We’ll have to consider the source; the report is from the New York Post. But considering Press the Meat’s ratings, a shake-up sounds plausible:
[NBC News boss Deborah] Turness has been trying to figure out the future for David Gregory’s “Meet the Press,” with options including bringing in MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” team of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski for a Sunday show, or blowing up the entire franchise and trying something completely different, sources familiar with the situation said.
Oh yeah, Joe and Mika — that’s the fucking ticket. Christ, that’s like bringing Louie Gohmert in to add gravitas to Darrell Issa’s House Obummer Incredibly Fruitless Witch Hunt Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Just let McCain host the damn show. Or allow ‘Lil Luke to fail upward again. He’s already got The Magic Chair and everything.
Ben Franklin
They could always bring back Brokaw the Broken, or the former host’s idiot bastard son.
Katie Couric is available, I hear
Mike in NC
Oh, please Santa! Please!
WaterGIrl
Chris Hayes.
lamh36
Manchin Says Obama Not Friendly Enough
.
Comrade Jake
Does Luke have a seat on The Cycle now? Caught him a few times on that show last week and FSM is he awful.
Comrade Jake
If MSNBC wanted to make MTP a show that mattered, they’d give it to Maddow.
Keith P
Maybe David Gregory just needs an image change. Like a goatee and an adult haircut.
JPL
@lamh36: Wah! Wah! Wah!
If the repubs take over the Senate, Joe jumps. He just wants to be respected.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
couldn’t have anything to do with the GOP committing economic treason against this country.
I’m so glad the President doesn’t give these muthafuckas the time of day in his personal life.
Elizabelle
@Comrade Jake:
They might get good ratings with Maddow, especially if she tunes down the sneering.
She’d be a sea change from the context-free crap/corporate and Republican talking points the other Sunday shows purvey.
Mika and Joe. Say it ain’t so.
JPL
I’d watch Meet The Press, if they gave the time slot to Maddow or Norah O’Donnell. Both are prepared for follow up questions, rather than just nodding their heads. I’m tired of the bobble dolls running the show now.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Elizabelle:
@JPL:
But obviously it has to go to Joe and Mika. The show just drifted too far left for the country!
Ash Can
Meet The Press used to be pretty interesting years ago, when it was still Meet The Press and not Meet The Republicans.
c u n d gulag
Giving the show to Maddow or Hayes would be committing an act of “Journalism.”
And, our networks don’t do that anymore.
“He-said/she-said,” rules!
Aurona
Those are all fine, but wouldn’t you rather have someone who is straight forward, honest, and will turn John McCain’s teeth on edge? Melissa Harris Perry is my gal.
Corner Stone
How about a person of color?
Corner Stone
@Aurona: Selfishly, I prefer MHP keep her time spots.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I remember when Brinkley left the ABC show, and they renamed it “This Week with Sam and Cokie”, and Sam and Cokie seemed to be trying to project the kind of informal vibe that (I gather) “Joe and Mika” are known for. It was painful to watch. I don’t know if the the Sunday shows were ever truly worthy of their reputation, but the effort to replicate Russert’s compulsive glad-handing (Go Bills! I sure do love football. Did you know i’m a working class kid from Buffalo?) has made them as bad or worse than the GMA/Today type shows, without any self-awareness
@lamh36: You’d think some pundit on our side would bring up the cocktail parties– or, you know, the more than half dozen Republicans Obama has appointed or tried to appoint to cabinet-level positions– or the Super Bowl party (where Obama was so gauche as to watch the game), not that it would stop the stupid, but at least it’s a response.
Ben Franklin
Leahy and King debating the finer points of NSA data collection and storage with Gregory negotiating the frog hairs of reform.
It’s a catastrastroke….
WaterGIrl
@Comrade Jake: Meet the Press used to be made up of a panel of journalists. I say have Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow host the main sunday morning show together.
Corner Stone
I definitely do not want Maddow or Hayes to get in there. If it has to be a dudebro or dudebra, maybe Steve Kornacki?
askew
I can’t decide if I want Chuck Todd to take over MTP giving that twerp a promotion but getting him away from WH press corps or for him to suffer the humiliation of being passed over the MTP slot again.
NBC News doesn’t seem to understand why MTP or The Today Show’s ratings are falling drastically. The problem with MTP isn’t just Gregory. It is also the stale guest list. Does anyone need to hear McCain pontificate on MTP again?
Baud
@Corner Stone:
Joy Reid needs a show.
Amir Khalid
So that’s what this is about. I was wondering what kind of meat Betty Cracker had in mind, just what the Shitcan Dance was, and whether the result was going to be served for Christmas dinner.
Cassidy
Boots Riley
Corner Stone
@WaterGIrl: I kind of think it’s a better format with one “host”. It gives that person a chance to find a rhythm or formula for themselves.
David Gregory is just awful, and everyone knew he would be. IMO, one of the reasons for the shows ratings decline is that the older audience hates NBC and the younger audience is watching the reality around them and then seeing the toady fawning fantasy that the guests are promoting, with Dancin’ dave just bobbleheadedly nodding along, with no pushback.
raven
@Corner Stone: So we can here him say “sort of” every 10 seconds.
PDiddie
@JPL: Bank that.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Joy Reid is awesome, and an actual journalist. Which makes me think she has no chance at the job.
Corner Stone
@Baud: They’d never give it to her. But I am also not a fan of Joy’s. I’ve been watching her fill in for MHP and she seems like she’s getting more comfortable. Maybe she’ll get better with some consistent exposure.
I happen to be a fan of Michael Eric Dyson, but he is wayyy too raw to get a prime slot anywhere, right now. But if he could fill in some more for the slot Bashir used to have, I think he’d be pretty good in time. I always liked him because he asked a wordy question but then actually let his guest answer. And I was like, “The guest can give a full answer without crosstalk? Who knew!”
Ben Franklin
Of course the problem is not just NBC. It’s systemic.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/entertainment/2013/12/19/09/57/conan-obrien-catches-news-readers-using-same-script
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, that was inside US media baseball-ish, even for Balloon Juice.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Looking around the ‘toobz, it seems Manchin has now become the MSM’s go-to Democrat for bipartisan, centrist quotes, ’cause West Virginia is a microcosm of Real America.
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
Dr. Cornel West. That’s no bullshit.…
piratedan
hey, here’s a novel idea, how about asking the panelists real questions instead of just reiterating the week’s highlights of Republican talking points? To be honest, I’d be happy if we put the politicians through a fucking civics quiz each week and make them watch 50’s educational videos about public service.
Corner Stone
@raven: I just think he knows his shit, can’t be bluffed and will ask follow up questions.
Of all the white personalities on NBC products, I think he’s the best current choice for that spot. I like Ari Melber too, but that’s more because his politics are closer to mine than some others.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Amir Khalid:
Best understood when sung to the tune of “Pass the Douchie on the Right Hand Side”
Corner Stone
@Ben Franklin: He plays favorites too hard.
raven
@Corner Stone: I agree. Don’t these people listen to themselves after the fact? He’s smart as shit but he, and half the other talking heads, can’t make it a minute without that verbal tic.
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
What do you mean ‘play favorites’?
Samuel Lockhart
NBC already has a first-class reporter and interviewer in Lester Holt. Anyone who remembers his Cronkite-level anchoring of the 2000 Presidential Cluster-F*** on MSNBC (I witnessed it in person) recalls just how smart and talented he is.
He is, of course, black and therefore unfairly prejudiced in favor of the President and other welfare deadbeats, so there’s that.
PhilbertDesanex
Soledad O’Brien!
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: Oh please, no MED! His guests get time to answer the question because while they’re yapping away, MED takes several minutes to turn a simple 8-word question into a confusing, 200-word thicket of dangling participles and unnecessary re-phrasings of the original premise.
Bill E Pilgrim
@raven: I’ve only heard him a little, but I bet that means that there’s a UK stint in his past. They use “sort of” to the point where it drives you nuts. Many of them, anyway.
They in fact use it in precisely the same way that people in the US use “like”, yet will ridicule the use of the latter as illiterate and annoying, while saying “It’s so sort of annoying, this sort of verbal sort of tic, these sort of Americans sort of saying it sort of constantly…”. Once you focus on it it becomes comical.
gene108
Maddow or Hayes on MTP would be a disaster. There would be so much scrutiny and pressure on them to be “fair and balanced” there is no way you could get them to grill Republicans without fear of their job security and they would be under pressure to be even more demanding in their questioning of Democrats.
Of course, they may be able to push back on the outright lies that make up Republican talking points, but without dishonest talking points what else do Republican guests have to discuss?
Catch-22 for them.
Anyway, if they want informal I say get Regis Philbin out of retirement. The man is a pro. He can host anything.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Before he even finished taking the oath of office in 2009 they were planning how to obstruct every single initiative as a way to undermine his presidency without any consideration for the fact that actively trying to ruin a presidency hurts the citizens of the country. It also fails to recognize that the policies those muthafuckas voted for broke the country in the first place.
And I remember vividly how in the first two years president Obama invited those same muthafuckas over to the WH anyway for football games and movies and talks and barbecues and did the full court press of trying to be friendly with them and they said the worst things about him anyway.
Manchin is just courting the anti Obama sentiment in his state.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, hence the “wordy” question part. And I agree it can be distracting but it can also open up a conversation outside of BS talking points the guest may want to spew.
I think he could get better with some consistent time pressure. I don’t know what his radio show is like but I imagine he can wend away at will.
Tehanu
@piratedan:
Best idea I’ve heard all week. Now, add Charlie Pierce and Ta-Nehisi Coates as the hosts and you’d actually have something I’d watch.
raven
@Bill E Pilgrim: EXACTLY! Katty Kay and Tina Brown are especially bad.
Corner Stone
I say we lobby them to give it to Jeremy Scahill. Can you imagine the awkward pause after coming back from a commercial break sponsored by Lockheed Martin? Scahill looks into the camera, takes a quick breath and asks his guest, “So. Death from the skies and you’ve been doing nothing but lying about it to the American people. You’re response?”
Joey Maloney
@JPL: If the repubs take over the Senate, Joe jumps. He just wants to be respected.
Yes, and everyone has so much respect for a traitor.
Bill E Pilgrim
@raven: I don’t know who she is but I have friends in the UK who I can barely listen to without laughing, once I started noticing that particular tic. Or many TV presenters, you name it. Often pronounced “soh of”.
Corner Stone
@Ben Franklin: If you rub his back a little then you’re all in his, “My Brother So-and-so, or my Sister Whosis”.
No matter what it seems you may or may not do, get in good with him and he stays bright and happy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and the Beltway. A Fournier column citing him as the new Sage of Capitol Hill can’t be far off, and Bob Woodward will no doubt use him as a source if anyone ever wants to give the Norma Desmond of the Punditocracy another book contract, and Tom Brokaw may even bestow upon him a Buffalo Bills jersey, the Robe of the Annointed of Russert Table.
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
I find his light touch with adversaries to be the principle ‘Be cautious as serpents; innocent as doves’ and he seems a fine example of what Christians should actually say and do. Don’t be deceived by his velvet glove. He has a wry wit; sharp tongue and when his iron fist meets the jawline, it has some effect.
askew
@Corner Stone:
Alex Wagner got Bashir’s time slot which is great news. She has the highest rated daytime show on MSNBC and she is the best host of the bunch. I was worried they were going to give the slot to Andrea Mitchell.
Corner Stone
I wonder what Phil Donahue is up to these days?
PeakVT
Why do we even have Sunday shows anymore? Can’t we just get rid of them? Do they benefit society in any way?
Corner Stone
@askew: She did? I’ve been seeing Ari Melber there recently.
Wagner is ok and I actually like her show before Andrea Mitchell. Usually one of the more entertaining and light humor panels, but on good topics.
ETA, can NOT stand Andrea Mitchell as an interviewer. Goodness but she is awful. All awkward pauses and under her breath follow up statements after a guest says something.
Just brutal.
Corner Stone
@Ben Franklin: Those are some seriously fine similes. Or were they metaphors? Analogies?
Shit. I just don’t know anymore.
Heliopause
Why not? The only people who watch the current show are liberal bloggers looking for something to get pissed off about. Joe and Mika would still give you plenty to get pissed off about plus might add a few eyeballs for the advertisers.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Ash Can:
Yes, it was. Although I had little interest in television I still made it a point to watch MTP – until 2008. That was when I gave up on the talking head shows. The breathless attempts to confer stature on McCain and to portray the coming election as a horse race killed my only remaining “must see TV.” Consequently, I don’t even know what Luke Russert looks like and all I know about Scarborough is that they found a dead female intern in his office. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
Eh. Just some shit I wrote.
Patrick
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I gave up years before that. It wasn’t just McCain. It was also Joe Lieberman who had to be on all the time. God knows why as he didn’t present the arguments from the other side.
Now it has basically turned into a right wing freak show with no rebuttals whatsoever from Gregory. I have assumed they simply don’t care about ratings. I wouldn’t watch the show if it was the last one on the planet. And no, I never watch Joe/Mika and wouldn’t in MTP either.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He made his political bones giving free legal counsel to the murderer of an abortion doctor– aka, a terrorist–, came to Congress as a Gingrich Republican and became a media presence calling for Clinton to be impeached, chased a bunch of cameras while exploiting Terri Schiavo’s coma, so of course, he is now known as the voice of old-fashioned moderate Republicanism.
WaterGIrl
@Corner Stone: I loathe dancing dave, and I stopped watching MTP as soon as they announced he would host.
I noticed (above) that you said no to chris hayes and no to maddow. You don’t like either of them? I thought that would be some smart conversation – maybe a 2 hour show, first hour a little education and smart conversation and then guests on the second hour.
When NBC calls me to get my input, that’s what I’ll tell them. :-)
J R in WV
@lamh36:
Unca Joe wants everyone he meets to kiss his ass, followed by tonguing him well everywhere that might feel good. Adding some bowing and scraping will also help Unca Joe feel like the relationship is appropriate.
Since President Obama outranks a junior senator by a whole lot, and since the President is BLACK, and a junior senator is expected to defer to the BLACK President, Unca Joe will never have a relationship with President Obama that satisfies Unca Joe. That’s just how it has to be, given Unca Joe’s upbringing. Just how it is.
You see, don’t you, why it has to be like this? The power relationship is totally backwards, which is all wrong, right?
J.
David Gregory has been a disaster. I liked him as the occasional/fill-in host on TODAY, but cannot abide him on Meet the Press, a show I considered must-see TV back when Russert hosted it. That said, I cringe at the mere thought of Luke Russert hosting it, or anything. (I do not get the whole Luke Russert thing. Who thinks he’s great, or even good? I don’t get it.) As for the suggestion of Chris Hayes, he, too has been tanking in the ratings, I believe, since leaving Up, though I liked him on Up. But I don’t think he’d fare much better on MtP. I’d be curious to see someone like Norah O’Donnell host a MtP type show, but I’m not sure she’d command enough respect or ratings.
Joking aside, what do you think, Betty?
askew
@Corner Stone:
Link to the announcement:
http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=844594
I’ve hated Andrea Mitchell ever since she reported on the 2008 campaign without revealing she was on the Bosnia flight that Hillary had been saying was under sniper fire. Andrea knew that the flight was never under any sniper fire and she didn’t say anything about it until the Netroots found local coverage of Hillary getting flowers on the tarmac and Sinbad, who was also on the flight, publicly contradicted Hillary’s account.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
So he was an Asshole Republican before being an Asshole Republican was cool?
Mike with a Mic
You all act like putting a journalist in there will improve meet the press, that’s laughable. Whoever you put in there will change from what you like about them now and just become another bog standard Washington journalist right after they get there. Because if they don’t nobody is going to go on that show. Nobody in Washington DC is going to go on a major Sunday show that does not bow to the greater Washington establishment. None of them, no matter where they stand politically, want that sort of camera shoved up their ass. So even if you had Maddow and Hayes up there, they’d just turn into Russert and Gregory be the nature of Washington DC being what it is.
If you like someones news product, it’s best to keep them as far away from the main stream and general public as possible. Keep them as obscure as you can. Because moment they get into the general public eye is the moment they have to change their product or their career will be over.
The problem isn’t the hosts, the problem is mainstream media that reaches enough houses and has access to top level politicians will always be corrupt, it’s a concept that can never be fixed the way we want. It’s much better to let the various Sunday shows implode on their own. Let people leave them for other news sources. By keeping the quality journalists out of the DC shit fest they can offer products where they won’t be corrupted and let people come to them.
CarolDuhart2
I would blow up the format in 2 ways: bring back the panel of journalists (with a moderator as traffic cop) and then copy the Diane Rhem format of one hour domestic, one hour international, with rotating local journalists instead of the usual DC crew.
But even this interesting format may have a problem: it’s Sunday Morning and an increasing number of folks are sleeping in. Maybe it should be scheduled at a later time or another day, say Saturday?
max
I gave up any attempts to watch Sunday shows (if I was ever awake to watch them) in 2000, during the recount. Never seen any reason since to watch them, since it’s wall-to-wall conservatives all morning long. If I wanted to see that I could watch Fox (and have, occasionally).
I have turned on whichever one is the ABC show when Krugman is on. Well, Christiane Amanpour, who is pretty awesome, but even she can’t make it worthwhile to watch the parade of Republicans.
max
[‘I have beheld ye works of propaganda and bullshit and I have tuned thy bullshit out.’]
burnspbesq
NBC has GREAT Sunday morning programming from August to May: the Barclay’s Premier League.
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He is the new VSP on the block.
Corner Stone
@WaterGIrl: For a few reasons. Some of what Mike with a mic says at #71, for example. I’ve almost stopped watching Maddow altogether. Her show seems more like pandering now, it’s just not informing me as much as I thought it used to. Hayes is in the wrong format for his strengths. An hour show with multiple segments does not play to what he does best. Giving him 30 minutes, then opening the second half to a panel of pundits/guests to babble through round table topic de jours would finish him off.
For the potential both Hayes and Maddow have shown/can still have, I just think the MtP slot would kill them into insipid blandness and not strengthen their brand one bit.
Corner Stone
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: For anyone interested in the subject of politics, it should absolutely scare the pants right off you that Scarborough is now considered a RINO and old school Republican.
In his heyday, Joe S. was an uberdouche Gingrich Republican. Batshit crazy (for the time) and a relentless hunter after the president. It’s laughable now that he lauds back to the good old days of him and Clinton “gettin’ stuff done”. Yeah, fuck you Joe.
If we could transpose what Joe was into something comparable nowadays, he’d combine the sheer repugnantly stupid viciousness of a Rep Stockman with the duplicit relentlessness of a Rep Issa.
Just an all around scumbag. And yet, if we could get 30 1990’s era Joe S.’s into the R caucus? I’d freaking take it in a heartbeat.
askew
Hayes would be a disaster at Meet The Press as would Maddow. Both are too accommodating to conservatives/Republicans and much harder on Democratic politicians who they disagree with. They would get run over by McCain,etc.
I am not sure there is anyone at MSNBC who would be good at that slot maybe Thomas Roberts or Tamaron Hall?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Corner Stone:
It already disturbs me that Sen. John Cornyn,among others, is considered insufficiently conservative. “That’s the signpost up ahead. Your next stop; The Twilight Zone.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I started watching the Sunday shows during the ’92 campaign, when I was a Dem-leaning un-engaged young voter disgusted by Poppy Bush’s rank hypocrisy and pandering demagoguery. I thought watching them and reading Friedman and Broder made me well-informed. It was the Clinton impeachment that made the scales fall from my eyes, when I developed a particular loathing for Monsignor Russert and Mother Superior Cokie Roberts. Around that time, I think after it was all over and we were gearing up for 2000, I was watching George Will on the CSPAN call in show, and some one called in and asked how he could stand to spend so much time with those Clinton-loving liberals Cokie Roberts and especially that Sam Donaldson. GWill said he didn’t know anyone who believed more strongly than Sam that Bill Clinton should have been convicted and removed from office. Not long after that, as I started to find these so-called “blogs”, there was a rumor, which I find absolutely credible, going around that the Good Monsignor went to one of their black tie orgies of self-congratulation and star-fucking, wearing a Bush-Cheney button under his lapel, which he would flash at friendlies. It seems to me exactly the sort of smarmy, back-slapping shit he would do.
By 2004, I found them all unwatchable.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m more forgiving than most here of Chris Matthews, but it’s astounding to me that no one ever calls him on his screechy, red-faced and sometimes teary-eyed (“what that man did in the PEOPLE’S HOUSE!”) hate of the Clenis when he starts waxing nostalgic and asking why Spockbama can’t be more like that wonderful, folksy Bubba.
Betty Cracker
@J.: Maybe blowing up the format would be the best strategy. There’s a lot of truth to the point Mike w/ a Mic made above about the utility of a format that depends on the cooperation of Washington power brokers; building those relationships is antithetical to the practice of true journalism.
I’m not sure how this would fly from a ratings standpoint, but one thing we sorely need is more (and better!) fact checking. How about a Sunday show centered on that, with an examination of the facts underlying the stories driving the week’s media cycle? Some stories are so complex (NSA, for example) that the coverage just glosses over really important aspects of it, so people assume the worst, or media outlets just quote two opposing takes on it without bothering to examine the truth of either position.
A program like this probably wouldn’t work at a corporate controlled network, but the absence of a factual basis for understanding and discussing the issues of the day is one of the most pressing concerns we have as a democracy. Any program that could serve as a partial solution would help. Hell, they might even be able to sell soap if they sexed it up with some dumb-ass “rating” system, though that way lies PolitiFact…
Elizabelle
If I was queen of the world, I would return Meet the Press to a panel of journalists/interviewers, which rotates. Nobody gets too comfy there.
The non-journalist interviewers might include businesspeople (not necessarily “business leaders” — I’d go for smart people with Main Street businesses), social entrepreneurs and nonprofit types, retired congresscritters without an axe to grind, students curious about the world we’re leaving them. Even performing arts types, if they have something to contribute. Doctors, when the issue was healthcare.
I’d stick in a whipsmart political comic or two as well, going for a Colbert light type, since the original is a way high bar.
The journalists would be working journalists. I think I’d cast for Pulitzer winners who had any interest in taking part in my Sunday morning experiment. I’d have David Cay Johnston, and people who wrote about serious issues in their own communities, or in the larger world.
I’d try to keep it smart and light and a little irreverent.
But I would allow my panelists to ask follow up after follow up, and follow up on each others’ questions.
It would not be a tongue bath. I’d want people who could think on their feet, and wanted to find out how the newsmakers’ plans would affect them, in real life.
David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell, Chuck Todd and similar NBC imbeciles would not be allowed on the set or near the Green Room. I guess they could vacuum, if they wanted.
Lester Holt is in the running for an intermittent journalist/host, though.
Elizabelle
I’d serve lots and lots of coffee. I’d select for smart and entertaining and truthful. You’ll notice that leaves out too many broadcast journalists/communications majors right there.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
Hmmm.
I understand the “better” part of your suggestion but all fact checking does is confirm already held bias. Your example of Politifact is a good one.
Look what happened right here at BJ. There were several people, one in particular May God Rest His Soul, who fiercely trotted out Politifact any time they wanted to try and end an argument. Well, guess what? That worm turned, as they all do.
I, for one, don’t need someone to tell me what the “facts” are. Just give me the issue. I’ll look around and make up my own mind.
(I can hear my dad saying in jest, “Facts? I don’t need your facts, I already know what I think! :-) )
I understand lots of other people may not have the time to do that, and are inundated with soundbyte nonsense. To the point where in 2010 people honestly believed Obama had raised their taxes!
But no one show, for one hour, one day a week is going to push back against that tide.
We need better public policy that allows the polity as a whole to engage and not choose between reading a second source article on something, or making it to the bus stop in time to go to their second part time job.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: I don’t think a single TV show would turn back the tide of ignorance either, of course. And confirming preconceived bias is always a danger. But absent a complete overhaul of public policy to empower and inform the citizenry (something I support!) and in the spirit of merely offering ideas on replacing Press the Meat, I think the network could do worse (and is reportedly contemplating doing MUCH worse) than considering a facts analysis format. As long as it’s not hosted by Michael Eric Dyson!
Corner Stone
Man, FYWP just boned me.
Everyone, be on the lookout for like a sextuplet repeated comment by me.
Corner Stone
Looks like I used the word for someone who is an ist in a special subject.
Damn boners.
Ruckus
I’ll do it.
I clean up OK, can speak in complete sentences, like to ask questions, know how to control my swearing in televised settings/public speaking….
OK I’m not qualified because I think conservatives are all assholes but still.
FlipYrWhig
An alternative format for a Sunday AM news show: 40 minutes of a Frontline-ish documentary; 20 minutes of a panel discussion on the program we all just watched. Panel discussion has a moderator, and panel is not comprised of all-purpose partisan pundits or politicians or anyone focused on polling and who’s-up-who’s-down bullshit. Hayes does a decent job with the panel format by inviting people who aren’t from the usual stable of Cokies and Colmeses.
Shalimar
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Scarborough was a far-right Republican back when all that took was being an extreme asshole, before you had to be nuts too.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: The thing I’m not so keen on about Dyson is that I know, through friends-of-friends circles, one of his protégés. And that guy, mentored by Dyson, is just a guy: he doesn’t particularly know anything, he’s not particularly good on camera, he has no relevant expertise… There are at least 50 people who are regulars on blogs I read who would be infinitely more interesting than that guy. He just happens to have been given the Dyson stamp of approval and now semi-regularly appears as a talking head. I don’t think it reflects well on Dyson or on the news networks’ nose for talent.
Chickamin Slam
Hire Joe the Plumber on. He could do the whether or something.
Josie
@Ruckus: Details, details…..
MD Rackham
Greenwald!
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: Now I’m curious about who that is! You’re under no obligation to spill the beans, of course.
I can’t abide Dyson’s wordy style. But wait, “wordy” is too succinct; let me Dysonize that sentence:
I am unable to countenance with sanguinity the altogether too meandering, circumlocutory and verbose manner of speaking that is characteristic of the occasional MSNBC host, whose long-winded, roundabout mode of expression invariably includes approximately five-hundred percent more nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, clauses, participial phrases and other parts of speech than is strictly necessary to express and expound upon the thought, so much so that the listener quite often and on frequent occasions completely loses his or her train of thought or otherwise fails to accurately attend to the idea being explicated.
There. That’s it.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Did you come up with that? You sure is smart, Betty.
Tractarian
Brilliant idea, and brilliant title.
First-class Balloon Juice blogging at its finest.
Queensbridge
I wonder if Richard Simmons is available?
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: well played! And, no, I shouldn’t say who this person is…
Violet
@Ben Franklin:
Don’t think she is, as she signed with Yahoo! to do something there. Who knows what. But she could be a really interesting choice. Female–so that would shake things up a tad. She’s not a bad interviewer and she could use the role to highlight her “serious side” after that disastrous talk show.
I’d prefer the rotating panel of journalists, making a point to include a non-D.C.-based journalist every week. Pick people from big and small cities and towns over the year to take that role.
Cervantes
@piratedan:
That would be hilarious.
Also more edifying than what we have now.
Cervantes
@PeakVT:
Decades ago, maybe.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone: Agreed.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker: Valued Guest Betty,
May I inquire of you, on this day of days, this one transition of night into a brightly lit period of infinite possibilities and transcendantal openings so that we here may know the true nature or essence of all things, how it is that a woman of such refinement, such intellectuality and creativity with wine foil related pursuits, the matriarch of a thousand chickens born. How it is, precisely, maybe not in avenues we currently fathom but in paths and glittering silken brocades which can be measured in their entirety, that you have risen up to claim the mantle, or at least the brand or other essential imprimatur, of the individual who could possibly prevent such a loquacious orator as myself, from my determined locality on the television, or at minimus on the MSNBC?
Kathleen
@Corner Stone: I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Jeremy Scahill. I saw him take down Chuck Todd on Maher’s Real Time a few years ago. Todd was quite flustered and had his “Jay Carney just hurt my feelings” expression. It was a thing of beauty.
David Koch
Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon
Cervantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Difficult question. Journalism, ownership of the media, and the relationship between press and partisan power, have changed a lot since the 40s. Even at the beginning, journalists did exercise (what we can call) discretion; then as now, some questions remained unasked. Today’s cocktail circuit, however, did not get started in earnest until the 80s — which is when these shows stopped serving the public interest and, in fact, started working against it.
Re MTP in particular, you’d never guess looking at it today that it (sort of) began as a spin-off of Mencken’s American Mercury. And yes, I’d say it has never been as good as it was in the hands of Martha Rountree (the first host) and Lawrence Spivak.
J.
@Betty Cracker: Love that idea. (And I’m not just saying that because I’m a former fact checker.) But no way is that happening. Sadly.
fuckwit
I forget the name of the blog in which everyone refers to Gregory as “Fluffy”, but it’s fucking awesome. He’s exactly that, a fluffer.
As for who should host the show, aaaaah, how about NOBODY? Maybe, just maybe, the TV entertainers should stop hurting America.
tofubo
@Corner Stone:
ding ding ding, we have a winner