrate on issues but on embarrassing moments for the candidate.

    We have the press that we have because it is advertising driven and not subscription driven. And that’s true for ALL of our mainstream press – print, television, radio – they’re all advertising driven and the incentives of the market are to do exactly what they’re doing.

    Why wasn’t it worse prior to the 80’s? Well, there was the Fairness Doctrine. But on top of that there was limited competition for eyeballs in the TV media framework – and all three networks decided to compete on “trust” rather than Lowest Common Denominator Crap. And newspapers had to compete with TV so they became more focused on trustworthy, “unbiased” reporting rather than Gotcha crap and partisan mudslinging (which is what newspapers DID prior to the advent of radio and TV – the last 50 years have been the ANOMALY in US media, not the natural state of it).

  • A really good show wouldn’t really be a “show,” as much as it would be the host drawing out the guest in the most unobtrusive way possible, so that the guest would appear more to be communicating to the viewer than to the interviewer.

    Somewhere along the line – and I don’t know when that was – the media inserted itself into the equation as a player, as an entity that could drive the outcome, packaging information and telling the viewer what conclusions they should draw, and how they should feel about it, rather than reporting on events in any kind of objective and reasonably complete way, and then letting the viewers do the rest. It’s not all the media’s fault – they’ve taken advantage of Americans’ increasing laziness, and as proof of that laziness, Americans have let themselves be spoon-fed, not caring all that much about what was in the spoon.

    I suspect that Russert probably thinks he’s being the hard-hitting interviewer whose pugnacious style can force unwitting candidates to reveal hither to unknown nuggets that will be game-changing – but somewhere in there has to be the secret hope that he’ll get the credit along with the fawning adoration of his peers.

    I watch more to see how much they get wrong, and whether they have the courage to just lay the information on the table and let the viewer do with it what they will. I also watch to see if maybe once, someone in the hot seat will push back in some meaningful way. I am never disappointed in how much they manage to get wrong, but I am still waiting for the rest.

  • I admit I don’t watch the Sunday morning talk shows any more. They are the Reality TV of news.

  • These shows are expressions of the DC political culture, which tends to focus on gotcha trivia, the wimpiness of Democrats, and the awesomeness of Republicans. Russert’s guest list tilts heavily Republican, and the “toughness” of interviews with GOP figures varies in inverse proportion to how powerful they are (see his softball approach with the chimp).

    Democrats, once they achieve power again, ought to make it a point to destroy this comfortable old boy network in DC. They’ll have the FCC and Cheney’s executive power doctrines – they could do it if they wanted to. I’m afraid they don’t.

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  • Russert has been bought and paid for by Jack Welch. What do you expect? At 5 mil/yr, he’s not about to upset that applecart. Ditto for Chris Mathews and Brian Williams.
    What jimBOB ( #8) said about the Dems is so true. For the longest time, I thought they were just scared. Now I know that’s not it at all, the Dems have simply been bought off like everyone else.

  • “Russert’s schtick perpetuates the idea that the worst possible sin in a politician is displaying even a hint of inconsistency.”

    The importance of Drum’s comment is if consistency and persistence in not varying from one’s initial point of view is the hallmark of good leadership, then George W. Bush is the perfect leader. America and the world know that is not true. A leader is someone who can chart the best course, which means as the journey progresses there will be course corrections. We need to get away from the Russertian point of view that growing wiser over time and correcting initial perceptions is a bad thing in a leader.

  • I’ve gotten to the point I’ll really only turn on MTP to watch Russert get his ass kicked by someone like Joe Biden. I have to admit I kind of enjoy that cow-eyed look of confusion Russert gets when a really good debater throws him off his game plan. Otherwise I usually flip over to Reliable Sources until Face the Nation comes on.

  • This is totally OT, but I wanted to say that I’m in the middle of Craig Unger’s utterly fabulous book, Fall of the House of Bush, and I want to heartily recommend it. (No, I’m not a paid shill!). Unger explains in clear, concise terms the dreadful coalition of neo-cons and evangelists (of all stripes and denominations) who together created George W Bush and his presidency.

    It’s the best book I’ve read so far about Bush and Iraq.

  • “It isn’t Russert’s job to educate you. That’s your job. If you want to know more about Obama’s energy policy, go read about it. You’re never going to get so deep in the policy muckety-muck in a ten minute segment.” – RealClearPolitics, in defense of Russert.

    That’s the right-wing response to Yglesias. In essence, RCP argues that just because discussing policy is interesting toYglesias, it doesn’t mean that makes good TV.

    I think I agree with RCP on this one (if we define Russert’s show as a pure political circus show, that is). In that case, my only complaint would be that it needs more cowbell.

  • Nonynony nailed it. It’s the advertisers which make Sunday TV so freaking stupid.

    But I have a dream… I’d like to see someone get on Timmy’s Circus Show and drag out a dozen old quotes from Timmy that make him look like a total asshole, like the one where he gives every source the right to retroactively take things off the record. Ask him why he didn’t tell anyone about his involvement in the Plame affair. Show him fawning over people who were Nucking Futs about Iraq, show how many people he’s given airtime to who were and are quite insane with regards to foreign policy, and compare that time to the amount of time that Timmy has deigned to give to any of the DFHs who saw the Iraq fiasco coming. I’d love for someone like Jon Stewart to do to Timmy what Stewart did to the blithering idiots on Crossfire.

    I’d love to see how that fat fuck likes the “gotcha game” when he’s the target.

  • Fool that I am, I do watch Meet the Press and the other Sunday morning talk shows, and almost without fail, I end up feeling as Charlie Brown having fallen for Lucy holding the football. I’m just a slow learner, I guess. Actually, Bill Moyers has all of them beat hands down, but Moyers is on PBS hardly drawing the biggest audience.

  • The crux of the matter is this reputation for being a “tough questioner” and the notion that Russert’s brand of toughness is worthy of emulation. And it’s true that Russert is a tough questioner.

    But he hides it under a Jell-o, nonpartisan doughboy exterior. If you don’t know him well enough, from his soft voice and manner, you’d think he wasn’t out to trash people who have been selected for trashing. Chris Matthews used to try to do the same thing, until he let his anger get the better of him, and know he always does “tough” and talking over people, to appear consistent- and it’s easier for him to do, because yelling at Nancy Pelosi or whoever and talking over the end of each of their sentences is more who Chris Matthews really is.

    It’s a really deceptive, dishonest way to be.

  • But that’s an idealistic fantasy. Americans don’t actually learn anything from these interviews.

    I’ve got to say I’ve learned to skip most of the brain-washing.

    Even the Dem debates are like Russert interviews, albeit a little toned down for appearances’ sake.

  • Yglesias wrote:

    It wouldn’t be “tough” to provide politicians with an opportunity to explain their plans. Rather, the “tough” thing to do would be to leap straight ahead to whatever question is most likely to create problems for the politician irrespective of the importance of the issue.

    Well, there used to be such a thing as “tough” honest questioning, I think, but they’ve swept “tough” asshole questioning under the same rug as that, I think, so they can tell you “He’s just being tough- he’s sticking up for us” when what an interviewer is really doing is asshattery. People who don’t think too much or aren’t too informed can kind of be confused into thinking it’s the same thing, because the Russerts and the Matthewses can make it kinda look the same by not being out-and-out O’Reillys, Hannitys or whatever– putting on that pussy nice-guy act I mentioned before.

  • ej wrote:

    As the internet becomes more important, it seems to me a “no-brainer” that more of these interviews should and will be through the various blogs.

    Already, Josh Marshall at his “Talking Points Memo” website has some very interesting and illuminating interviews. “Truth Out” also does a very good job with their interviews.

    That’s not that satisfying, because TV causes less politicized people to notice politics. You have to click through news channels and channels with politics shows on sometimes to see what you want. Or you can’t help noticing someone else in the household watching McLaughlin’s show.

    On the Internet, you can surf directly to what you want. The Internet effectively keeps kids who are interested in rims, cars, and dance music looking only at sites that have to do with cars, modifying cars, and music, and IM-ing their like-minded friends. It doesn’t drag them past the Carpetbagger Report or TPM where they might spend at least 5 or 10 seconds once in a while checking out something that seemed interesting, or even pay more attention than that once in a while.

  • Well, with respect to Kevin, they don’t even have to be inconsistencies. Empiricism ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. The point is to “gotcha” with something, even if it means creatively splicing quotes to make the candidate say something they didn’t, or to see how they react under “pressure” — say, by pummelling them with opposition BS. A good candidate, the theory goes, can handle themselves under fire, even if Russert is firing blanks.

    And this doesn’t even start to deal with the double-standard of who they play gotcha with and how. There are very different sets of standards for the Administration guests. This image Russert has created as asking the tough questions he’s not actually asking didn’t make Cheney’s PR woman, as came out in the Libby trial, describe his as the show where they control the message.

    Again, reality ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. You want to look tough, without being tough, by hatching deals for the buddies you want to ingratiate yourself with and the top brass you have over for BBQ. You want to ask questions that make them stumble, not questions that make any larger point or demonstrate hypocrisy. You want the best guests, and the best guests want to look like they keep it together under pressure. So both sides want to look adversarial, but actually lob softballs.

    They’re dueling with aluminum foils.

  • In regards to Swan’s comments concerning the Internet, ten years ago (or even five years ago for that matter) we couldn’t envision the cyber world the way it is today. I offer that we can’t see how the Internet will be ten years from now in terms of its capabilities, its impact, or how people utilize it.

  • The purpose of the Sunday morning shows is, purely, to sell ads during what is typically light viewing slot. Those of us who are fond of following things political are fortunate that serious and semi-serious discussions continue to happen at this hour. The value of these ads are determined by the producers’ relative success in getting us to tune in every week.

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