Welcome … to the human nature
channel. I’m you’re host Alex Tamsula and
… what am I doing here?
Well what I’m doing here today
is talking about the problem of identifying good broadcast journalism. Just to be clear, I’m not setting this up as some
type of good journalism versus bad journalism dichotomy, because the type of broadcast
journalism I’m using as contrast isn’t technically bad work, but it’s a journalistic
style I don’t particularly like, one where the questions are disguised as little
speeches, where the goal of the interview is not to extract information or even
establish an individual’s unique a point of view, but to signal an agenda. I would rather step on a used Q-Tip on the ground
than listen to propaganda disguised at journalism.
Now I happen to be a big fan
of broadcast journalist Katie Couric. I
think she is really good at what she does.
I first became aware of Katie in the late nineties when I was still finding
work doing computer aided drafting. I’d
get up at six in the morning, have my shower and breakfast. Then at seven I’d be drinking coffee, and
while waiting to leave for work in twenty minutes I’d watch The Today Show.
I always liked Katie’s style
of broadcast journalism. I remember the
moment I realized just how good she was when I watched her coverage of The Columbine
school shooing. It was thoughtful and
restrained. You could see the look on
Katie’s face that her heart went out to the survivors and family members who
lost loved one. However, she never let
her emotions get in the way of doing the story; she never inserted herself into
the story; never once did I feel Katie was exploiting the people of Littleton. She did her work honestly and objectively.
By way of difference let’s
talk about Ann Curry, Katie’s colleague on Today. Just for the record I want to say, even though
I was never a big fan of Ann’s, I thought the way she was unceremoniously
booted off Today was atrocious. As if scapegoating
her for the show’s poor ratings wasn’t bad enough, to give her the ‘don’t let the
door hit you in the ass’ treatment after all the heavy lifting she did for Today,
to not get the happy sent-off that Meredith Vieira received who had not been on
Today for nearly half as long, made me sick.
I said to myself I’m through tuning in to this morning snake pit.
However, there is the issue of
Ann’s style of broadcasting. The way I
reacted positively to Katie’s way of doing business, the opposite was true with
Ann. She’d do something that is unfortunately
all too common in the news bizz nowadays and it drives me nuts – she’d find a
way to editorialize. Sometimes it would
be in the way she framed the question, or in her tone of voice, or the back and
forth she’d have with the person she was interviewing, but it always came down
to this – I knew what her politics where because she was selling it. Ann, being a proud ‘progressive’, never
missed an opportunity to drive the point home.
Now Katie and Matt may have
been big liberals just like Ann. In fact,
it wouldn’t surprise me if they gave their names and time and money to liberal
causes. But you never could tell that based
on their reporting alone. It was
something I appreciated. Not so with Ann.
I remember onetime watching Ann
as she was interviewing the black conservative columnist Shelby Steel, and he
was saying things I’d heard other black conservative say before: Oh the Civil
Rights movement has out-lived its usefulness, or that black communities need to
focus more on self-reliance, ect, ect. At
that point Ann leaned back in her chair and said, “Oh c’mon.”
Oh c’mon? I could not believe what I was seeing and hearing, and apparently the absurdity of an Asian-American woman telling a black man how to be black just flew right over her head. (Whist). Ann Curry editorializing to beat the band was not something I wanted to see. If you’re a broadcast journalist your politics mean nothing to me. Please keep it to yourself. Why do you think voting is with secret ballots? Because I don’t have to know.
Now I don’t know if Ann’s
style of journalism played any role in her departure, (I have my own theory as
to what was really going on), but all I can say is Ann, where did all those
group hugs get you?
Not long before Katie left Today
she interviewed some guy. I don’t even
know who he was. I was in the kitchen while
this was going on and came into the living room at the tail end of the conversation. The man said to Katie, “You’re very nice.”
For some reason Katie stiffened
in her chair and said, “I’m not nice. I’m
honest.” Whoa! We just hit an iceberg. Abandon ship!
I’m not exactly sure why Katie reacted the way she did. Maybe she thought he was getting cute. Or maybe he strayed into territory that
demanded a quick response, especially on air.
I thought about what that meant and I’m speculating here, but Katie may have
been saying hey, if you’re going to make me part of the story … it better be about
one thing and one thing only – I did honest reporting. Katie is not interested in hearing she’s perky,
or she’s America’s sweetheart, or she’s a glamour pus. That may all be true, and maybe even appreciated
in a different context, but not when Katie is on the clock. The story is not about her and she seemed particularly
scrupulous about it. When Katie is being
a journalist, who she is … is not germane.
There’s a line she doesn’t want crossed and she’ll enforce it if you do. At that moment I said to myself, ‘There’s a pro’.
And Matt. You poor bastard. How many emails did I sent to Today back in
the day, trying to warn you people over and over about how ruthless Hillary
Clinton could be? After that Commander
In Chief Forum where you repeatedly pressed Hillary about her emails, she
wanted your head and it looks like she got it.
I’d be surprised if this hasn’t crossed your mind already. Hey silver fox, did you think I was talking out
of my hat!
Now if you wish to debate this
topic further please feel free to leave a comment in the comments section below
which is where I’ll pick your brain apart neuron by neuron. But it won’t be so bad. Everyone gets a thumbs-up.
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Okay I was watching the Today
Show one time and Lisa Marie Presley was out in the plaza doing a song on the
stage. After she finished you could see
her low rider jeans had slid down way far.
Matt said, “That’s a nice song.”
Al said, “That’s a nice thong.”
Matt
said, “I need this job.”
Matt, Katie,
Ann and Al. That’s when Today was fun.
Later.
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