Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's rising tide lifted several TV boats Wednesday night as it washed across the small screen from dinner time to the midnight hour setting ratings records.

Most impressive is the boost the Illinois senator gave Comedy Central and two of its most popular shows, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. As successful as both have been in attracting audiences in the past, Wednesday they reached all-time highs.

An audience of 3.6 million viewers tuned in Wednesday for The Daily Show to see Obama interviewed via satellite from Florida where he was campaigning. Not only was it Stewart's biggest audience ever, it was the first time he topped 3 million viewers.

Stewart's previous all-time high was on Oct. 8 when Michelle Obama visited the show, and 2.9 million viewers tuned in.

Overall, the election has been manna from heaven for the politically-savvy comedian who had his two best months ever in September and October in the ratings.

Riding Stewart's coattails, The Colbert Report drew a record 2.4 million viewers as host Stephen Colbert announced his endorsement of Obama Wednesday night.

By way of comparison, the best we have is Independent Party candidate H. Ross Perot's purchase of advertising time on three networks on the eve of the election in 1992. There is some apples and oranges involved because he bought longer blocks of time and they were staggered not roadblocked as Obama's were.

But the combined audience for all Perot's infomercials that night was 22.68 million viewers.

I'll tell you something, a lot of media outlets are going to hate to see this election come to an end with the ratings surge it has provided for many.

Posted by David Zurawik at 5:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama delivered a TV tour de force last night. 

I don’t think any presidential candidate has ever had as strong and wide-reaching a run on the medium as Obama did from the dinner hour to the midnight hour. As he shifted programming genres ranging from news to comedy, Obama altered his demeanor and calibrated his performances to the different settings with TV skills not seen since John F. Kennedy.

Obama’s race across the television landscape started with informed and thoughtful responses to some tough questions from anchorman Charles Gibson on ABC World News at 6:30 p.m., and was still going strong as the clock approached midnight with live cable TV coverage of a speech in Florida where Obama was joined onstage by former President Bill Clinton. It was the first time these two men -- two of the most eloquent speakers in American politics -- stood side by side that way.

In between, was the highly publicized, prime-time infomercial that ran on three networks and four cable channels at 8 p.m., an effective and affecting production aimed at helping viewers get to know Obama better – even as it also personalized the nation's current hard times through the stories of four diverse American families.

And at 11 p.m., like a sweet after-dinner desert, came Obama’s interview with comedian Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. Obama struck just the right jocular and bemused tone with the acerbic comic – even though he was appearing via satellite, which can often make repartee all but impossible. Obama kept pace with Stewart quip for quip.

After watching every second of it, I stand by my column of yesterday: Obama is the last great TV candidate – the best since John F. Kennedy, better than Ronald Reagan.

Gibson, who was the first to grill and expose the limitations of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, was giving no free pass to Obama last night. While the conversation was cordial, some pointed questions were asked.

Obama’s best moment was the way he dismissed charges from the McCain campaign labeling him a socialist and Marxist without sounding defensive by saying, "The notion I'm interested on punishing wealth or success is nonsense."

Here is a representative exchange:

GIBSON: And yet in recent months, you have hammered at the wealthy and CEOs and Wall Street and greed. Talked about taxing the wealthy to benefit lower- and middle-income people. Isn't that a kind of classic old-time class warfare?

OBAMA: No. You know, I'm reminded of my friend, Warren Buffett, whose support I'm very glad to have, who says if there's class warfare going on right now, my class is winning. (LAUGHS) Look, what I'm talking about here is going back to the Bush tax rates -- or the tax rates that existed under Bill Clinton back in the 1990s for people making more than $250,000 a year. That's not a punitive rate. We're talking about a marginal rate going from 36 to 39.

GIBSON: So what'd you mean when you told that plumber you wanted to spread the wealth?

 OBAMA: Well, if you look at the tape, what I said was exactly what I said right now, which is that if people are doing very well, then there's nothing wrong with us going back to these old tax rates in order to give tax relief to 95 percent of Americans who have been struggling even when the economy was growing. Now, that basic principle is as American as apple pie. You know, the irony of -- the biggest promoter of the early progressive income tax was John McCain's hero, Teddy Roosevelt.

As for the prime-time infomercial, its power came primarily from the wise use of imagery.

From an opening filmed image of an amber field of grain in Kansas, to a live closing shot of a wildly cheering crowd in Florida, Obama’s 30-minute, prime-time campaign infomercial last night was a winner.

It wasn’t that the production broke any new ground in media and politics. The producers essentially worked within the well-worn and time-tested genre of candidate films shown at national conventions. Think: Bill Clinton and The Man From Hope.

But last night’s presentation was skillfully attuned to the candidate’s strengths and perceived weaknesses – and spoke in a voice perfectly pitched to counter what the opposition, Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin, have been saying against Obama on the campaign trail.

His opponents have warned that Obama is an unknown quantity and somehow "different" than what they define as mainstream Americans. But in the film, he spoke movingly about being defined by the "absence" of his father, shaped by the death to cancer of his mother, and the love and hard work of his grandparents. And every scene included an American flag and an abundance of images from our shared national psyche like those fields of grain.

Furthermore, image after image showed Obama in the homes of voters talking to groups of people in close proximity. While diverse, each of the groups included large numbers of older white women and men, exactly the voters whom analysts say Obama needs to reach in battleground states. The intimacy of the home setting, along with the relaxed way in which the citizens and Obama shared that private space told viewers they had nothing to fear about this man.

In the end, though, perhaps nothing was more impressive in the infomercial than the vignettes of four diverse families struggling to make ends meet. Joe the Plumber felt like a phony, trumped-up sitcom character compared to these hard-working Americans whose stories of economic hardship the film deftly chronicled.

And then, came Stewart.

As serious and measured as Obama was in the news setting with Gibson, with Stewart, Obama was all smiles, high energy and witty banter.

When Stewart brought up the charges of socialism leveled by McCain and Palin, Obama replied, "The whole socialism argument doesn’t really hold up. They find proof for it in the fact that in kindergarten I shared some toys with my friend… But I think being on your program is seen as further evidence of that tendency."

By the end of the conversation, the two were flat-out schmoozing, and you could not help but smile at how fast and funny the two minds were working despite the satellite technology between the one in New York and the other in Florida.

And still even as Stewart ended, a click of the remote to the 24/7 cable channels brought up the now oh-so-familiar image of Obama standing live on a stage surrounded by a sea of followers holding white and blue signs cheering and applauding.

He had shifted into another gear yet – a higher one – of elevated tone and soaring rhetoric. And it almost seemed as if the small screen would no longer be able to contain him.

(Top: AFP/Getty Images photo of a woman in Wheaton watching Barack Obama's campaign infomercial by Nicholas Kamm; Above: ABC News photo of Charles Gibson interviewing Obama in Indianapolis by Donna Svennevik )

Posted by David Zurawik at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (161)
        

Democratic presidential TV candidate Barack Obama is going to seem like he is everywhere on TV tonight thanks in part to a last minute flurry of interview bookings and media buys.

And by the time he finishes his last appearance at 11 p.m. on Comedy Central with Jon Stewart, anyone who hasn't yet figured it out, might just come to understand that Obama so far, at least, has been the best TV candidate since John F. Kennedy in 1960 -- yes, better even than Ronald Reagan and his handlers were in using the medium.

The new great truth in media and politics for the longest time this year was that Obama will be America's "first cybergenic president" if he is elected in November. (I first wrote about this story in August.)

The basic idea is that like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, who were the first to grasp the importance of radio and TV, respectively, Obama is the first to understand the many ways in which the Internet and other new media are transforming politics and American life. 
 
To be sure, Obama's campaign has made innovative and wise use of the Web and other new media. But if you want to be McLuhanesque about it, a more apt description of Obama should he get elected might be the "last TV president." That's the underanalyzed story of the political year: how skilled and attractive a TV candidate Obama has been.

Obama and his handlers seem to understand that as they are about to start his biggest one-night TV push of the campaign during the dinner hour tonight in an interview with anchorman Charles Gibson on ABC's World News.

Earlier in the month, Obama's campaign had reached agreements with CBS, NBC, Fox and MSNBC to present a 30-minute "campaign-related program" at 8 p.m. tonight on each of those outlets. The price to buy the airtime to show this commercial: $1 million for each of the major broadcast networks.

The campaign had also approached ABC with the same offer, but the network was initially reluctant to move Pushing Daisies, an hour long drama, out of the 8 p.m. time period. By the time ABC-Disney executives decided to shift the show, Obama had moved on to the cable channel MSNBC.

But on Tuesday, Obama covered the ABC gap by agreeing to an interview today with Gibson that will appear of the network newscast tonight.

Furthermore, Comedy Central announced that Obama will appear at 11 tonight on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. That appearance was also finalized Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the campaign extended its media buy late Tuesday for the 8 p.m. campaign commercial to cable channels BET and Univision -- targeting ethnic audiences.

This is not the first instance in which a presidential candidate has bought into prime time. H. Ross Perot did it in 1992, and Richard Nixon did so in 1968. Kennedy also did it in 1960 with a 30-minute buy.

But for all the talk from the campaign of John McCain about how much money Obama is spending on the buy, think of all the related "free" media the Democrat is getting -- like every story you will read in a newspaper or online about it today. Yes, that includes this one -- and the review of Obama's TV push that I will have tonight right here on this blog after he finishes on Stewart. (So, stop back tonight or tomorrow morning.)

All in all, you would have to say Obama has already received a pretty solid return on his investment of $5 million or so in media advertising money. But who would not cover his appearances tonight down the home stretch of this historic campaign?

It's TV, not the Internet, that is the big story when it comes to Obama and media. And that's historic, too, because this could be the last time the really important stuff in a presidential election happens on that old media screen.

(Above: Associated Press file photo of Barack Obama on the campaign trail by Alex Brandon)

Posted by David Zurawik at 5:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (61)
        

She is only seven weeks into her new job as show host in the world of cable TV news, but already MSNBC's Rachel Maddow looks like she could be a game changer -- her ratings are so impressive she could wind up forcing change at competing channels as well. 

And as engaging as her on-air persona can be, I fear Maddow's success as host of an ideologically driven take on the day's events is not going to be a good thing for TV news.

Here are the current ratings for Maddow and her 9 p.m. weeknight show on MSNBC compared with the numbers for the cable channel before her debut on Oct. 7.

During the 9 p.m. hour, she took the channel from an audience of 389,000 viewers to 1.89 million. And in the key demographic for TV news (25 to 54 years of age), she took MSNBC from 141,000 viewers to 700,000. In each case, her new audience is almost five times as large as the one she inherited.

As tiny as the audiences that she started with were for any national news program, Maddows' new ratings and the instant jolt she has provided are remarkable.

MSNBC is touting the claim that for the first time this month thanks to Maddow, MSNBC beat CNN's venerable Larry King in the 9 p.m. hour. The claim is likely to be disputed because it is fairly close (27,000 viewers) and it involves presidential debates causing some disruption. But King-beater or no King-beater, Maddow's numbers are through the roof.
       

Overall, MSNBC had a very good month led by the bombastic Keith Olbermann who now has the highest rated cable news programs among adults 18 to 34. Those viewers are the future of the republic, folks, and they are turning for the "news" and take on the state of the world to a guy every bit as dangerous in his left-wing bias as the Fox News channel's Bill O'Reilly is in his angry right-wing rants.

I have been watching Maddow the last couple of weeks, and part of her success is the skill with which she takes the ideological baton from Olbermann and runs with it when his Countdown show ends at 9 p.m. This is not a woman who gives a hoot for balance, fairness, verified facts, context or any of the other things traditional journalism have demanded in the past of those sitting at TV anchor desks.

Like Olbermann (and O'Reilly and Sean Hannity on the other side), she presents only the news that fits her political viewpoint and agenda. And she has started -- even in the last two weeks that I have been regularly watching -- getting more and more confident and theatrical in her presentation.

Viewers are now seeing her using all her stage presence to mock opponents -- such as rolling eyes and chuckling as she reads a new story. And while she has not yet indulged in the kind of full-blown, hot-dog, crazy-man rants that O'Reilly has so mastered and Olbermann has come to imitate with such success, she is heading in that direction.

What I fear is that CNN, which hews to a traditional notion of fact-based news and serves as cable TV's one outlet of reliable information in time of crisis, will throw in the towel and join in the ideological warfare that has long defined Fox and has increasingly shaped MSNBC, particularly in prime-time since Maddow signed on as Olbermann's partner in propaganda.

That is big, fat, loaded word, but we need to face facts: that is what such "news" programs amount to. And that is what increasingly viewers appear to be tuning into.

Maybe, TV only gives us what we demand -- or deserve.

(Above: MSNBC Photo of Rachel Maddow by Ali Goldstein)

 

 

Posted by David Zurawik at 6:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (86)
        

The writing was uneven, and the host was noticeably nervous. The guests included no one with enough show biz star power that you were likely to go out of your way to see them.

And yet, based on Saturday night's premiere, it looks like CNN could have a winner in its new comedy show, D.L. Hughley Breaks the News. And more important, Saturday night television and its audience could be enriched by Hughley's engaging and non-conventional take on American life -- if the cable channel gives the production time to mature and find its voice.

As anyone familiar with Hughley's work in such films and TV shows as The Kings of Comedy and The Hughleys could probably guess, the comedian's new CNN show is loaded with race. But whearas David Alan Grier, for example, in his new Comedy Central series, Chocolate News, approaches the topic often in a broad, loud and in-your-face way, Hughley comedic style is more wry and low key. I was reminded Saturday night at how his easy-going and sometimes self-depecating style allows Hughley to sneak up on a racially provocative punchline and deliver it all the more effectively.

The range of Saturday night's premiere was impressive -- with Hughley's best moments covering a span that started with a young Sammy Davis Jr. in the 1933 film Rufus Jones for President, and extended to an interview with Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary to President George W. Bush, telling Hughley that he is voting for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The Sammy Davis film, with its minstrel-show-like stereotypes, was part of a montage showing the progression in film images of black presidents. The point as to how such images both reflect and shape perceptions in the larger society was deftly made in Hughley's comedic commentary. I wish he had spent more time with Dennis Haysbert's President David Palmer in Fox TV's 24, but that is TV not film.

In the piece, Hughley charted the movement from Davis and the other black characters in the selected scenes of Rufus Jones, to Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact in 1998. The point was not only only skillfully made, it is one worth thinking about: the way in which pop culture images crafted in Hollywood can help society imagine new and real possibilities.

Hughley also looked good in a report that took him out of the studio to a rally at Elon College for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Again, he was funny without being silly, and he made some very smart points about her candidacy and the buttons she is trying to push in the national psyche in her campaign.

The show's worst moments involved Hughley interacting with some of CNN's regular coorespondents. A conversation he had via satellite in with CNN foreign correspondents in Russia, India and China could be called a bomb. It involved him asking the trio who would be a better astronaut -- Obama or Republican candidate John McCain.

The comedian was at his very best in the interview with McClelan near the end of the hour-long show. Typical of his self-deprecating style, he got McClellan to drop his Washington-political-speak by saying, "work with me here -- I'm only a G.E.D."

And it worked, the former press secretary explained his reasons for turning against his former boss in ways anyone could understand. On a cable channel full of older-guy talking heads who are nothing but full of themselves and their expertise, Hughley is a pleasant relief.

Hughley probably should have been less effusive than he was when McClellan delivered the endorsement for Obama by saying, "From the very beginning I have said I am going to support the candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done and I will be voting for Barack Obama."

The host applauded the words. Over the top, yes, but you can hardly blame him.

It is after all, Obama's candidacy that seems to have touched off the exploration of race that TV is embarking on with shows like this. And given the increasingly competitive landscape of socially-conscious TV  comedy shows, maybe Hughley was simply delighted that the news, limited as it bwas, was made on his show -- and not on Comedy Central.

Posted by David Zurawik at 6:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (156)
        

Watching the Thursday night installment of Saturday Night Live, I was reminded yet again what a profound service political satire serves in this democracy. Again, if the Peabody Awards folks want to retain any sense of relevancy as a reward for socially-conscious programming, SNL has got to be honored first and foremost.

Given the general sense of insecurity and even confusion as to the role of the press in this era of vast economic and technological change, I don't think there are any journalistic voices that could comfortably say what SNL said Thursday night about the performance of outgoing President George W. Bush and the increasingly obvious ambition and recklessness on Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. And yet, I am sure SNL's actions and words spoke to what millions of Americans are feeling (as the record ratings for SNL's overall skewering of the candidates and current administration has shown this year).

The concept of the opening sketch Thursday with Bush endorsing the McCain-Palin ticket was inspired. It cut straight to the embarrassment the president's own party has for his performance and the troubled state in which he leaves this country. Will Ferrell returned to play Bush, with Tina Fey (I had to stop myself from using the words "the brilliant" in front of her name) as Palin.

Here's a bit of it...

WILL FERRELL AS BUSH: "Hello, my fellow Americans.  I have chosen to schedule this impromptu address at night because quite frankly every time I speak during the day, the Stock Market goes in the crapper.  So, sorry, Asian markets.  You take the hit on this one.  I come to you tonight in the midst of a very important election between two very qualified candidates: the hot lady and the Tiger Woods guy.  Both candidates are heavily patriotized and display much characterization.  And yes, I did have three Xanax and a Silver Bullet about a half-hour ago.  I'm out of here in a few months, so screw it.  But before I leave I wanted to help Sarah Palin and John McCain by giving them what every candidate wants most: a prime-time heavily publicized network endorsement from George W. Bush.  Hey, don't pinch yourself John, you are awake!"

FERRELL AS BUSH (continues) -- "Now I tried to do this several months ago but somehow it kept getting pushed to a written press release or a shouted sentence as I walked to the helicopter.  I began to suspect that they didn't want my endorsement to be too public.  But now with the country on a big upswing and my numbers on the rise, I thought it was time to give a proper, large scale 'much love' to McCain and Palin..."

(WILL FORTE, playing an AIDE to the president, enters and whispers in BUSH's ear)

FERRELL AS BUSH (continues) – "What? Really? Why didn't you tell me Jeff?  I've just been told by my trusted aide Jeff, that the country is actually in a horrible downward spiral and that my approval numbers are lower than ever.  That one's on me.  Four months ago, I declared the Oval Office a bummer-free zone.  So... You know what, let's bring on Senator McCain and Governor Palin."

(TINA FEY as SARAH PALIN enters smiling and waving and sits next to BUSH on the front the desk)

TINA FEY AS PALIN – "So nice to meet you, Mr. President.  I've seen you on TV."

FERRELL AS BUSH – "Where's McRage?"

FEY AS PALIN – "You know, John McCain and I have been so busy travelin' around this great country of ours talkin' about change and energy independence and William Ayers, and doin' a little shoppin', but unfortunately Senator McCain, upon hearing you wanted to give him a super public endorsement, cannot be found.  He was last seen travelin' on foot through the Adirondacks.  But my husband and two of his drinkin' buddies are in pursuit on snowmachines.

FERRELL AS BUSH – "Well, We'll smoke him out.  George Bush always finds his man save for one huge exception."

FEY AS PALIN – "We are gonna get 'er done."

FERRELL AS BUSH – "My God you are folksy."

FEY AS PALIN – "Why thank you Mr. President.  I like to think I'm one part practiced folksy , one part sassy and a little dash of high school bitchy."

FERRELL AS BUSH – "For a little while I was trying to be folksy but after a bit, it just came off douchey.  All right, let me get into my endorsement for you as Vice President.  As you know America, the office of Vice President is the most important office in the land.  The Vice President decides when we go to war, how we tax the citizens and how we interpret the Constitution.  The President can do nothing without checking with the Vice President.  That is why Sarah Palin..."

FEY AS PALIN – "Actually, Mr. President, I don't want to go all Katie Couric on you, but I think it's actually the other way around.  I think the Vice President reports to the President."

FERRELL AS BUSH – "Really?  That's not what Dick Cheney told me when he sat me down on the first day."

The press could do better. NBC anchorman Brian Williams had a chance to ask Palin about her "little shoppin'" spree, but chose not to. But here is a group of comedy writers and performers not only riffing on it, but putting it in the context of her look-at-me/look-at-me personality. (She did all but elbow her running mate, John McCain out of the camera shot during the interview with Williams to the point where I was watching a political remake of A Star is Born.)

And SNL nailed it all like no one -- not even the savviest, smartest and snarkiest political columnists -- has this week.

SNL's live primetime Weekend Update Thursday ended its run last night. I will miss it. But what a service to democracy it provided. 

(Above: NBC Photo of Darrell Hammond as Senator John McCain, Tina Fey as Governor Sarah Palin, Will Farrell as President George W. Bush by Dana Edelson)

Posted by David Zurawik at 7:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (31)
        

NBC anchorman Brian Williams got Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin Wednesday to say she would release her medical records, but he failed to ask her about the story everyone seemed to be talking about -- the $150,000 that she spent on clothes and accessories and charged to the Republican Party, including one $75,000 shopping spree at Neiman Marcus. (See photos of Palin's wardrobe here).

Williams did mention the spending in passing as he introduced the first part of his interview, so he knew about it. The question is why he failed to ask Palin and her running mate, John McCain, about it in their interview.

"The interview speaks for itself," NBC News spokeswoman Lauren Kapp said last night in an email to the Sun when asked for an explanation.

I think that Williams has some explaining to do about his choice – and it will probably make for a spirited and illuminating debate about what should and should not be asked in such interviews.

At any rate, the most instructive aspect of the Williams’ sit-down with the GOP candidates is how sometimes context matters more than anything that follows.

Here is the way Williams introduced Part 1 of the interview Wednesday. (Part 2 will air Thursday during the newscast.)

 “While we were here today,” Williams said from Ohio where the interview was conducted, “in New York, the markets on Wall Street plunged…posting a 514 point loss at the closing bell. And what a day it was for the McCain-Palin campiagn. The story about her wardrobe broke overnight -- $150,000 worth of clothing from top retailers for Palin and her family, clothing that was bought with Republican Party funds. And then, there are the polls out there, our own showing the GOP ticket 10 points down, and most respondents saying Sarah Palin is not qualified to be president.”

Even as Palin and McCain started to talk, all you could think about was the GOP Book of Job that Williams had just laid out. And, in his defense, it is exactly the kind of context the interview needed – the kind that was mostly missing Tuesday during CNN’s interview with Palin.

But the set-up pretty much drowned out all that followed.

For the record, here is the exchange about her medical records. She is the only one of the four candidates not to have released them.

WILLIAMS: Did I hear you just agree to release your medical records?

PALIN: The medical records, so be it. If that will allow some curiosity seekers perhaps to have one more thing that they either check the box off that they can find something to criticize or to rest them assured over. I'm healthy, happy, I've had five kids, that's going to be in the medical records, never seriously ill or hurt, you'll see that in the medical records if they're released.

You will notice, she gave no specifics, and by the end, she said “if they’re released.”

Williams did ask McCain how he felt when Colin Powell endorsed his opponent Sunday on Meet the Press, and he also asked the presidential candidate how he felt about people saying Palin was not qualified. But the questions have been asked before – Sunday on Fox for the Powell nomination, and by several interviewers including comedian David Letterman on Palin’s pereceived lack of qualifications.

The fact of the matter is, Williams is late in getting to this story, and he didn’t come up with anything big enough to make up for finishing behind ABC, CBS, Fox and CNN.

As I have said before, I do not think it is Williams’ fault. I think he’s a fine journalist and has done a superb job in replacing Tom Brokaw at the anchor desk. NBC’s poor access to the Republican candidates more likely has to do with the the way the network has allowed the NBC News brand to be linked to the partisan posturing of MSNBC star Keith Olbermann.

But that is a topic for another discussion.

Posted by David Zurawik at 8:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (28)
        

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin gave her first interview to CNN Tuesday, and it is hard to say which was the bigger disappointment: the fact that she was still trafficking in Joe-McCarthy-like smears against Barack Obama, or the fact that correspondent Drew Griffin mainly let her get away with it.

CNN called the interview “wide ranging,” but I would call it rambling, with Palin driving the bus while Griffin looked on, nodding and smiling for the most part.

Here was the money moment: “Is Barack Obama a socialist?” Griffin asked.

“I'm not going to call him a socialist,” Palin said. “But as Joe the plumber has suggested, in fact he came right out and said it, it sounds like socialism to him. And he speaks for so many Americans who are quite concerned now after hearing finally what Barack Obama's true intentions are with his tax and economic plan.”

CNN has done exemplary campaign reporting since December, better than any other news division on TV at times, but this interview was not one of its better moments. In some ways, in fact, it served as a reminder of how focused and forceful ABC’s Charles Gibson and CBS’s Katie Couric were in controlling their time with Palin and helping American voters get a measure of the candidate.

Palin was allowed to launch into a long talking point about how Obama’s statement about “redistributing the wealth” is the very definition of socialism. At least, it’s the definition according to Joe the Plumber, the plumber without a plumbing license who doesn’t pay taxes and has suddenly become an expert on socialism.

And the CNN correspondent did little to rein her in.

Typical of the kind of soft, take-it-run-with-it questions that Griffin served up was this one on experience: “You are the only person in the race with executive experience….”

“That’s a good point about experience,” Palin replied brightly. We don’t like to toot our own horns…but I do have more executive experience that Barack Obama does.” And off she was on all the great things she has done as mayor and governor.

She was also given plenty of room to bash her vice presidential opponent, Joe Biden, for comments he made that Obama might be tested internationally in the early days of his presidency. Although she did wind up using the rope to hang herself when she spun out a strange scenario in which she imagined Obama sitting down to talk with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and suddenly we are faced with an international crisis.

But she recovered well enough to use the moment to issue a challenge.

“Ask your bosses,” she commanded of Griffin, “Why does Joe Biden get such a pass? …. If I’d a said that (what he said about Obama possibly being tested), you guys would have clobbered me.”

“You’re right,” Griffin said, essentially agreeing with her complaint that the press was treating her unfairly.

To be fair, Griffin did ask her about comments she made saying some parts of the country are “more American” than others.

Her response: “I certainly don't want that interpreted as one area being more patriotic or more American than another. If that's the way it has come across, I apologize.”

The non-apology apology – apologizing for any misunderstanding not what she said.

Griffin also queried her on a recent ethics finding that went against her in Alaska. And he did try to very gently point out a contradiction or two in Palin’s comments.

After she got through pounding away at the evils of “big government” and urging “government to get out of the way and let the private sector do what it does best,” the CNN reporter did point out that McCain supports most of the government intervention in the marketplace now being pushed by the Bush administration.

But Palin, ignoring the contradiction in her comments, replied, “I beg to differ with that.” And then, she was given a wide open field to say that while McCain has supported the “crisis” infusion of cash, he is not for spending more money the way the “Democrats are.”

Unlike Couric or Gibson, Griffin did nothing to try and force her back to the points of contradiction. At one point, he asked her if she felt frustrated at the way some in the press “mocked” her and made it hard for her to get her message out.

“I’m getting my message out right now,” she said.

Indeed, she was -- allowed to simultaneously try to link Obama to socialism and then act like she was taking the high road with Joe the Plumber doing the dirty work for her while CNN’s correspondent looked on.

Posted by David Zurawik at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (276)
        

John McCain has a big problem, and TV coverage of his candidacy is at the heart of it. The problem was clearly on display this morning in a McCain interview on The Early Show on CBS.

It has come to the point in the last week or so that every time McCain sits down for a TV interview hoping for some positive traction and votes, he quickly finds himself forced to defend himself, his running mate Sarah Palin, or campaign workers for the kinds of attacks they have leveled against opponent Barack Obama.

The problem: While McCain and his handlers have tried to craft a core persona for the candidate as a man of honor, the TV interviewers are essentially charging him with either committing or being associated with dishonorable actions in the campaign. The result in viewers' minds is a jarring dissonance -- and folks do not tend to vote for candidates that trigger that kind of an unpleasant mental state. So much for any hope of using "free" TV to win votes.

Here is how it went this morning on The Early Show, though, it was the same Thursday night on David Letterman's Late Show.

Smith's interview ran at the top of the broadcast, and Smith got right to it.

Smith:  “Okay, I just want to finish one more thought on the negative campaign issues…Even Sarah Palin has come out and said she would prefer that the ‘robo calls’ stop – your ‘robo calls.’”

McCain:  “Well, Sarah is a maverick.  That ‘robo call’ is absolutely accurate and, by the way, Senator Obama's campaign is running ‘robo calls’ as we speak.  I'm sure that Sarah and I have disagreed on some issues.  You know, to think that somehow that we are saying something that’s not true in those calls is absolutely false. He was friends with a terrorist and his wife.  He was and we need to know the full relationship."

During the interview, one of the calls was played, saying that Obama is "involved" with "domestic terrorist Bill Ayers."

And throughout the rest of the conversation, McCain is shown on the defensive -- defending the calls and defending his choice of Palin. Smith quoted unnamed "GOP pundits" calling her selection a "disaster." It's a question that also causes dissonance about McCain's judgment and the narrative his campiagn has tried to construct of him as a decisive leader.

"Listen to me, I'm the candidate," McCain snapped at one point after a question quoting others in the campiagn who questioned the attacks on Obama.

Smith was not as forceful as Letterman last week (see my review of that conversatioon here). But he was forceful enough. What a way for McCain to start his day on the campiagn trail.

You can blame the TV press for McCain's troubles  if you want to. But the press is not the party making the robo calls -- nor is it giving voice to the innuendo sounded by Palin when she says the Democractic candidate "pals around with terrorists."

As the candidate, McCain is the one responsible. The press is doing its job.

Posted by David Zurawik at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (40)
        

What a great weekend for TV and politics. And if I did not reply to enough of the comments posted here, I apologize. I will get to more of them today – promise.

But as we hit the home stretch of this election, which might be the last great presidential race of the TV Age, it is just fabulous to watch the medium reassert itself as the place to be for political and cultural news. Even with this new daily blog and its current focus on the space where TV and politics meets, I can hardly keep up.

And from the huge overnight ratings for Saturday Night Live, to the buzz for former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama on Meet the Press, I know there were millions of viewers running the same race over the weekend. TV is still the way the vast majority of us experience politics.

Later in this blog, I’ll offer some upcoming viewing highlights of the week ahead. But it was 3:45 a.m. Sunday before I got to bed after posting a review of Sarah Palin’s visit to Saturday Night Live. Palin mainly just showed up, but there was more greatness from Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and the writers (read my review here). And great ratings as well – the biggest audience since 1994 for SNL, which beat every show on TV last week except Dancing with the Stars and CSI. And those two hit series air weeknights in prime time when the available audience is exponentially larger.

But before finally winding down enough to sleep early Sunday morning, I had to set the alarm for Powell’s appearance on Meet the Press. I made it back to the TV just as Powell hit the dramatic part of the interview with moderator Tom Brokaw, laying out his reasons for supporting a Democrat.

I am sure the full-time political folks will have this baby chewed and digested 50 ways by now. But the words from Powell about his disappointment in John McCain’s campaign tactics and the senator’s choice of Palin as a running mate made for powerful viewing – and echoed what I have been saying here for weeks, often drawing angry comments from readers for saying them.

And kudos to the producers of Meet the Press for not simply embracing Powell and the news he gave them, and leaving it there. They went back through the videotape and showed viewers Powell’s moment of shame fronting for the fictional weapons of mass destruction claims of the Bush administration at the UN. They also showed Powell enthusiastically endorsing Vice President Dick Cheney (something I forgot) in the past. And Brokaw quizzed Powell about those moments.

It was great stuff from NBC News – so great I almost forgot how off kilter MSNBC has gone in the blank check it has given Keith Olbermann to take the NBC News brand far to the left of anything anyone would call journalism.

And then, bang-bang, almost immediately, Fox News had instant reaction from McCain on the Powell endorsement of Obama. And you could spend Sunday morning clicking from one talk show to another riding the great wave of American media and democracy before having to go out and rake leaves.

Here are a couple of fast week-ahead news events top look for. Starting next week, I will offer a round-up of these every Monday – special reports in nightly newscasts, big interviews, prime-time specials, election events and documentaries.

This week, look for Brian Williams' long-awaited interview with Palin. It is probably going to be McCain and Palin together -– which might suggest how much confidence McCain really has in his running mate. It is outrageous that Palin has not yet spoken with the NBC anchorman, as even-handed and professional an interviewer as there is in the business.

And this is not directly politics, but it is the kind of enterprise that critics often falsely claim TV news never does. Each night this week on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, senior correspondent Ray Suarez will offer a report on the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. Up tonight on the PBS newscast, a look at Pennsylvania and some of the most dangerous bridges and roads in the country – as any Maryland driver knows from the bumps and rattles felt the moment you cross the state line heading north.

(Photo from NBC's Meet the Press)

Posted by David Zurawik at 7:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (31)
        

One of the most anticipated TV and pop culture appearances of the year took place on NBC Saturday when Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin visited Saturday Night Live. And producer Lorne Michaels wasted not a second in giving viewers what they tuned in for with an opening sketch featuring Tina Fey as Palin -- and Palin as herself.

The premise: Fey plays Palin holding the kind of press conference the real Palin has never held. As usual, the writing was politically savvy, and Fey was brilliant.

And then, Palin appeared on "Weekend Update," moving in her seat to the beat of a hardcore rap number delivered by Amy Poehler. The premise here was that Palin was supposed to do the number by way of describing herself in rap terms, but at the last second, decides against it for political reasons. And so, Poehler steps in. The lyrics are a scream, and Poehler is terrific.

Bottom line on Palin: she did little more than show up, appearing in just those two sketches and then onstage at the end of the program. 

But she did show up and she did let the cast poke some fun at her -- though the cutting edge writers and performers mostly stayed away from the controversial, Joe-McCarthy-like innuendo she has delivered on the campaign trail in trying to link Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to "terrorists." There was only one clear reference to that darker aspect of the Palin persona -- a fact that will surely lead some analysts to wonder whether there weren't boundaries set as a condition of her appearing on the show.

But whatever you think of Palin, the star-studded opening sketch with Fey was a winner -- and Palin came off OK in it.

Fey (as Palin) to the reporters: "First off, I just want to say how excited I am to be in front of both the liberal elite media and the liberal regular media."

In answer to the first question as to how she thinks her running mate, John McCain, did in last week's final debate with Obama, she says, "I just thought he was great, because the American people are angry, and John McCain is angry, too. And you can tell he's angry by the way he sighs and grits his teeth."

As Fey's Palin continues the press conference, a camera cuts to backstage where the real Palin is standing with Michaels watching on a monitor. As Palin delivers a negative critique of Fey's performance, up walks Alec Baldwin, Fey's co-star in the NBC sitcom, 30 Rock.

Mistaking Palin for Fey, he tells Michaels it's wrong to have Fey share the stage with "that horrible woman." Baldin asks Michaels if he's familiar with Palin's disparaging nickname. As Baldwin fumbles for it, Palin herself says, "That'd be Caribou Barbie."

And then, Michaels introduces Palin to Baldwin, who morphs into his smarmy TV character telling Palin, "Forgive me, but I feel I must say this: You are way hotter in person. I can't believe they let her (Fey) play you."

The sketch ends with Palin delivering the trademark opening: "Live from New York...."

The rap song performed by Poehler during "Weekend Update" was more outrageous --and more broadly comic with an Eskimo rap chorus and a dancing moose appearing on cue.

It opened with Palin telling "Weekend Update" co-host Seth Meyers that even though she rehearsed the number, she is not going to do it, because on second thought, she fears it would "not be good for the campaign."

At which point, co-anchor Poehler takes over. As the band lays down a hardcore rap beat, Poehler begins, "My name is Sarah Palin, you all know me. Vice prezzy nominee of the GOP..."

Later in the number when the chorus arrives, Poehler starts a call and answer: "All the mavericks in the house, put your hands up. All the plumbers in the house, pull your pants up."

Then comes the one reference to William Ayers, a 1960s radical who is now a university professor with whom Obama has worked. Palin has used Obama's history with Ayers claim that Obama "pals around with terrorists."

In the song, Poehler sings, "When I say Obama, you say Ayers. Obama, Ayers. Obama, Ayers."

As the chorus shouts, "she likes red meat," a costume-shop moose dances onstage.

Silly? Absolutely. But in the moment, it was laugh-out-loud funny.

"Shoot a (blank, blank) moose eight days a week," Poehler raps. "Now you're dead. Now you're dead. Cuz I'm an animal, and I'm bigger than you. Holdin' a shotgun, workin' the pump. Everybody party. We're goin' on a hunt. I'm Palin. I'm Palin."

Sarah Palin sat at the anchor desk and moved to the beat as Poehler rapped the lyrics. I suppose in the end, looking like a good sport before millions of viewers is worth whatever embarrassment Palin might have felt -- if she felt any.

With Josh Brolin as host and director Oliver Stone making a cameo appearance, you were reminded that as brilliant as SNL can be, it also has a great capacity for hype and cheese. Brolin and Stone are star and director of W, a very bad docu-drama about President George W. Bush. But that didn't stop Michaels from showcasing them like they had created a great movie.

Still, with the presence of Palin, and the performances of Fey and Poehler, SNL was again the TV hot spot of American culture last week. It was also a reminder of how strange and electric politics have become during this election of a lifetime.

(Top: NBC Photo of Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler and Sarah Palin by Dana Edelson; Above: NBC Photo of Lorne Michaels and Sarah Palin by Dana Edelson)

Posted by David Zurawik at 1:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (59)
        

Just as I did after the season premiere of Saturday Night Live with the specatcular debut of Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, I'll be reviewing the show tonight at Z on TV.

A couple of thoughts going in, and I admit the first is probably only me being a little over the top as a journalist trained in and committed to a belief that our first job is to confirm information before we present it as true to the public.

I know everyone including the Sun is saying Sarah Palin will be on SNL tonight. Her appearance is a big deal with so much of the most important "news" of this landmark election happening on TV shows -- and often comedy shows rather than newscasts or news interviews.

But please notice that we only have John McCain and a McCain spokeswoman saying that Palin will be on SNL  -- not NBC. And McCain has been a little -- what should we say? -- erratic about showing up for TV appearances?

After decades of reporting on the TV industry, the fact that I have yet to receive confirmation from NBC makes me a little concerned -- especially given the fact that the network has been great in getting transcripts, updates and confirmations on SNL out to reporters and critics this year.

My other thought -- if she appears -- involves the live audience. I wonder how it will respond to Palin.

Outside of her one debate and two disastrous interviews with ABC's Charles Gibson and CBS anchorwoman Katie Couric, GOP handlers have practically kept her in a bubble away from anyone but supporters at rallies.

The live SNL audience will be another player to watch tonight.

And then, stop back here for after-show analysis on Z on TV.

(PS: If NBC comes through with confirmation today, I'll post it here. So check back if you are as cautious about having your information confirmed as I am.)

Posted by David Zurawik at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)
        

An HBO pilot for a comedy series about three young women working on Washington's Capitol Hill will be filmed in and around Baltimore in coming weeks, according to Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.

The pilot for a proposed series to be titled The Washingtonienne will be executive produced by Sarah Jessica Parker and will star Rachel Taylor (Transformers), Amanda Walsh (Disturbia) and Bitsie Tulloch (Quarterlife).

Parker was on campus Friday at Maryland Institute College Art  "scouting locations for the show," according to Kathleen Murray, a spokeswoman for the school.

“Maryland has enjoyed a long, successful relationship with HBO and we look forward to welcoming them back and ensuring their filming experience here continues to be a positive one,” O’Malley said in a statement touting the state's role in bringing the production to the area.

“We are hopeful the pilot will take off and become a series, giving Maryland the opportunity to host yet another successful TV show.”

Several HBO productions have been filmed in Maryland, including the made-for-TV movies Shot in the Heart and Something the Lord Made, as well as the mini-series The Corner and weekly series The Wire.

A decision on whether or not HBO will commit to more than just the one episode will be based on the pilot.

 (AP photo of Parker at 2008 MTV Awards show)

Posted by David Zurawik at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

John McCain returned to David Letterman’s show Thursday for the first time since a last-minute cancellation two weeks ago that resulted in Letterman ridiculing the Republican presidential candidate on-air. (Watch a clip from the show here.)

For the record, the two shook hands and made up by the end of the hour. But in between came some of the most fascinating and illuminating political TV of this remarkable campaign -- with the comedian grilling McCain on his running mate, Sarah Palin, in a more intense and focused manner than any journalist or debate moderator to date.

Fast forward past an entire monologue devoted to Letterman ribbing McCain. Skip the Top 10 List of messages left on the answering machine of Joe The Plumber, the Ohio plumber whom McCain invoked repeatedly during Wednesday’s debate in an attempt to discredit the tax proposals of his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama. That was all mainly show-biz shtick and joshing.

What mattered are the tough questions Letterman went on to ask McCain about Palin’s qualifications and her behavior on the campaign trail. Like Jon Stewart, Letterman showed the press how it should be doing its job – but often hasn’t.

"If she had been a man would you have picked her?" Letterman asked at one point. "Were there those in the party who did not think she was qualified?" he asked another.

"If we’re in a 9/11 situation, God forbid, should Sarah Palin be President?" he asked with some incredulity in his voice. "I mean, I ‘m sure she’s a lovely woman, and, as you say, she did a great job in Alaska… but is Sarah Palin really ready to lead in the case of a 9/11 attack?"

McCain, who had been trying to play the role of Genial John rather then Grumpy Grandpa McCain during the conversation, kept saying she was "absolutely" qualified and stressing her campaign-created persona as a "reformer." But as the questions about her qualifications kept coming, McCain started to get annoyed enough to ask at one point, "Have we pretty well exhausted this topic?"

But Letterman hadn’t. He questioned McCain even more intensely on Palin’s claims on the campaign trail that Obama "pal'd around with terrorists." When McCain pointed to the 1960’s radical William Ayers, who is now a university professor, Letterman pressed him on whether the limited contact between Obama and Ayers really makes them "pals."

And then, Letterman asked McCain about his own relationship with convicted Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy. When McCain said that Liddy had paid for his crimes, Letterman asked how his relationship with Liddy was different than that of Obama and Ayers. But Letterman was not done even yet. "She (Palin) said pals around with terrorists. Even if we give her Ayers, who are the others?"

"Look, millions of words are said in a campaign," McCain replied acknowledging that he could not defend his running mate’s claims. The show was not all hardball. Letterman let McCain make plenty of points earlier in the conversation. Either the host didn’t know or he let McCain skate on the fact that Joe the Plumber owes back taxes in Ohio, which might be one reason he doesn’t like Obama’s tax plan.

Letterman also was confused on the Obama plan itself asking a question that suggested Obama's plan would tax small businesses that gross over $250,000. Actually, the tax will be on owners who make more than $250,000 in profit – big difference. But that’s okay.

No journalist to date has managed to put McCain’s feet to the fire the way Letterman did for Palin’s reckless campaign rhetoric. Jon Stewart, Tina Fey and David Letterman – these comedians are some fine journalists.

(Above CBS Photo of John McCain and David Letterman by John Paul Filo)

Posted by David Zurawik at 1:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (40)
        

On Wednesday night, Baltimore again had the largest percentage of viewers in the nation watching the presidential debate.

The final TV showdown between Barack Obama and John McCain was seen in 49.3 percent of all households in the Baltimore TV market.

The nation's capital was the runner-up in viewer interest with 48.4 percent of homes it the Washington market watching. St. Louis and Richmond (Va.) tied for third with 48.1 ratings.

Overall, TV viewing for the debate was down from the candidates' last encounter, but up from their first. The national rating for Wednesday's debate was 38.3, meaning 38.3 percent of all homes in the nation were watching. (final people tally: 56.5 million viewers).

Last week's debate earned a 42.0 rating, while 34.7 percent of all homes were tuned to the first.

Previously, Baltimore also led the nation in viewing for the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin and finished third in each of the other two presidential debates.

The drop in the national ratings was largely attributed to the debate playing opposite a league championship series baseball game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers. Philadelphia and Los Angeles are large TV markets, and viewing for the debate was down in both. 

Posted by David Zurawik at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

 The Republican candidate started out trying to reduce complicated economic issues to a man in Ohio (Joe Wurzelbacher) whom he repeatedly referred to as Joe the Plumber. And then, throughout the debate, McCain directly and emotionally confronted Barack Obama whom he failed to even address in their first debate.

In TV terms, I am sure some analysts will say it was McCain’s best performance, especially during the first third of the debate as he gave a big TV embrace to his new best friend, Joe The Plumber. But under the heading of "he who lives by the sword," McCain may have become too emotional at points in the second leg of his strategy, the continued attacks on Obama.

While emotion is generally good on TV, there is a danger in being too "hot," and McCain might have sounded that way to some viewers at a couple of key points later in the debate -- particularly when he defended people at his campaign rallies against charges that they were inappropriately hostile to Obama. The danger here is that McCain’s unbridled ire left an impression in some viewers’ minds of another kind of TV character: the cranky, irritable grandpa.

And I have to tell you, that is the guy I saw in the glowering reaction shots of McCain as Obama spoke. And in my opinion, that is a losing persona.

Obama, on the other hand, again seemed cool, calm and mostly collected. The question is whether viewers will read his demeanor as properly presidential – or, perhaps, indifferent to the pain and anger they feel.

My guess is that in a time of crisis like this, a cool hand on the tiller seems like a good thing, though, Obama did seem a bit academic at times about the fear many citizens now feel.

McCain, meanwhile, repeatedly told the viewers he felt their anger -- not their fear, but their anger.

McCain gambled big time Wednesday night. He had no other choice being as far behind as he is. But I believe he lost.

I also think we, the people, lost because at a time of national crisis, this debate was so obviously dumbed down by one of the candidates.

Joe The Plumber, who was identified as a real person met by Obama on the campaign trail last week, instantly became the personification of the undecided, white, middle-class voter in a Rust Belt swing state – a very important person.

But instead of answering moderator Bob Schieffer’s question about how they would deal with the economic crisis in policy terms, the two candidates started arguing about who would make Joe The Plumber happier.

McCain was the one who introduced Joe, and forced the issue so that Obama did not have much choice but to talk about Joe. But I stopped counting after the seventh reference to the Ohio plumber in the first 12 minutes.

And yet, McCain was still talking about the Joe The Plumber an hour into the debate – looking into the camera and promising Joe greater happiness under a McCain presidency.

"I’m happy to talk to you, too, Joe, if you’re out there," Obama said sounding a little reluctant to revisit this sitcom-like TV persona to which his opponent was playing.

I could not help wondering whether Joe The Plumber is related to Joe Six Pack, who was invoked by McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, in her debate. Or, maybe he’s a descendant of Carlton The Doorman from the 1970s CBS sitcom, Rhoda.

I don’t know about you. But it left me feeling talked down to like a child – and angry that this was the level of debate initiated and sustained by McCain while America sits on the precipice of another Great Depression.

Posted by David Zurawik at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (27)
        

The news today that CNN is launching a weekend comedy show starring D.L. Hughley on Oct. 25 is further evidence of the way in which TV has started to engage in a fuller discussion of race since Barack Obama became the first African-American presidential candidate for a major party.

The trend is hard to miss with the talented David Alan Grier this week launching a weekly sketch comedy show taking a look at the news from an African-American perspective. Grier's sketch comedy show, Chocolate News, airs Wednesday nights at 10:30 (see my review here) on Comedy Central.

Beyond comedy, TV has given us several serious explorations of race in recent months starting with Soledad O'Brien's Black in America documentary in July and continuing through Ted Koppel's report The Last Lynching, which premiered on Discovery Monday. Last month, HBO debuted The Black List, a series of interviews with African-American persons of achievement.

In all of the series and reports, Obama's emergence as the Democratic nominee has been credited with inspiring the production in one way or another.

CNN says Hughley's show will feature his comedic take on the news along with one-on-one interviews with newsmakers and those who report the news.

The show will be broadcast from CNN’s New York studios before a live audience and will air on Saturdays at 10 p.m. and replay on Sundays at 10 p.m.  

“D.L. is a news junkie who is bursting with things to say about what is going on in the world – most of them funny, all of them thoughtful, none of them predictable,” Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S. , said in a statement Wednesday. "When you watch as much news as our audience does, there comes a time you just want to stop and laugh – and that time will be Saturday nights at 10 on CNN.”

"I am very excited for the opportunity to work with the network that I have watched for a very long time, and that to a large extent, has shaped my comedic view,” Hughley said in the same statement. 

Posted by David Zurawik at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

I will be blogging the presidential debate moderated by CBS newsman Bob Schieffer tonight. And while I believed from the first encounter between Barack Obama and John McCain at the University of Mississippi that these were hugely important TV events, I am beginning to understand that even I underestimated their cultural impact.

Two things account for me feeling this heightened sense of how important the debates -- and TV -- have become in American life this year.

First, is a fast bit of data from an online poll of more than a million young adults (18 to 24 years of age) who were believed to be getting most of their political information either online or via mobile device.

Second, is the testimony of African-American scholars, educators and analysts heard while reporting a story that appears on Page 1 of the Sun today about Baltimore leading the nation in TV ratings for the first three debates.

Here's the poll data, and to me it supports my argument that the age of television is far from over.

When the young adults in this poll were asked online or via mobile device how they were watching the debates, 59 percent said they were watching in real time on TV. Another 32 percent said they were watching on TiVo or DVR.

Only 9 percent said they were not watching at all. But none said they were watching online.

The poll was conducted as a part of Shop The Vote (www.shopthevote.org), the first digital out-of-home public service campaign designed to reach 18 to 24 year old citizens before November 4 in the environments that matter to them most: in retail stores, online and on their mobile phones.

I understand all the methodological problems with such polls, but If anything, this sample should have skewed away from TV viewing.

Furthermore, the findings support what my colleague, Jill Rosen,  and I found in reporting the story in today's Sun: People are coming together in groups and enjoying a deep TV experience in the best sense of the word. Yes, the age of the Internet is upon us, but we never go instantly from one media epoch to the next, and this poll supports my thesis that TV is still a bigger player than the Web in this election.

My brain is still reverberating with the words of  University of Maryland Professor Sheri Parks and WBAL radio show host Clarence M. Mitchell IV, as they talked about watching these debates as witnessing "history" in the story Rosen and I wrote.

Beyond the hundreds of thousands of homes that will be tuned to the debates tonight, area residents will gather in theaters, restaurants, college unions and church halls to watch Obama and McCain -- and TV, that often dismissed and regularly dissed medium, will be at the center of all of it.

So, please stop back here for my TV take on the debate.

Last week, I focused on the body language of Obama and McCain and the way in which the latter seemed to insult a young African-American questioner in the town hall setting by suggesting the young man did not know about Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac prior to the recent economic crisis.

I am still hearing from readers and analysts about that critique. Last night, a faculty member at City College told me it was part of the morning-after debate in her class. Her words lifted my spirits sky high. But there are also those posting comments who angrily denounce such sociology and tell me I should focus on reviewing shows like Desperate Housewives.

Actually, I like Desperate Housewives, but what happen tonight with the debates, that's history. And I am going to be there.

(Above CBS photo of Bob Schieffer by John Paul Filo)

Posted by David Zurawik at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)
        

Republican presidential nominee John McCain will be a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman Thursday night -- some three weeks after incurring Letterman's wrath with a last-minute cancellation, CBS announced Sunday.

Beyond the surpise it has generated in some quarters that the two would ever get back together again after the way Letterman publicly unloaded on McCain, the move also begs the question whether it signals a shift in McCain's media strategy.

After allowing himself to be put in the uncharacteristic position of treating the mainstream media like an enemy since the GOP convention, McCain hit a low last week when he and running mate Sarah Palin sat down for an interview with the Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, who led the pair through 20 minutes of character assasination against Democratic candidate Barack Obama. The conversation was filled with the kind of dark innuendo and smears not seen since the Red-baiting days of Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s -- and McCain was party to it.

But within 24 hours of that interview and some harsh reaction to Hannity's tactics, McCain did an about-face on the campaign trail and tried in two instances to put a stop to such smears of his opponent by audience members at his rallies.

The question is whether the return to Letterman, a show on which McCain announced his candidacy, is a return to the mainstream away from the darker, more extreme edges of the conservative wing of the Republican party as typified by Hannity.

Thursday's appearance will be McCain's 13th visit to Letterman's show. It will also mark his first appearance since the Republican National Convention at which Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin became his running mate, and the strategy began of attacking the mainstream media and limiting the candidates' exposure to it -- a strategy that has not gone well for McCain.

Posted by David Zurawik at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

With the economy in meltdown in recent weeks, I have been writing quite a bit about whether or not the business correspondents at the networks and cable channels are providing viewers with the kind of reliable information, informed context and balanced analysis we need to make sense of the crisis.

Two of the cable TV personalities that I have singled out for criticism are CNN's Ali Velshi and CNBC's Jim Cramer. You can read the posts here and here.

This Sunday at 10 a.m. on CNN's Reliable Sources, Velshi gets a chance to fire back at me. It's a lively exchange -- even by the standards of cable TV.

The segment starts out with a general discussion of how the financial press has performed, but within a minute or two, Velshi is waving pieces of paper that he says are copies of my posts about him in front of the camera and questioning how I can write about him when I don't know him. He questions in a loud and excitable voice my post that said he is loud and excitable.

And before you know it, I might be sounding a little loud and excitable as well -- maybe more than a little.

I think we had a good discussion, and I appreciated the chance to expand the audience for my core message in the posts: that the business press needs to step up its game and rise to the occasion at this  time of crisis with the best work it has ever done -- not the clown college cable host antics that Cramer so embodies.

But you be the judge, and I hope you will let me know your verdict right here.

As Howard Kurtz, moderator of the show and long-time Washington Post media critic and blog star, tells viewers on-air: Cramer was invited to appear, but declined.

Posted by David Zurawik at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

As servile and journalistically bankrupt as Fox News host Sean Hannity behaved three weeks ago during a conversation with Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, it was merely prelude to the role he took on Wednesday night in an "interview" with Palin and her running mate, Sen. John McCain.

It quickly became apparent that the session was not aimed at defining issues and candidate positions, or probing the candidates on the several crises facing the nation today in hopes of giving voters information that would help them make an informed choice. Instead it became an exercise in Hannity methodically going point by point over what appeared to be a list of things McCain wished he had said in Tuesday's debate with Sen. Barack Obama -- but didn't.

It got far worse, however, when Hannity shifted to a new role of using interviewer queries not as softballs for the candidates to hit out of the park, but instead using the questions to give voice to unsubstantiated accusations against Obama. Under the false guise of journalism, Hannity used questions Wednesday to say things about Obama too nasty for even the candidates to say about their opponent -- without risking widespread press condemnation and voter turnoff. This had more to do  with political theater, show trials in totalitarian regimes and the darkest edges of propaganda than it did journalism.

Posted by David Zurawik at 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (85)
        

An audience of 63.2 million viewers saw Tuesday night's presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain -- and increase of almost 10 million over the 52.4 million who saw the first debate on Sept. 26.

By way of comparison, 46.7 million viewers tuned in for President George W. Bush and John Kerry’s second debate on Oct. 8, 2004.

While the audience for Tuesday's debate fell short of the 69.989 who saw last week's vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, it is still the 10th largest audience for a political debate since Nielsen started counting viewers in 1976.

And once again, Baltimore was one of the cities with the highest percentage of viewers -- finishing third nationally just as it did for the first debate. (The Baltimore TV market ranked first in percentage of viewers for the vice presidential debate.)

Baltimore earned a rating of 55.6 rating, which means more than one out of every two TV households in the market was tuned to the debate. The Nashville market, where the debate was held, had the largest household rating at 59.2.

Outside of the cities where the debates have been held, the one constant among several of the Top 10 cities in percentages of viewers is the size of the African-American population. TV markets with large percentages of African-American viewers have tended to have high ratings for the debates.

Some analysts attribute that pattern to Obama's candidacy engaging more black viewers in debate watching during this election.

For the third straight time, ABC was the most watched among more than a dozen networks and channels with 13.2 million viewers. ABC's growing dominance in political event coverage is a trend to watch.

Posted by David Zurawik at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The ratings for the second presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain were considerably larger than those of the first debate, but they were still smaller than the numbers for last week's record-setting vice presidential debate.

The overall household rating for the Tuesday night debate was 42.1. (One rating point equals 1% of the total TV audience in a given market.)

In comparison, the first debate earned only a 34.7 rating, while last week’s vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden debate received a 45.0 rating.

Baltimore again had one of the nation's largest TV audiences -- finishing third with a 55.6 rating, which means more than one out of every two TV households in the market was tuned to the debate. The Nashville market, where the debate was held, had the largest TV audience, with a household rating of 59.2 rating.

National figures with the full viewer count will be releasaed later today.

Posted by David Zurawik at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The format of the second presidential debate was described as that of a town hall meeting, but it was steeped in TV and theater from the “citizens” seated on risers on a brightly lit stage, to the candidates moving only about a stage like performers.

In TV terms, body language and modes of address were never more important. John McCain lived up to his reputation for excelling in town hall meetings, quickly establishing a soft-spoken intimate relationship with the audience even as he attacked his opponent – two things experts say you are not supposed to be able to do simultaneously.

Overall, however, Barack Obama was more successful in connecting with a diverse mix of the people onstage – and in a symbolic sense, that matters enormously in an increasingly diverse America. In fact, for millions of voters, that might matter more than anything else when they saw during any of the debates when they ultimately decide who they trust.

McCain needed to connect emotionally in a big way with the audience if he hoped to break through and use this TV event to gain ground on the front-running Obama, and that never happened last night. In that sense, Obama by simply remaining, cool, focused and mostly calm in the face of McCain’s attacks and all-too-apparent disdain has to be called the winner.

One of McCain’s worst moments came when a young African-American man asked how the Wall Street bailout plan was going to help members of the middle class.

“You probably never heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac before this crisis,” McCain said patronizingly to the young man, using the question to launch an attack on Obama and other Democrats in trying to blame them for the economic meltdown.

The attack on Obama was not what mattered, but rather the insult implied in his assumption that the young man had not previously heard of two agencies that most American home buyers have explored or at least encountered.

Worse, while McCain seemed at times as if would actually climb into the audience to make person-to-person, up-close-and-personal, TV-style contact with some of his white questioners, he kept his distance from this young black man. And it was noticeable because the questioner was sitting in the front row where he could easily have been approached.

It might have seemed like a minor matter to some white viewers, but I wonder what sense persons of color made of that.

Obama appears to have noticed. Immediately after the debate ended as the cameras were still following the candidates onstage, the first hand that Obama shook was that of the young man McCain had patronized and kept his distance from.

McCain’s body language toward the black questioner was all the more heightened during the final moments of the debate when he actually reached out and touched the back of a white questioner who identified himself as a former Navy petty officer.

Body language truly was speaking volumes last night, and as well as McCain generally uses his physicality in this modified theater-in-the-round setting, it may have also betrayed him with what meaning some minority viewers might have read into his movements.

One thought on the interface of image and words: While McCain was using such dismissive and combatative terms as "that one" to refer to Obama, the Democratic candidate held an impassive, unruffled look of composure in the reaction shots. On TV, reaction shots are often more important than anything a candidate will say, and Obama projected an image of statesman-like stature in the face of his opponent's vitriol.

And one last thought on just words or what the candidates actually said: There was a sharpening of focus as to differences between the two. Give moderator Tom Brokaw some credit for mainly holding these two strong personalities in line as they constantly tried to break format and talk about what they wanted to discuss as Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin did in her debate with Joe Biden.

 (Above: Getty photo from the debate by Justin Sullivan)

Posted by David Zurawik at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)
        

With a town-hall-meeting format for tonight's debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, TV could play a larger role then ever.

The candidates will be interacting with audience members in ways they never did standing on podiums. And the setting will demand far more informality and one-on-one interaction.

How will this mesh for the more hostile tone both candidates have taken toward each other on the campaign trail this week? And will it favor one over the other in the language of television?

Tune in to Z on TV tonight right after the debate to see how politics were played on the small screen tonight.

Posted by David Zurawik at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Last month, I wrote an analysis in the Baltimore Sun taking on those commentators who were saying that Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama will be America's "first cybergenic president" if he is elected in November.

I said  it wasn't true. In fact, I argued, if you want to be McLuhanesque about it, a more apt description of Obama should he get elected, might be the "last TV president."

Much online discussion ensued at great Web sites, and I became more convinced than ever that it was Obama's TV talent that made him such a charismatic candidate to so many. But now, seeing the candidate's deft and devastating documentary on Sen. John. McCain's role in the Savings & Loan scandal of the 1980s, I think there is a middle ground on Obama and media: He and his handlers are doing an outstanding job in all sorts of media -- old and new.

What a skilled use of the venerable documentary genre and You Tube distribution. The documentary titled Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis has its own Web site here. It is all dark shadows and shame -- textbook use of the techniques of propaganda for political purpose.

McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, this week have taken to literally calling Obama "dishonorable." That is very dangerous gamble. Do voters really want this campaign to get that personally nasty with such  reckless language being used?

So how do should Obama respond? Democrats know the folly or not firing back at all from 2004.

The documentary is a brilliant answer. It shows for 13 minutes a part of McCain's life when all kinds of people, from his colleagues in the Senate to senior citizens who lost their life savings in the S&L scandal, questioned his honor for the role he played in fronting for crooked savings & loan officials like Charles Keating who were later convicted for their crimes.

Via the documentary, the Democratic counterpunch is thrown, and neither Obama nor his running mate,  Joe Biden, have to risk calling McCain dishonorable themselves. And McCain, whose image is so based on honor, is the one with the most to lose in this deadly game.

Why documentary instead of TV ad? The former carries a legacy and connotation of verified truth and history, while the latter, is known for distortion and lies.

But who watches documentaries any more? Millions of people when they are only 13 minutes long and appear online. You Tube viewers are conditioned to watching videos of such length; last week's Saturday Night Live parody of the vice presidential debate ran over 9 minutes.

There are only two messages to get in the Keating documentary: McCain's moment of shame, and how related the de-regulated savings & loan crooks for which he fronted in Washington are to the Wall Street CEOs who have wrecked the American economy today.

Forget looking for the Willie Horton TV ad in this election. We might have already seen it in a re-packaging of the mini-documentary as viral video.

(Associated Press photo of John McCain at Senate hearing into his role in S&L scandal)

Posted by David Zurawik at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Now that everyone understands how perilous the economic times have become, it does not seem unreasonable to ask the executives running the cable channels to showcase some of their best reporters on the story -- and rein in the likes of Jim Cramer on CNBC and Ali Velshi on CNN.

I really believe American business journalism can do better -- and we have never needed it more in recent history. Does anyone remember Louis Rukeyser? (Here's an obit I wrote about him in 2006.) He had his quirks and conflicts, but wouldn't it be nice to have him on PBS today?

I wrote last week about Velshi's flawed performance as lead correspondent on CNN's breaking coverage of the rejection of the Wall Street bailout plan by the House. He was all opinion and few facts -- insisting in a loud and excited voice that the bailout plan must pass or a financial crisis would immediately follow.

I posted before Velshi really went off and got in a shouting match with another talking head who dared to disagree with him. Financial experts appearing out of control are not what we need to see on TV these days. For contrast, think of the calm, measured tones in which BBC has reported the economic turmoil abroad.

And now comes CNBC talk show host Jim Cramer, appearing on the Today Show Monday telling viewers to get out of the stock market as fast as they can.

"Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the market right now, this week," he said in a dramatically quiet voice on Monday morning's Today.

I say quiet, because his TV persona is the opposite with him sweating and squirming and yelling as if in a shaman-like trance as he gets his great visions. Two weeks ago, the great vision was to buy Wachovia stock.

"I do not like to say these things on TV," Cramer said in that dramatic voice Monday, sounding as if he was pronouncing the economy terminal.

I am not saying Cramer was or was not a contributing factor, but the market dropped like a brick most of the day.

Today is one of the flagship broadcasts of NBC News, an organization with credibility built on an impressive 70 year history. Whatever you think of Cramer, the credibility of NBC News surely stood behind that statement in the minds of some of the millions of viewers who watch Today every day. That's why I mentioned him being dead wrong on Wachovia, because even if he turns out to have been right today, the point is that a guy who has been wrong more than once before is being showcased as a voice of wisdom on network TV.

Cable channels don't have broadcast licenses from the government, but affiliates of networks like NBC do. Surely, the general managers at those stations understand the sense of civic duty that comes with those licenses.

Maybe they can lobby for their corporate cable cousins to step up in this time of crisis, lose their show-biz ways for a while, and think about giving Americans the kind of reliable and verified factual information that we have not needed so desperately since World War II.

Let's call a hiatus on cable TV clown time until we are out of crisis.

Posted by David Zurawik at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

If the Peabody committee wants to maintain any credibility for its awards as honoring the best that TV has to offer in socially relevant programming, it better set aside top honors for Tina Fey and Saturday Night Live right now.

As entertainment, Saturday's satire of the vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden was a can't-stop-laughing scream. And as political commentary, it brilliantly skewered the poses, hypocrisies and intellectual holes in the candidates.

But this week's sketch also included press commentary with the writers and actors of this late-night sketch program clearly showing how the deal that moderator Gwen Ifill has to publish a book on Barack Obama on inauguration day adversely affected her ability as a moderator in Thursday's debate.

The comic writers at SNL articulated what many press watchdogs and media critics couldn't or didn't want to: that Ifill's conflict made it possible for Palin to answer only the questions she decided she would answer without any focused follow-up from the moderator. And the real losers are the voters who got only performance, image and attitude from the Republican candidate during her one debate.

Queen Latifah played Ifill, and here is part of her opening remarks from the SNL parody: 

"Now, tonight's discussion will cover a wide range of topics including domestic and foreign policy matters. Each candidate will have 90 seconds to respond to a direct question and then an additional two minutes for rebuttal and follow-up. As moderator, I will not ask any follow-up questions beyond 'do you agree?' or 'your response?' so as not to appear biased for Barack Obama in light of my new book The Breakthrough: Politics of Race in the Age of Obama, coming out on inauguration day and available for pre-order on Amazon.com."

And, of course, being a first rate production, Latifah had an authentic looking dust-jacket to hold up to the camera, while she flashed a tight, little, cheesy, TV huckster' smile.

And then the debate, showing over and over again Palin's utter defiance of Ifill and the moderator's acquiescence -- and this from a journalist otherwise known for her straightforward tenacity.

Posted by David Zurawik at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

The TV turnout for Thursday night's debate was even larger than expected -- and almost every analyst expected a huge audience.

According to Nielsen ratings released late Friday, the showdown between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden was seen by 69.989 million viewers, the second largest TV audience for any presidential or vice presidential debate since Nielsen started counting the number of persons watching debates in 1976.

In terms of city by city viewing, Baltimore’s TV market had the highest percentage of viewership with 59.1 percent of TV households tuned to the event – about 660,000 homes. St. Louis, the city in which the debate was held, had the second highest percentage of viewers at 58.3.

Baltimore also had the third-highest percentage of viewers for last week's presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain.

Outside of keen interest by viewers in cities where debate are held or will be held in coming days, the only other consistent factor among markets with highest viewership appears to be that many have large African-American populations, which some analysts believe have become particularly engaged in this year's election, which features the first African American candidate of a major party.

The largest national audience ever for a presidential debate was 80.6 million viewers on Oct. 28, 1980 for a meeting between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

A 1992 debate between Bill Clinton, George H.W Bush and H. Ross Perot drew 69.9 million just slightly behind the 69.989 for Palin and Biden.

Among the vice presidential debates that previously ranked highest were the 1984 meeting between Geraldine Ferraro and George H.W. Bush, which drew 56.7 million viewers, and the 2004 encounter between John Edwards and Dick Cheney that was seen by 43.6 million.

Thursday’s debate was carried on 13 networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Telefutura, Telemundo, BBC-America, CNBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, PBS and C-SPAN. ABC had the largest audience with 13.3 million viewers. The audiences for PBS and C-SPAN were not included in the aggregate figure of 69.989 million because of differences in measurement procedures for non-commercial broadcasters.

While 1976 was the first year that Nielsen started counting persons watching rather than TV households due to advances in technology, the rating service measured household viewing for presidential debates back to 1960 when John Kennedy and Richard Nixon debated.

The ratings (which measure TV households) for those debates were considerably higher than the ratings for Thursday’s debate. Whereas Thursday’s debate earned a 45.0 rating nationally, the largest Kennedy-Nixon showdown earned a 61.0 rating, though, it was radically different and much smaller TV universe in those days.

Posted by David Zurawik at 6:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Thursday night's vice presidential debate looks like it is going to be one of the most watched debates in TV history, and Baltimore led all cities in the percentage of viewers, according to preliminary figures from the Nielsen Company.

The overall rating nationally was 45.0, which mean 45 percent of all TV householads in the country were tuned to the 90-minutes telecast.

By comparison, Friday's presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain earned a rating of 31. 6. (When the final figures were tallied, that translated to 52.4 million viewers.)

The rating in Baltimore for the vice presidential showdown was 59.1, which means almost 3 out of every 5 homes in the market was tuned to the debate. Los Angeles had the lowest rating: 34.4.

The preliminary ratings are drawn from the 55 cities in which Nielsen has electronic meters. If these numbers "hold up" as more complete analyses are run, Thursday's debate will be one of the most watched ever, according to a statement from the company.

The complete national ratings will be available late Friday, according to Nielsen

Posted by David Zurawik at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

Sarah Palin did better in her debate with Joe Biden than many people surely expected. But then, anything short of a meltdown would have exceeded expectations given the last couple of weeks she’s had on TV at the expense of Saturday Night Live performer Tina Fey and CBS anchorwoman Katie Couric.

 And as strange and unpredictable as viewer reactions can be to what they see on TV, it is hard to imagine any rational human being not thinking Joe Biden delivered one of the most solid and winning debate performances in recent  presidential history.

Yet, in the end, the question is whether facts, reason and logic can win out on TV over attitude and image, which is what Palin’s performance was all about.

Typical of the way the debate went and crucial to the way it might play with tens of millions of viewers is the exchange that took place on a question from moderator Gwen Ifill about the “causes of global warming.”The specific question: What is true and what is false about the causes of global warming?

Palin’s answer was essentially a non-answer: “I don’t want to argue about the causes,” she said with an edge. “We have got to clean up this planet.”

Biden parried by saying, “If you don’t understand what causes something, it is almost impossible to come up with a solution.”

He was clear and straightforward in saying that he believed the actions of human beings were driving global warming – and then went on to say how we could start to change behavior.

In any classroom, court of law or town hall meeting, Biden wins hands down. How could he not? Palin didn’t even try to answer.

But in her defiance is a big TV statement that says something like, “I am the outsider here, and I am not going to be cowed by this long-time Washington insider senator and long-time Washington insider pundit.”

And given the mood in the country-- the mounting anger about our economic crisis and lack of direction – Palin’s stance could play much better than some might think.

And just in case anyone didn’t get her attitude toward both Biden and Ifill, she laid it out early in the debate when Biden called her on a non-answer on the economy.

“The governor didn’t answer the question on deregulation and the administration letting Wall Street run wild,” Biden said to Ifill.

“I might not answer questions the way you and the moderator want me to,” Palin replied. “But I’m going to talk straight to the American people.”

And as off-point and utterly lacking in substance as most of her answers were, if she managed to sell that notion to enough core supporters who were losing faith in her and McCain, she can legitimately claim some kind of victory – even if it is small one.

But, again, while she didn’t seem as much of an embarrassment as a national candidate as she did in the interviews with Couric, she did show huge gaps in knowledge even of her own ticket’s positions.

On the issue of same-sex marriage and equality in civil rights for gay couples, she said she agreed with the position of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, which must have caused some members of the evangelical wing of her party to fall right out of their seats. It will be fun to follow the morning-after chatter on that one.

She also tried to attack Obama’s position on Afghanistan while consistently getting the name of the general in charge of American troops in the country wrong. Biden was restrained and savvy enough not to correct here. Let the reviewers and pundits.

In the end, it is hard to see by the usual standards of debate – or even rational discourse – how Biden could have done much better. But then, nobody ever said TV image and persona are rational matters.

(Above: Getty Images photo of Joe Biden and Sarah Palin by Scott Olson)

Posted by David Zurawik at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (140)
        

Coming up at Z on TV: I will be writing about the debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin from a TV standpoint right after the event.

Again, one of the goals of this blog is to explore the way in which reality is shaped, bent, folded and mutilated as it moves through the media machine and arrives on our screens. That includes TV turning politics into pop culture -- with tonight's debate as a prime example.

Posted by David Zurawik at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

On the eve of one of the most anticipated debates in recent American political history, a side stage controversy has arisen that threatens the integrity of the main event itself.

PBS anchorwoman Gwen Ifill, who is scheduled to moderate Thursday night's vice presidential debate between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Sarah Palin, has written a book that features Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama prominently. It is slated to be released in January when the next president takes office, and it would surely be a more valuable publication if Obama is elected.

Conservative Web sites WebNetDaily and NationalReview.com were among the first to raise questions about a possible conflict of interest this week, but ultimately, this is not a matter of ideological warfare. It is a matter of ethics, and the questions are valid wherever they come from.

And the organizers of the event had better deal with the matter before the debate starts -- or risk having the results of the encounter between Biden and Palin wind up being discredited in a blaze of partisan charges and counter-claims.

The book, which has not yet been released, is titled Breakthough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, and Ifill can be seen talking about it in a promotional video on YouTube here. As she describes it, Obama is one of four African-American politicians featured in the book. Ifill says she interviewed the Democratic candidate for the book, and that is the first conflict.

Posted by David Zurawik at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (33)