STEWPOT: NEWS STARS

I knew something was up when I flipped to CNN one day and found myself breaking into an involuntary smile. My joy was triggered by the sight of one John Roberts substitute anchoring what is now cringerifically called AC 360. Never heard of this fellow? Neither had I, hence my delight. Refreshing, indeed, this generic “news man,” blandly reporting the day’s top stories.

That in contrast, of course, with “AC” himself, with his signature Anderson Cooper eyebrow knit, his patented Anderson Cooper sympathy eyes and his trademark Anderson Cooper hand-to-hip gesture of gravity. For the rest of the country, Hurricane Katrina was a tragedy. For Coop, it was career gold. He stood amid the wreckage and told us the unvarnished truth. “Shocking images from New Orleans. What is happening there is an outrage,” he said, opening the show on Sept. 1, 2005. Some considered his subjective reporting an outrage. But he seemed genuinely shaken, and his abandonment of journalistic objectivity fit the desperation of the moment. There was talk of a new kind of TV journalism, with Cooper at its helm.

CNN got excited and hastily moved its chips to Cooper’s corner. Senior anchor Aaron Brown, already demoted to co-host, vanished altogether three months after Katrina. But the empathic style that worked in one disaster setting has fallen flat in others. When Cooper started spouting poetry from the Israel-Lebanon border last August, the world started laughing at him. 

After his nightly report from the war zone, Cooper announced a Reporter’s Notebook segment, intended to give us viewers at home a glimpse of the action through the eyes of the reporter. Said reporter turned out to be, you guessed it: Anderson Cooper. A montage of photography from the field served as the backdrop for Coop’s voice: “It's been three weeks now,” he incanted, “three weeks and counting. Fighting and dying, shelling and running. So much of it seems so long ago, only the pictures are a reminder you were ever there. War is like that. Each day is the first, the past is dead, forgotten. In war there's only now, only this.” This went on for 284 excruciating words. Even Coop himself looked a bit sheepish when the camera cut back to the live shot. “Pictures again by Uri Lieberman of Getty Images,” he stammered.

CNN is not alone. 2006 could be remembered as the year news shows tried to become like other TV shows, shunning the dusty model of anchors, reporters and commentators and turning instead to shows based on TV personalities. With the help of the Paris Hilton construct of individual as brand, the news landscape has been repopulated with name shows: AC 360, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Tucker, and of course, The CBS Evening News WITH KATIE COURIC, which doesn’t have that capitalization, but, let’s face it, really should.

The Princess of Perk’s move to the CBS anchor chair was a bigger story than any she has actually covered as anchor. In fact she seems to have a knack for trivialization, as when she asked Condoleezza Rice how a male suitor might “go about asking the secretary of state out on a date.  [Holds imaginary phone to ear.] ‘Hi, Madam Secretary? Listen...'” I saw this and wept for womankind.

Couric’s ratings have proven disappointing. So have Coop’s. But that hasn’t stopped MSNBC from grooming its own star, Keith Olbermann, whom the network has been hawking in a blitzkrieg ad campaign: “Whether he reminds you of the golden age of journalism or its future…”

There was a time, a few months back, when I was willing to consider liking Keith Olbermann. Donald Rumsfeld had just given a speech likening war critics to Nazi appeasers and Olbermann was mad as hell. He broke from the regular Countdown format to give an invigorating speech to the camera, which began, “The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.” (To which I said, “Daaayum!  Rummy just got sonned!”)

But the special comment soon became Special Comment, Olbermann’s version of Reporter’s Notebook: the star’s turn to do his virtuostic solo. Like Cooper, Olbermann first ranted from the heart. Now the segment is a gimmick, sitting in a sorry lineup alongside Oddball and Worst Person in the World. Lately Olbermann announces that his Special Comment is “just ahead” as routinely as Stephen Colbert says, “Which brings us to tonight’s Word.” The results, however, are far less delicious.

Olbermann positions himself -- or his corporate overlords position him -- as the left’s answer to Bill O’Reilly. An Edward R. Murrow for the digital age. (This former sportscaster even has the gall to sign off with Murrow’s “Good night and good luck.”) Olbermann and the man he childishly delights in calling “Bill-O” are locked in a perpetual bickering match, with the Fox News mascot regularly taking the top prize in Countdown’s nightly Worst Person in the World segment. But you can’t out-trash O’Reilly.  And do we really want to try?

The new news regime was out in full force during last month’s election night. CNN minimized cameratime for oldbies like Wolf Blitzer and Paula Zahn, cutting instead to Handsomeman Cooper, darting between panels of experts. At MSNBC poor Chris Matthews -- who clearly waits up for results on election night with the fanatical anticipation of a child hoping to glimpse Santa -- had to share his anchor desk with Olbermann. The final insult came when Matthews had to anoint the young prince at night’s end. Through clenched teeth (and, one imagines, with a little Fred Friendly type hiding under the anchor desk with a gun pointed at him), he told Olbermann, “I have to tell you Keith, this has been fun tonight ... I find your views very informative ... It’s good to have a provocation because it makes people think.  And you are as good as Edward R. Murrow -- at -- that sort of thing.”  Olbermann then gave him donuts.

Both cable networks managed to boost election night ratings a bit with their “it” boys (Couric tanked), but sly Fox still took the prize with 3.1 million viewers, proving again that the actual lowest common denominator will always win the race to the bottom.

Of course the outsized news personality is at least as old as cable news itself. But an opinionated commentator like Chris Matthews, or even “Illegal Alien Lou” Dobbs, is somehow not as objectionable as these shiny new models. Poorly qualified but slickly marketed, they are to news as a boy band is to music. And Aaron Brown isn’t the only old school chops-based journalist being pushed aside. Remember that John Roberts guy I’d never heard of? Seems he spent 14 years at CBS News before moving to CNN, six of them as chief White House correspondent. A couple years back he was considered a likely candidate for the CBS anchor throne. Wonder how that worked out for him.

AC 360 and Countdown may seem like the forgivably magaziney helpings of opinion and celebrity-gawking on the side, but if you’re waiting for the meat course, don’t. These shows are what pass for a nightly newscast at their respective networks.

So why is such a venerable institution as the news tarting itself up more shamelessly than Fergie? They’re ogling the ratings, especially for the youth demographic, of a more popular “news” show, hosted by Jon Stewart. Countdown in particular barely tries to conceal its desire to be The Daily Show. This is pitiful. Emulating your own parody is surely a recipe for failure, as well as shit-eating humiliation. And ironically, The Daily Show is not built on a star personality. Stewart is talented enough to carry a show, but bland and humble enough to take a backseat to his material. (An imitation, you might say, of what a real news anchor is supposed to be like.) The Daily Show is not him and he is not The Daily Show. No one mistakenly says “The Jon Stewart Show” as they might say, for example, “The Conan O’Brien Show.” Would it ever have become a hit without Rob Cordry, Samantha Bee and Stephen Colbert? And what about that cabal of Jewish men who always seem to snag the variety show writing Emmy?

We in the coveted youth advertising demographic are not so easily duped anyhow. We watch The Daily Show because it’s good, not because we have some kind of Pavlovian response to funny video clips and zippy graphics and special segments with cute names. The news networks need look no further than their corporate siblings, the movie studios, to see that the star system is dead. And they better look fast. If this keeps up Keith Olbermann could be jumping on couches and Anderson Cooper doing drunken anti-Semitic tirades in no time.

Emma Pollin is a regular columnist for City Belt. Stewpot is her column on politics, popular culture, media and whatever else can be crammed into the pot.
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Comments

>>If this keeps up Keith Olbermann could be jumping on couches and Anderson Cooper doing drunken anti-Semitic tirades in no time.

I can't wait.

[Shane Smith]

Holy cow, Emma, this is great. Looking forward to more amazing columns from you! City Belt does it again!

[Cato]

Ummm...sweetie pie...your rant about the Star-fuckification of the news biz is about five years late and several ducats short of profound truth.

Blog maunderings aside, this was a real piece of hack work. Where is an editor when you need it?

My advice-cut some column inches and do the research that genuine media types do.

"Remember that John Roberts guy I’d never heard of? Seems he spent 14 years at CBS News before moving to CNN, six of them as chief White House correspondent. A couple years back he was considered a likely candidate for the CBS anchor throne. Wonder how that worked out for him."

A good copy desk would say "Whoa". You have the temerity to "cover" the media when you don't know who these people are? I suggest you pick up a copy of the media Yellow Book and do some research before you make such silly statements. As you put your vaporing out for all to see (or catch on Media Bistro), you'd better be certain of what you're saying...

[Editor]

Hey sugar tits, er, um, Cato (what, was that sexist? Like your use of "sweetie pie?") -- a few things here in response:

On being five years late -- the personalization of politics, news, sports, social movements and anything else under the sun is certainly not new, and I don't think Pollin was making that argument. However, it would be hard to argue that Cooper -- the subject of this piece -- is "five years late."

Shit, is Cooper even five years old? He's so cuddly!

And now, I'll pass it over to Frank from the copy desk.

Frank here -- I don't really get what you're saying there Cato, the thing about John Roberts. You see, I and the editors just saw that as a writer having a voice, being playful, and doing so in a way that correlated with the material being covered.

As far as being certain of what was said, I was pretty certain everything was A-OK. And you've not made any substantive charges against the accuracy. Of course, there could be errors -- I've been on a bit of an amphetamine bender the past few weeks, with Jesus' birthday coming up and all.
Peace, love and fun,
Frank.

OK, Cato, You can go back to being a "geniune media type" now, though, we wouldn't want you to keep the Gazette waiting.

[Emma Pollin]

This column was unabashedly written from the perspective of the couch. I'm not an expert on media and don't pretend to be. But the fact that I am not an expert does not make my opinion invalid or my writing inaccurate.

At least I am a sweetie pie.

[S.A., St. Louis, MO]

Some more info about John Roberts you probably don't know is that he used to be a VJ in Canada. Now he has his own CNN show, "This Week At War."

You also may not know that while Cooper burst into the spotlight during Katrina, he is by no means new to the business. He earned his chops covering conflicts everywhere from Rwanda to Somalia to Burma. And I'll take him over a Zahn, Blitzer, or Matthews any day. The Reporter's Notebooks aren't for everybody but they occur for about two minutes once in a blue moon. He has a two hour show. Have some perspective.

[Editor]

The problem, as I see it, goes far beyond Cooper's "Reporter's Notebook" sections -- it is in the way that he presents his version of the news. And while Cooper may (or may not) be preferable to Zahn, Blitzer or Matthews, why are those our only choices? I mean, I guess I'd prefer President Bush over Hitler as a leader, but that certainly doesn't mean that Bush is a "good" leader.

My opinion -- I think they should just take news off TV entirely. The medium -- or at least the way it is manifested in America -- seems incompatable with rational thought.

[S.A., St. Louis, MO]

So what exactly are you looking for editor? Hey, I'd love a straight news station without the bells and whistles too, but it's not going to happen because the people won't watch. Here's an irony for you: when Cooper had Angelina Jolie on to talk about refugees (including what's going on in the Congo) his numbers went through the roof. However, when he actually went to the Congo to report on what's going on there (to my knowledge the only reporter that has done so) his numbers tanked. So there you go. We have seen the enemy and it is ourselves. You can't put all the blame on the reporters.

As for getting rid of news on television, keep dreaming. In early 2005 when the news was in unbelievably poor shape (not that it's not still in poor shape) I was right there with you. But I was wrong. You need the video. It's as simple as that. Would we have helped out during the tsunami without the pictures? What about Katrina? Would the country have turned against Iraq? I'm thinking no to all three of those.

BTW, if you want a broader perspective of the great reporting and unbelievable suckiness tht can be found on Cooper's show, check out my blog.

[Editor]

Setting aside any arguments on whether the problem is the audience or the producer/reporter of lame news (I see it as neither, but rather the institution, but that's for another day) for a moment, I'd like to address your second point.

Obviously, I know that getting news off of TV is a pipe dream. And while your argument that TV news was what spurred Americans to help out during the tsunami is seductive, it wasn't TV news, per se. It was, as you say, video. The video happened to be on TV. But video is just as powerful online, if not moreso, since there is much less capital involved and therefore much less worry about pleasing the mass.

As for your other two examples, I think they are even further off the mark. How could have visuals from mainstream TV (or print) news turned the country against the war, when said imagery is so sanitized (again, to keep that mass happy)? I, for one, watched Nick Berg get beheaded online, not on World News Tonight. Likewise, I watched Iraqis drag the burnt and dead bodies of Blackwater employees through the streets of Fallujah online, not on NBC Nightly News.

And, lastly, as for Katrina -- much was made of how Katrina really woke the mainstream press out of its slumber, and brought to light these massive inequalities in race and class in America. But if that was really the case, and the mass' conscience was truly piqued and we were all brought to action, why does the Lower Ninth Ward still look like Ramadi?

[S.A., St. Louis, MO]

I completely agree that there is better video online, but how many people actually watch it? Brian Williams has about 8-9 million people watching him every night and that's just one show. I don't have the data, but I really doubt online videos are getting that many downloads every day. I think sometimes the internet savy among us forget that there are millions of people in this country that have never heard of a blog and wouldn't know the first thing to do with youtube. When I talk with people in the three dimensional non internet world they refer to things they've seen on television, not online. Some day tv news will be obsolete, but we're not even close yet.

Yes, the visuals of the war are sanitized on television, but they're still having an effect. Plus the coverage depends on the pictures. If they don't have video, they're less likely to do a story on Iraq, and if people aren't hearing about Iraq all the time they're less likely to think about it at all. After all, this is a war that the majority of Americans have no personal connection to. I'd love to think that everyone is reading newspapers, but they're not. However, most of them are watching tv news.

Katrina did wake up the mainstream press...for the moment. The whole race and class thing has of course gone out the window, which I'm sure wasn't surprising to any of us paying attention, but the press as a whole I think has begun to question more as a result of the hurricane and other factors (Plame, Cindy Sheehan,..). The Lower Ninth Ward still looks like Ramadi because tv news has the attention span of a five year old with ADHD.

When I brought up Katrina I was talking about the week that it happened. How much longer would help have taken and how many more people would have died if there wasn't an outrage explosion across the country? We may think that the criminal incompetence we witnessed was as bad as it could get, but I'm guessing without the extreme pressure from the media and country as a whole, it would have been much worse. And we may have never even known about half of the outrages.

I still don't understand your problem with how Cooper presents the news. Are you looking for more of a Brian Williams presentation because if he had a 2 hour show on cable I'm sure he'd be presenting like Cooper too. The reverse is also true of course. Cooper just started submitting stories to 60 Minutes and his presentation there is different.