Yes, the new changes to Meet the Press are bad, but it really doesn’t matter. The Sunday shows are pointless anyway.
The big news in the closed off world of elite Washington punditry this week had to NBC’s announcement of changes to it’s flagship Sunday news and talk show Meet the Press. Coming on the heels of the replacement of former host David Gregory with Chuck Todd back in August, Meet the Press will be adding conservative MSNBC morning news guy Joe Scarborough and Luke (son of Tim) Russert into an effort to pump up falling ratings.
Basically every hates these new ideas. Liberal site Gawker described the new line up as a “garbage dump” while the conservative Daily Caller announced that viewers are preparing “to retch.” And I noticed quite a few comments on Twitter about how the new additions reflect the Sunday shows’ (and journalism’s in general) enormous lack of diversity.
In my view these points are correct, but they don’t ultimately matter at all. The reality is that the Sunday shows are completely pointless and you shouldn’t be watching them anyway. They aren’t the important shows they were back in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Instead the Sunday talk shows are really just a relic of another age held together by people who don’t want them canceled because then they’d have to go find real jobs in journalism, and aging (white) Washingtonians who want to prove they are still “in the know”, as Richard Ben Cramer put it, by appearing on them from time to time.
Jonathan Bernstein summed this up best back in March:
In the era of three-network television, the Sunday shows were useful because there were few other venues to hear the parties talk about important issues. And politicians didn’t have many ways to send up trial balloons, or to engage in public, high-profile bargaining.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad freeThat age ended sometime between the beginning of the Ronald Reagan presidency and the election of Bill Clinton. And yet, more than 20 years later, the Sunday shows still have their prestige and an audience.
Lots of features of journalism have changed since publishing has moved online and information has become available quite literally in the palm of your hand. It used to be you had to buy a newspaper to figure out when and where you could see a movie or know what the weather was going to be! And you can still do that if you want to, but physical newspapers are hardly central to weather forecasting or the film industry anymore.
As Bernstein puts it, “[t]he only solution is to stop paying attention.” If you really are a news or political junkie that has nothing better to do on a Sunday there are all sorts of better things to read or watch out there. The Sunday shows are basically just a waste of time for everyone except the people who get to be on them and get paid to host them.
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Here is a simple and easy way to end the Sunday shows …. change the channel or turn off the TV.
yeah, but where would all the top oil company and defense contractor ad revenue go to? independent online journalism where reporters would ask real questions that matter to the people and/or tax paying public?! i mean, these shows need to exist so the corporate elite can have their legally bribed federal representatives spew forth and dispense their talking points. john mccain: obama isn’t doing enough to fight isis. real reporter: didn’t you advise arming syrian rebels, many of whom are now isis? john mccain: you’ve lost your access john mccain: obama isn’t doing enough to fight isis. todd/russert/other empty vacuous… Read more »