For anyone who hates PBS’ The Newshour (like I do), Alexander Cockburn has reprinted the sharp and very funny critique of the show he did for an issue of Harper’s in 1982. For me, watching the show has always resulted in a (one-way) shouting match with the television (or radio), which a housemate once thought my funniest trait.
Cockburn emphasizes the show’s blandness and tediousness (partly by creating three parody segments, including a “debate” between a Roman legal expert and Simon Peter on the need to crucify Christ because he’s a troublemaker) noting:
Trudging back through the ‘MacNeil/ Lehrer’ scripts, the hardy reader will soon observe how extraordinarily narrow is the range of opinion canvassed by a show dedicated to dispassionate examination of the issues of the day. The favored blend is usually a couple of congressmen or senators, barking at each other from either side of the fence, corporate chieftains, government executives, ranking lobbyists, and the odd foreign statesman. The mix is ludicrously respectable, almost always heavily establishment in tone. Official spokesmen of trade and interest groups are preferred over people who only have something interesting to say.
It’s show to be watched/listened to solely for sociological purposes: what are “thoughtful” WashBos/LA-SF elites thinking today? What sorts of plans do they have for use and/or expansion of state and government power? Should Potus bomb the bad guys now, or wait until later?
Not bombing is never a Newshour “opinionmaker” option.
1:11 pm on June 30, 2005
