Last night I bumped into an old TV buddy who is a strong supporter of President Bush. He talked about network TV news in terms of liberal vs. conservative.
This morning, I watched part of Meet the Press, a roundtable in which Tim Russert solicited comments from Judy Woodruff, late of CNN; David Broder, the Washington Post syndicated columnist; Gwen Ifill of PBS and John Harwood of the Wall Street Journal. Pretty Establishment, I thought.
Not liberal or conservative, mind you, but Establishment. This was terribly obvious on in the discussion of Sen. Clinton’s appeal to the press to find some backbone.
These Establishment news people dismissed…yes, that’s the word…dismissed her appeal as political. Obviously political. Good thing, too, I thought, for if they had considered her charges seriously, they would have had to criticize themselves
Later I caught up with Frank Rich’s New York Times article on the press’s timidity in face of the Bush Administration’s lies, obfuscation and intimidation of news people and news agencies.
Rich and the Meet the Press crew were worldviews apart.
It's not that Russert is a bad interviewer – I think he's professionally superior, in fact – or that he’s right wing. What I see from watching him over the years is that he includes rightists on his panels – Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak, for example - but few or no left-wingers, just liberals of the Bill Richardson-Hillary Clinton –Joe Lieberman stripe. (Wonder if Russert has ever invited Frank Rich to the party?)
The Meet the Press folks also discussed Howard Dean’s leadership of the Democratic Party this morning with the usual Establishment wariness. Having watched Russert interview Dean more than once, I understand and feel for Russert.
Dean’s authenticity puts him off. And Russert is not alone in that discomfort.
That reminds me - I use the phrase "Establishment" because it’s closer to the mark than are "liberal" and "conservative," labels folks carelessly slap on everything.
But I am aware that "Establishment" - while reasonable - is far from a precise description of what's happened. Our news mediums have become unreal, like a special effects movie or a cartoon. They offer a product that resembles news, but isn’t. And their actors play at news, asking predictable questions and accepting canned answers.
Howard Dean can be impossible, but he is real. And the discomfort he produces with the "Meet the Press" crowd reminds me that their brand of journalism is ...well, not.