You know you've had a long day when you start at 6 a.m. in New York with Morning Joe and wind up at 6 p.m. in Washington playing Hardball.
Especially since my encounters with Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews came on very little sleep after a two-day marathon, bouncing between O'Reilly and Olbermann and Jon Stewart. Such is life on book tour. Squeezed in some radio in between, lots more next week, plus an appearance! on Tucker! on Monday.
What's fascinating is how each host takes what interests him from REALITY SHOW, filters it through the prism of his own experience or ideology, and steers the conversation in that direction. It also makes each interview surprisingly different. I'll say this for Jon Stewart -- he didn't go for the cheap laugh (only the expensive ones). He really wanted to have a conversation about problems in the TV news biz. Matthews was interested in how campaigns try to manipulate the evening newscasts and the morning shows.
No one really knows whether all these appearance help sell books, but they are, at least, a way of spreading the word. Until you start babbling incoherently, which may happen any day now...
6 comments:
May I respectfully inquire:
What about the fact that media content hinges on corporate ownership?
If any given media-owning corporation also runs oil companies or maybe oh, say ... manufactures arms, what are our chances of getting objective news stories on oh, lets say uhm... thinking hard ... the Iraq war?
As a reader of independent European news media, I can assure you that - to cite just one instance among oh so many - the whole Iraq affair's variously cooked-up rationales looked highly suspicious pretty much from day one.
Now that the ramifications of this war are starting to be bad for international business, news coverage is changing.
We can debate all aspects of American news coverage in minute detail all day long, but it's all futile until we acknowledge that, more often than not, there's an inherent conflict of interest between objective reporting and what's good for business.
I've worked at The Washington Post for 25 years and never once had anyone in corporate management tell me I couldn't write something. It just doesn't work that way at most American media companies.
Lucky you.
One hears different from Dan Rather, or even Katie Couric...
never once had anyone in corporate management tell me I couldn't write something
Of course not. If they have to tell you, you never get the job in the first place.
"You know you've had a long day when you start at 6 a.m. on one side of the street in Bagdad and wind up at 6 p.m. on the other side behind an overturned car still being fired at by people you can't see. Hugh Hewitt is my hero."
THIS IS A JOKE BLOG NOT CONDONED BY THE WASHINGTON POST'S FAILED COLUMNIST.
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