The New York Times recently published a story about a TV news channel in France, modeled on Fox News, with “clashing talking heads.” Many Americans share the impression that cable news is a cacophony of noisy partisan voices, arguing at high volume. Even people who watch these shows don’t seem to know what they’re watching.
There actually is almost no disagreement on TV news talk shows because no one disagrees. Even the worst offender—Fox News—is almost entirely a series of mutual reaffirmations, in which “hosts” and “guests” take turns agreeing with one another.
I claim a bit of expertise on TV talking heads, having earned my living that way for six and a half years long ago. The show was called Crossfire, five evenings a week on CNN, sandwiched between Larry King and Lou Dobbs. On Crossfire there was real argument and—despite a lot of what the producers called “overtalking”—you could come away with a general sense of the arguments on both sides of an issue, and neither hosts nor guests could get away with unchallenged “talking points.” It was scary, with people trying to make you look like a fool, while you try to make them look like fools, with untold millions witnessing it.
By contrast, today someone like Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity can coast unchallenged:
HOST: “Senator, you’ve been in Congress for 150 years. Has there ever been an administration as inept, as corrupt, as downright dishonest as the one we have now in Washington? I fear for our country, I really do.
GUEST: You’re absolutely right, Sean.
HOST: Do you agree with me that Biden must be impeached immediately?
GUEST: You’re absolutely right, Sean.
HOST: You know what really gets me? It really gets me when some liberal politician like Nancy Fancy Pants goes on MSNBC and calls my show “divisive.” I’m sorry, but that’s a crock, excuse my language. She’s the one who’s being divisive. The Democrat party today has abandoned the working class in favor of hanging out with celebrities in Hollywood. Your view?
GUEST: You’re absolutely right, Sean.
HOST: You know, I don’t think these liberal Communists realize how much damage their name-calling does to a sensitive guy like me. It hurts. It really hurts. You know, Republicans have feelings too.
GUEST: Sean, I couldn’t agree more.
The piece below is from The New Republic in 1981, from an earlier stage in the evolution of the TV gasbag, when talk shows still had pretensions of sobriety and balance. Agronsky and Company was the leading example. Next came The McLaughlin Group, a more raucous version of the same formula (a bunch of journalists arguing amiably under the leadership of a fallen Jesuit priest.) Now, many years later, all the boxers have retreated to their respective corners.
Jerkofsky & Company
(originally published in The New Republic 9/8/1981)
Sound up with Martial Music (Love Theme from Jerkofsky & Company). Under the Great Seal of Jerkofsky & Company, Washington’s leading savants gather to perform group exegesis on the events of the past week. We hear a low, rumbling noise, which is the voice of…
MARVIN JERKOFSKY: The President urges support for his policies, but leading opposition spokesman express objections. Negotiations proceed in major trouble spots, amidst increasing criticism of the current approach. Concern mounts in Washington about any number of things. Life on earth continues, but doubts arise about its purpose or justification. Hugh, how do you like my new tie?
HUGH SIDEWALL: You know, Marvin, we sit here in Washington pretending that we have some kind of special insight into the world, and really we don’t know much more than anyone else. As for all the issues you raise, they’re important issues, and they’ll all have to be studied with care, with very great care indeed and in fact, if anything is clear at all—which I doubt—is that these very troubling questions are being deeply considered by some of the finest minds in town, who agree—to a man, I might say, or a woman, Elizabeth—that these are all very, very difficult challenges for the nation. But as for what comes next, we just can’t say, Marvin. It’s too early to tell.
JERKOFSKY: I see. Well, tell me this, Hugh. If, as you seem to suggest you know nothing about anything, why do I pay you to drone on week after week on my show?
SIDEWALL: Well, you know, Marvin, that’s a very good question, and it’s one I’ve heard being asked at the very highest reaches of government, and in my major lunches around Washington and in traveling across the entire country. But there are no conclusions at this point, and we’ll just have to wait and see. It’s hard to say. No one knows for sure. Any guess would be premature.
JERKOFSKY: Hugh do you have any brains left at all?
SIDEWALL: I don’t know, Marvin. We just can’t say.
JERKOFSKY: George?
GEORGE III: On the subject of Hugh’s brain, Marvin, I’m reminded of Samuel Johnson’s remark that the prospect of a hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully. Foolish consistency, Marvin, is the hobgoblin of small minds, as Emerson so aptly put it. And I believe it was Pope who said, “Tis education from the common mind: Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.” But the Bible says, “A fool uttered all his mind.” And “what fools these mortals be,” as Shakespeare so wisely observed.
JERKOFSKY: Thank you, George. Haynes?
HAYNES UNDERWEAR: Marvin, I was interested in Hugh’s remark about traveling across the entire country because frankly, Hugh, I think that’s my turf, if you don’t mind. I’m just back from Out There, as a matter of fact, taking the pulse of the nation, speaking to millions of ordinary Americans, be they shopkeepers, or baseball fans, or Presbyterians, and all of them agree with remarkable unanimity that this is a very crucial time for our nation. In fact, Marvin, in my entire career as a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, this is one of the most fascinating periods we have ever passed through as a country. Americans are nervous, yet they remain calm. They have lost faith, yet they retain, I think, an underlying confidence. They are certain, yet somehow unsure. It’s hard to define, Marvin, but it’s definitely there. I know, because I’ve talked to every single one of them. For me to pass among the American people at this fleeting yet crucial moment in history, touching an outstretched hand here, accepting a gentle kiss on the foot there, was as stirring and moving for me as journalist as it was for them as the American people.
JERKOFSKY: I’m sure you’re right, Haynes. Elizabeth?
MS. SHREW: I think we have to be very careful in defining our terms here, Marvin. By “people,” does Haynes mean “human beings making up a group or assembly or linked by a common interest”? Or does he mean “the mass of a community as distinguished from a special class”? In talking with people—and I use that term advisedly—up on the Hill this week, I’ve discovered a sharp divergence of views and not a little confusion on this point.
JERKOFSKY: An important distinction, Elizabeth. Congratulations. Carl, what do you think about Elisabeth’s distinction?
CARL ROLYPOLY: Wellllllllll, Marrrrrrrvinnnnnn, llllllet mmmmmmmmmmme jusssst say one llllllid-tullllll thaaaaaaaang. You knowwwwwwww, it’s alllllll jusssssst fine and dannnnnnnn-deeeeeeeeeee for Haynes and Eeeeeeeeeeelizzzzzzzz-uh-beth to sit heeeeeeere and talk abouuuuuuuut…..the peeeeeeeeee-pulllllll. But what I would like to knowwwwwww is thisssssssss.
JERKOFSKY: Yes? What is it?
ROLYPOLY: What is issssssss, Marrrrrrvinnnnnnnn, is jusssssst one simmmmmmmpulllll quesssssschunnnnnn.
ALL: Yes? Yes?
ROLYPOLY: Myyyyy quesssschunnnnn isssss thissssss: Hhhhhhwat abouuuuuuut blaaaaack peeeeeeee-pullllll?
JERKOFSKY: A good question, Carl. Thank you. Jack?
JACK CURMUDGEON: Harrumph. Balderdash. Poppycock. Horsefeathers. Et cetera.
JERKOFSKY: That’s the last word, Jack. Thank you, Elizabeth, gentlemen.
ALL (waving): Goodbye, boys and girls! See you next week!
Great piece! But it's from 1981, not 1991. It was in your 1987 collection.