Meet the Press helps prove Media Matters’ point

February 20, 2006

Early last week, Media Matters published a terrific and well-researched report on the ideological slant that dominates the Sunday morning news/talk shows. The results helped highlight what many of us have noticed for years: “Republicans and conservatives have been offered more opportunities to appear on the Sunday shows – in some cases, dramatically so.”

With the Media Matters report in mind, I was anxious to see how Meet the Press, the most-watched of the Sunday morning shows, responded, and whether the producers might adjust the show’s line-up to reflect more balance. It did not. In fact, it was almost as if NBC was delivering a not-so-subtle message to Media Matters: we don’t care.

As is the norm, the second half of Meet the Press featured a “journalists’ roundtable.” Yesterday featured an unequivocal conservative (the Wall Street Journal’s far-right editor Paul Gigot), a neutral reporter (NBC White House correspondent David Gregory), a columnist who tends to eviscerate anyone currently in office (the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd), and an ultra-partisan advisor to Dick Cheney (Mary Matalin). I’d call this many things, but “balanced” isn’t one of them.

Just as importantly, I know the rules for what constitutes a “journalist” are subject to some fluidity, but having Matalin sit in on this panel was absurd for several reasons, not including the fact that she is not, and has never been, a reporter of any kind.

First, Matalin, unlike her “colleagues,” had no trouble saying things that were demonstrably false.

Second, she abandoned the usual decorum and lashed out at those around her, blasting Dowd as a “diva” and accusing Gregory of living “in a parallel universe” and having gone on a “jihad.” Meet the Press is supposed to have at least some class; Matalin showed none.

And third, Tim Russert encouraged this partisan hack to dominate the so-called “discussion.” What does that mean? Let’s quantify things a bit. According to the transcript, Matalin said 2,248 words on yesterday’s program. Gregory said 844, Gigot said 451, and Dowd said 423. If we combine Matalin against all of the other guests combined, she still wins the word count easily — 2,248 to 1,718.

In other words, Meet the Press invited a non-journalist ideologue to its journalist roundtable; offered a forum for her obvious falsehoods, and allowed her to effectively hijack the program with bitter and sarcastic filibusters. It was almost as if Russert and the producers read the Media Matters report and went out of their way to prove the document’s point.

Cheney-itis is spreading to all areas now. Got a criticism of me? Well, go fuck yourself. You can’t do anything about it. I rule here. (heh, heh, stumble, blam)

Matalin always has been a windbag and shrew. I guess the sub-moron professional wrestlers who’ve taken over production at “Meet the Press” figure she’s #1 with the NASCAR crowd they’re trying to appeal to these days.

  • I doubt the NASCAR crowd watches Meet the Press, or any of the bobblehead shows either. Hannity and Rush are their ticket. For that matter, I doubt that Timmeh bothers much with bloggy riffraff like Media Matters; too beneath him.

    The only way our side will get a fair hearing is by creating our own media (the way the right did a couple of decades ago). Expecting waiting for the corporate media types like Russert to “wake up” and start paying attention to us just we’re correct is naive.

  • CB you wrote an undeniable truth: a columnist who tends to eviscerate anyone currently in office (the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd). MoDo is highly skilled, entertaining, and often boorish. It’s a sad commentary that her “schtich” passes for journalism and informative commentary.

  • Matalin was completely out of control. I can’t see how she helped Cheney with anyone other than the barking wingnuts who can’t form a political argument without help from Limbaugh or O’Rielly – people who would defend Cheney if he ate a baby on live TV.

    Arianna has a great play by play: Russert Watch: The Mary Matalin Horror Show

    Josh make quick work of her BS here.

    But, leave it to James Wolcott’s ink stained scalpel to gut and fillet this fish faster than a Cheney hunting partner can duck.

    …Even without the immature pouting and pissy expression, Matalin would have been a car wreck in repose: With a bad haircut topping a mistaken facelift and a ghastly floral pin that looked like spray-painted aluminum, she looked like the Beltway’s Madwoman of Chaillot. Maybe defending the defensible is getting to her, and the acid reflux has gone to her brain.

  • “Everybody knows at the ranch that there is no drinking when hunting and no hunting with drinkers”…Matalin

    truth being laundered in the spin cycle- round and round it goes

  • repeat, repeat, repeat

    conservative bias in the media
    elite conservative bias in the media

    ‘liberal media bias’???? You’re kidding, right?

  • Although I tuned in to MTP yesterday morning with my usual low expectations for both balance and elucidation, I have to admit I was shocked at Matalin’s behavior and Russert’s ceding of the discussion to her. I admit I muted much of her tantrum; it simply got to be too much for me. But, believe me, the mere visuals (flashing red nails, ugly broach that looked like it could double as a lethal ninja star if a threat arose, extensive use of “air quotes,” and contemptuous visage) were probably just as disturbing. Then, after Matalin’s spew-fest, Gregory spent a good number of his 844 words apologizing for responding to Scott McGregor’s sarcasm and obfuscation. After Paul Gigot’s highly ironic plea for empathy for the VP who was so distraught over the accident (Vince Foster, anyone?), Gregory apologized some more for not having enough empathy for Cheney. In the early days, just what would empathy for Cheney have involved based upon the information that the public had? Despite Matalin’s protestations otherwise, those speaking about the accident were emphasizing Whittington’s culpability. So, should the press have picked up the meme that Whittington was a dumb-ass who brought that sh*t upon himself? Should the press have noted that a most people would react to shooting a friend by NOT going to the hospital and going home, mixing a drink, and having dinner? Sorry, I did not empathize with the Veep while the heavy spin and stonewall dance was underway.

    I suppose the “professional thing to do” was to let Matalin flame out and demonstrate to viewers that her case is so thin that theatrics are the only way out. But, I could not help but wish that either Gregory or Dowd would have done something more to call her on both the dishonesty of her talking points as well as senseless vitriol of her personal attacks on Gregory and Dowd. Gregory pushed back a little on Matalin’s calling the behavior of the press a “jihad.” But, otherwise, Matalin did not suffer a rebuke for her performance. I think she deserved one. I’m sure Russert simply salivated through the whole thing. Fair and truthful discourse be damned.

  • There’s an old experiment you learn about in any Psych 101 class: students are put into a room where they are given a switch, and told to deliver shocks to another person who they see through a glass window, sitting in an adjacent room. Unbeknownst to the student holding the switch, the person they are being asked to shock is an actor– and not really getting shocked.

    The student holding the switch is told that he shouldn’t deliver shocks greater than a certain measure on the dial of the switch. Otherwise, the shock will be fatal, the student is told.

    The student is then asked to deliver shocks. Gradually, they are told to turn up the dial more and more as they deliver “shocks,” until the student is asked to deliver a “shock” that the student has been told is fatal. A surprising number of students deliver the “fatal shock,” trusting in the experimenters to not direct them to do anything wrong, or maybe not even caring.

    Likewise, people can push people around and get them to do or accept a lot of stupid or ridiculous things just by gradually asking for more and more. Liberals should not accept the treatment they are getting from these shows. It is time to complain. We must not allow fascism to be slipped under the door. Matalin should issue an apology for her behavior, and Russert should apologize, too.

    The problem is that even if you are someone who knows when enough is enough and who sticks up for yourself when it counts, other liberals who are reflexively accomodating may tell you to stand down, thinking back to some stupid bullshit they were taught when they were a kid. Those people have to get over it and let those of us who want to stand up for the people hold our heads up and speak out. Some liberals speak truth to power. Other liberals actually only berate other liberals over things that are either meaningless, imagined, or next-to meaningless. When it comes to actual politics, though, they’re more or less at home hiding underneath their covers.

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