Sunday Morning Shootout

Sunday Morning Shootout
By Howard Kurtz
Copyright by The Washington Post
Monday, April 20, 2009; 9:39 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html?hpid=topnews


David Gregory says he was acutely aware of "the legacy of the program" when he took over "Meet the Press" four months ago. "I realized I was succeeding Tim Russert, and that was a big deal," he says. "I'm trying to bring as much passion as I can, and I hope viewers are seeing it. My voice is still evolving in this. . . . Just like Tim did, I've got to go out there and earn it."

But the NBC newsman, who is drawing lukewarm reviews, has a fight on his hands. George Stephanopoulos seems reenergized at "This Week," and he and Bob Schieffer at "Face the Nation" have been closing the gap with the longtime ratings leader.

"Obviously, Tim's tragic death has opened up the playing field for everybody," says Chris Wallace, host of "Fox News Sunday." "He was the king of Sunday morning. The throne is empty."

Stephanopoulos, who brings an insider's knowledge from his days at the Clinton White House, has loosened up considerably as a moderator. "You do get more comfortable in your role and more confident in your presentation," he says.

Schieffer, for his part, isn't touting any new bells and whistles. "We're doing exactly what we've always done," he says. "We have not changed a thing. We're still basing our show on news." But he says it is "very, very difficult" to compete against his hour-long rivals when he has only 30 minutes, which is largely devoted to newsmaker interviews rather than discussions among journalists.

The Nielsen figures reflect the more competitive landscape. In the first three months of the year, "Meet the Press" drew 4.16 million viewers, a decline of 6 percent from the same period last year. ABC's "This Week" attracted 3.36 million (up 12 percent); CBS's "Face the Nation" 3.19 million (up 8 percent); and "Fox News Sunday" 1.48 million (basically flat). On April 5, "This Week" came within 200,000 viewers of "Meet," and "Face" was within 290,000 viewers.

No one, including Gregory himself, expected the former White House correspondent and cable host to be another Russert -- a garrulous, working-class storyteller and prosecutorial interviewer. Gregory is a sharp, diligent and well-prepared host who asks follow-up questions. But he is not what you would call an outsize personality, and his sharp wit has remained mostly hidden.

Gregory displayed "little energy and virtually no passion" on a recent program, writes Baltimore Sun television critic David Zurawik. "And that is the opposite of what made Russert so compelling to watch." The new moderator is polished, writes Newsday critic Verne Gay, but "seems more intent on covering the waterfront than digging for news, or in pushing the talking heads off their talking points."

Gregory says he is "letting loose," not holding back, and his executive producer, Betsy Fischer, says he is pinning down guests. When the new General Motors chief executive, Fritz Henderson, said his pay had been cut 30 percent, Gregory asked him how much he will be making. The answer: $1.3 million.

"We're dealing with a major recession," Fischer says. "Excitement is not necessarily something that is called for. David is very passionate about preparation for the show."

But where Russert created tension by trying to catch his guests in inconsistencies, Gregory often poses low-key, open-ended questions. In a recent interview, he asked John McCain, "What is your take on the anger, the populist anger in the country? Do you think it's justified, or do you think it's been overblown? . . . And yet the White House says the Republicans have become the party of no. Is that fair?"

Stephanopoulos, meanwhile, has been injecting more of his opinion. Eight days ago, he was deep into a discussion about the financial crisis with Newt Gingrich and Paul Krugman, among others, when the former House speaker said there would have to be a second major stimulus law because there was "almost no hope" the current one would work.

But how, Stephanopoulos pressed Gingrich, did that square "with what you were just saying earlier about the problems of debts and deficits?" Gingrich shifted gears, saying it would be better for the states to cut spending over time.

"George really drives the show," says Ian Cameron, the program's executive producer. "He's not an overbearing personality, but someone who gets to the point."

The Gingrich exchange reflects the program's new mix-and-match approach that adds politicians and business leaders to the traditional journalists' roundtable. Stephanopoulos, who has experimented with different formats, now believes it was a mistake to have temporarily dropped the roundtable in 2003. "If you get the right group together with diverse views, people who know what they're talking about and can do it in a lively manner, the roundtable takes off," he says. "It's not enough just to be glib."

"This Week" has added such corporate CEOs as Google's Eric Schmidt and FedEx's Fred Smith to the expanded roundtable segment, which features George Will and, at times, paid ABC contributors: Krugman, the Nobel-winning New York Times columnist; CNN's Donna Brazile; former Bush campaign pollster Matthew Dowd; and onetime Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke.

Gregory, searching for new journalistic voices, has booked 16 first-time guests, including the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, Fortune's Bethany McLean, National Review Editor Rich Lowry, Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel, Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary and two panelists from NPR's "Planet Money."

Schieffer's signature is the folksy closing commentary, such as this one after the president's London visit: "Let me just say that personally I was okay with Michelle Obama touching the queen of England. . . . When we were invited to the British Embassy last year to see the visiting Elizabeth and Philip, my wife donned a hat as big as a washtub and we had a fine time."

After Schieffer repeatedly lobbied the White House, "Face the Nation" landed the first Sunday morning interview with President Obama since the inauguration. "I think if I could get that dog, we could probably draw a bigger audience," he jokes. The year's other big newsmaking interview, with Dick Cheney, was snagged by John King, the host of CNN's new "State of the Union." Wallace says he is handicapped by weak lead-ins on many Fox broadcast stations -- including a pair of televangelists in New York -- but draws 1.2 million viewers for replays on the Fox News Channel. He says he is doing newsmaking interviews "even with a Democratic administration" -- his is the only program not to land an interview with Obama since the election -- and taking a "fair and balanced" approach.

Wallace has, for instance, asked administration officials why the president has stopped using the "war on terror" term promoted by George W. Bush. "We ask different questions and approach subjects differently," Wallace says.

Sunday talk shows are less personality-driven than, say, the morning shows of Matt and Meredith and Diane. But who sits in the host's chair still matters more than the fact that, say, Wallace does a "power player of the week" or Stephanopoulos runs clips of late-night comics.

Some slippage was probably inevitable for Gregory, but he retains custody of one of the best brand names in journalism. Even when Schieffer had Obama last month, Gregory finished first in the ratings with an interview of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who also appeared with Stephanopoulos. "The guys we're up against are good," Gregory says. "George and Bob have been doing this for a while. They're established. They're both first-rate journalists."

Jumping the Gun

An obvious attempt to get out in front of the flood of 100-day stories, starting with the New York Times:

"President Obama is well known for bold proposals that have raised expectations, but his administration has shown a tendency for compromise and caution, and even a willingness to capitulate on some early initiatives.

"It was inevitable that Mr. Obama's lofty pledge to change the ways of Washington would crash into the realities of governing, including lawmakers anxious to protect their constituents and an army of special-interest lobbyists.

"Mr. Obama has not conceded on any major priority . . . But his early willingness to deal or fold has left commentators, and some loyal Democrats, wondering: where's the fight?"

The L.A. Times is more positive, noting that Obama recently told a roomful of banking executives that "my administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks":

"Just shy of 100 days in office, he has ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay military prison and a troop withdrawal from Iraq; made it easier for women to sue for job discrimination; eased a ban on stem cell research; extended healthcare coverage to millions of children; ousted the head of General Motors; reached out to the Muslim world; moved to ease tensions with Cuba; traveled to Canada, Europe, Turkey and Latin America; and set aside huge tracts of wilderness for federal protection.

"More broadly, Obama has seized on the worst economic crisis since the 1930s -- exploiting it, critics say -- and set out to reshape major aspects of everyday life: the price we pay to see a doctor, the size of our children's classrooms, the fuel we put in our cars. If Obama's history-making campaign offered hope, the nation's first black president has delivered audacity; his vision of an activist government has been so vast, Washington now guarantees not only savings accounts but brakes on a Buick."

Anonymous Sniping

There's a big blogosphere debate brewing over an anonymous source quoted by Politico in a piece about the president's decision to release those torture memos. The story, by Mike Allen, begins with an on-the-record David Axelrod describing the reasoning behind the decision. Then comes this:

"A former top official in the administration of President George W. Bush called the publication of the memos 'unbelievable.' " 'It's damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama's action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are,' the official said. 'We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary . . . Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again -- even in a ticking-time-bomb scenario where thousands or even millions of American lives are at stake.'

" 'I don't believe Obama would intentionally endanger the nation, so it must be that he thinks either 1. the previous administration, including the CIA professionals who have defended this program, is lying about its importance and effectiveness, or 2. he believes we are no longer really at war and no longer face the kind of grave threat to our national security this program has protected against.' "

I'm critical of this practice for two reasons. One, this guy is being allowed to take hard shots at the president from behind a curtain of anonymity. Second, it's not like there aren't ex-Bushies out there who'd be willing to go on the record.

Andrew Sullivan goes further, calling Allen a Bush "mouthpiece":

"Allen is allowing a member of the administration that broke the Geneva Conventions and commited war crimes to attack the current president and claim, without any substantiation, that the torture worked. He then allows that 'top official' to proclaim things that are at the very least highly questionable. What journalistic standard is Allen following in allowing such a person to speak anonymously?"

Mike Allen responds on Politico that while he was writing the story, "a very well-known former Bush administration official e-mailed some caustic criticism of Obama's decision to release the memos. I asked the former official to be quoted by name, but this person refused, e-mailing: 'Please use only on background.'

"I wasn't surprised: While Karl Rove and former Vice President Dick Cheney have certainly let loose in public comments, most top Bush officials have been reluctant to go on the record criticizing Obama. They have new careers, and they know it's a fight they'll never win. He's popular; they're not -- they get it.

"I figured that readers could decide whether the former Bush official's comments sounded defensive or vindictive. And POLITICO readers aren't so delicate that we have to deceptively pretend there's no other side to a major issue."

The Spitzer Comeback

Here's the formula: First he writes pieces for Slate and Newsweek (both owned by The Washington Post Co.). Then he talks a bit with Matt Lauer about the hooker scandal that brought him down. Then he agonizes about his fall from grace with Newsweek and lands a cover story for saying such things as, "We succumb to temptations that we know are wrong and foolish when we do it and then in hindsight we say, 'How could I have?' "

Goodbye Eliot Spitzer, disgraced ex-governor. Hello, newly introspective financial commentator.



Palin's Problems

As Sarah Palin struggles with Alaska politics, she can't seem to buy a good headline. In the Daily Beast, Reihan Salam says Palin has turned him off:

"Levi Johnston, a 19-year-old with a perhaps undeserved reputation as a backwoods simpleton, has done what Barack Obama and Joe Biden and sneering liberals and cringing conservatives couldn't: He has killed off Sarah Palin as a serious contender for the next Republican presidential nomination. And I have to say, this depresses the hell out of me . . .

"This is only the latest indignity in the long, slow downward spiral that's been Palin's brief career as a national figure, as everything clever and distinctive about her has been replaced by an unrecognizable Reaganite fembot caricature. Months before Palin was selected as McCain's running mate, I told anyone who'd listen that she'd be the shrewdest pick. When she addressed the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, I was utterly electrified. But during the latter days of the campaign, I started hearing rumors about how top-level McCain backers were shuttling back-and-forth to Alaska to put out various fires, and of course there has been a steady drumbeat of stories about Palin's low-level abuse of power. Then there is the fact that the national Republican Party has destroyed much of what was great about Sarah Palin, and she let them do it . . .

"Palin's campaign antics can be forgiven. What can't be forgiven is the ham-handed way she's tried to build her national profile since she returned to Alaska. She's abandoned the bold right-left populism that won over Alaska voters -- and me -- in the first place in favor of an increasingly defensive and harsh partisanship. After making her name as a determined enemy of Alaska's corrupt Republican establishment, she recently called for Democratic Sen. Mark Begich to step down so the hilariously crooked Ted Stevens could get another crack at the seat. She loudly promised to leave federal stimulus money on the table before clawing that promise back with a whimper. One can't help but get the impression that Palin is a clownish, vindictive amateur."

Undisclosed Activity

My lead item on the Sunday shows is, I must admit, a tad incomplete, at least when it comes to Stephanopoulos. We find out more about him away from the cameras in this piece in The Hill:

"Ali Wentworth, actress and wife of ABC's 'This Week' host George Stephanopoulos, doesn't hold back.

"During her weekly appearance on Oprah's 'Friday Live' last week, she revealed that she and George were recently caught having 'marital relations' by their 6-year-old daughter, Elliott.

"When Elliott asked, 'Daddy, what are you doing to Mommy?' Daddy was temporarily speechless, but Wentworth responded brightly, 'Daddy's just tickling me.' "The subterfuge didn't last, though, because the ABC newsman, who quit his White House spinning job years ago and now uncovers (if that's the right word) the truth, corrected her, saying, 'We're making love.' . . .

" 'I like it,' Wentworth said of sex. 'I don't love it. I don't need to have it 10 times a day. I'm happier with a Klondike bar sometimes.' "

Hey, it's tough to compete with a good ice cream treat.

Kurtz hosts CNN's media program, "Reliable Sources," which airs on Sunday morning.