My Tim Russert Problem: And Ours

Paul Waldman's brilliant piece on the evils of Tim Russert as debate moderate (and, of course, as Meet the Press host) unfortunately only scratches the surface of our problem, which is not so much Russert as it is Russertism. This, in turn, is built into the deeper structure of these things. The trouble is that someone discovered one day that Meet the Press or a primary debate could be very important even if almost nobody watched. The reason is that a clip might get picked up by shows that people do watch.

Under this new dynamic, the role of the moderate is not to play host to an interesting informative discussion but rather to maximize the odds that some particular 10 second snippet of an hour-long broadcast will be worthy of rebroadcast. Hence, the focus on inane questions designed less to draw out an illuminating remark than to trip someone up. The trouble, though, is that the more a broadcast is structured like this the fewer people will watch. Russertism has succeeded in creating a kind of political broadcast that even hard-core political junkies find difficult to watch. Indeed, the only way to make it tolerable is to step back and go meta, scanning the broadcast for signs of those telltale clips.

But the fewer people watch, the more the debate becomes about clip-generation rather than debate. And that only makes the debate more unwatchable! And down and down we go.

UPDATE: To be clear, it's not even necessarily that I think a "wonkier" broadcast would attract higher ratings than the current sort of debates. Rather, I think that if they tried to produce an hour-long debate broadcast whose goal was to maximize viewership of the hour-long broadcast, rather than producing two-hour broadcasts whose goal is to maximize the odds of generating a signature "moment," that the broadcasts would get higher viewership. It shouldn't be that hard to produce a presidential debate that virtually every political junkie watches. Right now what they're doing doesn't even attract that audience.

Comments

Russert is to Yglesias as Negros are to Podhoretz?

http://www.lukeford.net/Images/photos/out.pdf

Posted by rea | November 1, 2007 11:46 AM

as debate moderate

the role of the moderate is not to play host
===============================================

I assume you mean "moderator" - not Russert as token middle of the roader. Twice in the same post?

Don't you have to be able to spell to graduate from Harvard? Or work for a national magazine?

Posted by Campesino | November 1, 2007 11:56 AM

That flagrant misuse of the colon causes me great pain. Not to mention it was a dash in the original Podhoretz.

Regarding Russertism: I saw a only few clips of the most recent Dem debate on the Daily Show and I just cringed that any adults with a minim of self-respect--even candidates for President-- should have to jump through these kind of job-interview-with-an-assh*le hoops.

Posted by James Gary | November 1, 2007 11:59 AM

"Hence, the focus on inane questions designed less to draw out an illuminating remark than to trip someone up. The trouble, though, is that the more a broadcast is structured like this the fewer people will watch."

Say what?

For all the myriad problems inherent in gotcha journalism, ratings is not one of them.

Do you honestly think earnest policy debates would pull in better ratings than the drama of gotcha journalism?

Posted by Petey | November 1, 2007 12:04 PM

Do you honestly think earnest policy debates would pull in better ratings than the drama of gotcha journalism?

Can someone please tell me when we last had an "earnest policy debate"? Isn't dreaming on a mythical yesteryear supposed to be the conservatives' bag?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 1, 2007 12:10 PM

Do you honestly think earnest policy debates would pull in better ratings than the drama of gotcha journalism?

I don't know if it boils down to having to have only one or the other.

The Roman writer Ignatius Boethicus actually addressed this issue in his 2nd-century tract In Re Gotchorum. I imagine candidates would be more inclined to speak frankly about their positions if they didn't live in constant fear of being "gotcha-ed". And as a result, intelligent, educated people might actually want to watch the debates.

Posted by James Gary | November 1, 2007 12:11 PM

The whole notion of how we "do" debates ought to be re-examined. I think we might get much better results if we added a little formality to the process, and divulged the debate questions in advance. You know, one debate could be entitled "Resolved, the United States needs to reform its healthcare system" and then have the candidates spend a couple of hours debating healthcare. We might actually get, you know, policy details and insight into the subtleties of their ideas. Another debate could cover foreign policy. Another the tax code. Etc. Will never happen, of course. I guess one benefit of the status quo debate formats is we get to see how quickly a candidate can think on his feet with the cameras rolling, and how good he is at coming up with a one liner. I'm not sure those skills are all that important in a president, however.

Posted by Jasper | November 1, 2007 12:11 PM

"The trouble, though, is that the more a broadcast is structured like this the fewer people will watch."

Or put another way, what Matthew really means here is:

The trouble, though, is that the more a broadcast is structured like this the less I want to watch.

-----

While there are definitely problems with Russert's genre, the real problem is Russert's particular brand of politics.

Russert and Matthews both have a sleazy scam going of covering their Republican politics with appeals to the fact that they grew up as Democrats.

Posted by Petey | November 1, 2007 12:12 PM

"That flagrant misuse of the colon causes me great pain.

*snort*

Posted by Dan S. | November 1, 2007 12:18 PM

You and I are on the same wavelength Matt Y.:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_10/012397.php#1164009

Posted by David W. | November 1, 2007 12:35 PM

Do you honestly think earnest policy debates would pull in better ratings than the drama of gotcha journalism?

I think the idea is that more substantive debates would draw more viewers because at this point only people who are interested in politics would watch anyway. Now, this works differently depending on the party, since most viewers, other than political junkies, will at least identify with the party having the debate and are trying to decide which one to vote for. The Bible verse question makes sense in terms of appealing to viewers for Republican debates or for the general, both of which will have a high number of Republican viewers.

Democrats, other than the Harold Ford wing, don't usually care about a candidate's faith. Maybe I only see it this way because I identify with the Democrats, but I think Democratic voters want to get the specifics -- though not necessarily a detailed plan -- of the candidate's approach to Iraq, healthcare, etc., while Republicans, based on what they cheer or boo at the debates, want to hear about doubling Guantanamo and how we are never to blame for our bad image in the Arab world, no matter what we do (which Paul and Guiliani argued about awhile ago), which really doesn't tell us much about what they would actually do in office, since they really just trying to one up each other on who's the toughest, most religious, most patriotic. So I think Matt is right, the effect of asking that question is not to inform or appeal to Democratic voters, but to potentially catch one of them in a "gaffe" so that the media can perpetuate the "Democrats aren't religious" myth, and provide some red meat to the Christian right.

Posted by ibid | November 1, 2007 1:07 PM

Also, if there wasn't some inarticulate fat guy, some crazy short guy, some crazy old guy, and a couple of old boring dudes taking time away from the three candidates who actually have a chance, I might be more inclined to watch.

Posted by blah | November 1, 2007 1:12 PM

For serious policy debates, I reccomend TV Ontario's "The Agenda with Steve Paikin". It's really worth a look--older episodes available as video or audio podcasts.

http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/

Posted by Anthony | November 1, 2007 1:17 PM

It's wrong to employ the word "debate" for this type of clip-generating activity.

Nixon and Kennedy debated. I'm not sure we've seen actual debates since that time.

What we have now is a creation of television producers.

Posted by Garuda | November 1, 2007 1:23 PM

See also here: http://debatableland.typepad.com/the_debatable_land/2007/11/tim-russert-is-.html

Posted by jp | November 1, 2007 1:50 PM

See also here: http://debatableland.typepad.com/the_debatable_land/2007/11/tim-russert-is-.html

Posted by jp | November 1, 2007 1:50 PM

Just show Russert's performance on Frontline ("I wish some other sources would have come to me" and words to that effect) on a loop.

Christ, the White House sends people out to Meet the Press specifically to "control the message."

Posted by ed | November 1, 2007 1:51 PM

Here we go:

BILL MOYERS: Was it just a coincidence in your mind that Cheney came on your show and others went on the other Sunday shows, the very morning that that story appeared?

TIM RUSSERT: I don't know. The NEW YORK TIMES is a better judge of that than I am.

BILL MOYERS: No one tipped you that it was going to happen?

TIM RUSSERT: No, no. I mean-

BILL MOYERS: The Cheney office didn't leak to you that there's gonna be a big story?

TIM RUSSERT: No. No. I mean, I don't have the-- This is, you know-- on MEET THE PRESS, people come on and there are no ground rules. We can ask any question we want. I did not know about the aluminum tubes story until I read it in the NEW YORK TIMES.

BILL MOYERS: Critics point to September eight, 2002 and to your show in particular, as the classic case of how the press and the government became inseparable. Someone in the Administration plants a dramatic story in the NEW YORK TIMES And then the Vice President comes on your show and points to the NEW YORK TIMES. It's a circular, self-confirming leak.

TIM RUSSERT: I don't know how Judith Miller and Michael Gordon reported that story, who their sources were. It was a front-page story of the NEW YORK TIMES. When Secretary Rice and Vice President Cheney and others came up that Sunday morning on all the Sunday shows, they did exactly that.

My concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them.

link: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html

Posted by ed | November 1, 2007 1:59 PM

More:

TIM RUSSERT: Look, I'm a blue-collar guy from Buffalo. I know who my sources are. I work 'em very hard. It's the mid-level people that tell you the truth.

BILL MOYERS: They're the ones who know the story?

TIM RUSSERT: Well, they're working on the problem. And they understand the detail much better than a lotta the so-called policy makers and political officials.

BILL MOYERS: But they don't get on the Sunday talk shows.

TIM RUSSERT: No. I mean, they don't want to be, trust me. I mean, they can lose their jobs, and they know it. But they can provide information which can help in me challenging or trying to draw out sometimes their bosses and other public officials.

BILL MOYERS: What do you make of the fact that of the 414 Iraq stories broadcast on NBC, ABC and CBS nightly news, from September 2002 until February 2003, almost all the stories could be traced back to sources from the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department?

TIM RUSSERT: It's important that you have an opposition party. That's our system of government.

BILL MOYERS: So, it's not news unless there's somebody…

TIM RUSSERT: No, no, no. I didn't say that. But it's important to have an opposition party, your opposing views.

Posted by ed | November 1, 2007 2:01 PM

1) Actually, the fact that Tim Russert earns $5 Million per year by bullshitting us with our own airwaves tells you pretty much what you need to know about US politics.

2) Here are some fixes:
a) Give every US citizen a $10,000 tax CREDIT to be used SOLELY for support of the news media source -- or political party -- of his choice.
b) BAN all other sources of income for news media ,politicans, or political parties. Including all income from advertising or business deals that would allow money to be passed under the table in the guise of revenue.

c) Require ALL news media sources to be publicly traded companies and ban media monopolies/concentrated ownership by banning anyone from owning more than 1 percent of the stock of a media company. Also ban any media company from growing larger in revenue that the next 6 smaller companies.

3) Republicans like George Will argue that the superrich have a First Amendment right to use our own public airwaves to lie to us. Also , a First Amendment right to de facto bribe our Members of Congress.

4) For some reason, I have never seen George Will express that slightest concern that tens of millions of Americans -- the people who fight our Country's wars and who work to produce our Country's wealth -- have NO voice.

No way to disseminate their concerns and complaints to the millions of US voters. No way to expose how they've been harmed by the deceit and corruption of our politics.

5) But then a blowhard like Will knows that one doesn't make a comfortable living by criticizing the sins of the rich -- so Will averts his eyes from the real crimes and focuses on pompous moralizing about the flaws of the poor.

Will did learn one thing from reading the classics -- how to whore like a Bishop from the Middle Ages while clothed in hypocrisy.

Posted by Don Williams | November 1, 2007 2:14 PM

For serious policy debates, I reccomend TV Ontario's "The Agenda with Steve Paikin".

who was, incidentally, David Shuster's guest when Shuster was subbing for Tucker Carlson yesterday.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | November 1, 2007 2:17 PM

Brilliant post. I love politics but I can't stomach watching these shows/debates because they are so stomach-churningly stupid. They NEVER talk about anything real that impacts the lives of people.

I was dumbfounded that there has been almost no questions about the environment in the debates during the last two presidential cycles. WHy would that be except that the answer would benefit the Democrat, because any discussion of the issue is bad for Republicans?

Posted by bluejersey | November 1, 2007 4:29 PM

For all the myriad problems inherent in gotcha journalism, ratings is not one of them.

Ratings (and circulation) are problematic in every single kind of political journalism. Matt's right that basically nobody watches this stuff in terms of raw numbers, and that the impact it has is largely diffused through a small number of elite viewers.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | November 1, 2007 5:09 PM

Matt ignores that Russert is driven by, and the disappointing lack of real debate with substantive views espoused is caused by

Too many fucking people on stage. No time for any issue to be fleshed out with the time limits imposed..

What was it in California back in 2003? Arnold, 3 other serious candidates - and 152 people with no shot that wanted equal time?

If the Lincoln-Douglas debates had included 5 other "equal time is due us!" speakers, we would have never heard of them...because people at the time wouldn't have followed them and let the press at the time tell us who delivered the best "zinger" on slavery and states rights and rail rates on a ton of horse feed.

Whats Russert to do with a debate format with 7 people each wanting to get off 3-4 scripted sound bites in the 5-7 minutes of time they will get?

Boot the people with no shot and no real standing as a plausible candidate - like Biden, Tancredo, Kuchinich, Richardson - and the debate quality will improve. Do it right after New Hampshire. Both Parties should say if you don't poll at least 7-10% in either state, you are gone from future debates.

Posted by Chris Ford | November 1, 2007 8:10 PM

"Don't you have to be able to spell to graduate from Harvard? Or work for a national magazine?"

No, you don't have to work for a national magazine to graduate from Harvard. It just tends to work out that way.

Posted by Kyle | November 1, 2007 8:15 PM

This post is unintentionally hilarious. This blog has as one of its main themes the citation to other sources, with commentary provided based on the briefest scan, and usually a quote of a summary. All subtlety, caveats, qualifications, and careful framing fall away and are ignored in the rush to find support of pre-established opinion. Russertism?

Posted by Béziers | November 1, 2007 9:03 PM

I guess one benefit of the status quo debate formats is we get to see how quickly a candidate can think on his feet with the cameras rolling, and how good he is at coming up with a one liner. I'm not sure those skills are all that important in a president, however.

Posted by Jasper | November 1, 2007 12:11 PM

-----------------

Great closing Jasper. There was almost nothing in that last debate that nudges me any closer to closing the deal on a single candidate. This wasn't Hillary Clinton's best debate. Given the circumstances she nonetheless handled herself very well. Neither Edwards nor Obama gave me anything that would cause me to proclaim I'm for ____ because he is for ___. In other words, it wasn't their best debate either. As for Russert, it was just another reminder for why I watch Face The Nation on Sunday morning. Sadly, I expect no lessons to be learned other than "let's turn up the screws". The people being screwed, however, are the American people.

Posted by DallasNE | November 1, 2007 9:47 PM

Russert - "the toughest interview on television." It's an amazing racket he has - Truly - his "blue collar guy from Buffalo" schtick. Amazing.

Posted by Comment | November 1, 2007 9:52 PM

Ezra Klein should have been more forefull on Hardball listing Russert's debate transgressions.

The way Russert framed the Iran/nuke question - He sounded like Rudy had Bernie Kerik pay him a vist the night before the debate to make sure the questions were all asked in a Rudy-friendly way.

Posted by Comment | November 1, 2007 9:58 PM

Yeah that stupid Russert. How dare he trip up Hillary with questions she didn't want to answer. Didn't he get the memo? Immigration is so out of bounds. Boo hoo.

In all seriousness, I would totally watch the Gotcha Debates. Each candidate gets a buzzer and questions are rapidly fired out...Who's the President of the Ivory Coast?...How many centimeters in a mile?...How much does a gallon of milk cost? And then they could have the little mountain climber dude from The Price is Right yoddle his way over the cliff if the answer is too high. I envision a mix between Jeopardy, The Price is Right, and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader. Maybe we vote one of the candidates out after each debate.

Posted by Just Karl | November 1, 2007 11:32 PM

Russert is not stupid - He knows what he's doing.

Posted by Comment | November 1, 2007 11:50 PM

"It shouldn't be that hard to produce a presidential debate that virtually every political junkie watches. Right now what they're doing doesn't even attract that audience."

So true. I'm as big a political junkie as you will ever meet. I'm a professional Democratic party operative, and I've worked at very high levels on political campaigns all over the country, including the last 3 presidential elections.

But I haven't watched a single debate.

In part that's because I'm not working on a presidential campaign this time and I don't really like any of the candidates. But still. For most of my life, you couldn't have paid me to miss any presidential debate ever. No more.

It started a couple years ago when I decided I couldn't take watching Chris Matthews or Tim Russert any more. I wasn't learning anything, but I was getting extremely pissed off. So I cut the political talk shows out of my media diet completely. Pretty soon I cut out all tv news as well.

I now get all of my political info off the web. I read about 5 newspapers, 5 magazines, and track at least 20 blogs on a daily basis. But I don't watch politics on tv at all.

Posted by Anonymous | November 2, 2007 12:05 AM

Just to follow up with a little bit of explanation for my previous post (right above this one):

Another reason I don't watch politics on tv at all is a combination of:

1) With Republican atrocities like the WMD that failed to appear, all the massive quantity of Republican lies in general, the disaster in Iraq, the shredding of the Constitution, torture, etc. etc.,

2) The fact that while politics has never been more important, it has also never been so poorly covered. In fact, it goes beyond poor coverage. Bottom line: the media is basically in the bag for the Republicans, and

3) There's no one worth watching on TV except maybe Keith Olbermann. The rest of them are horrible and have no sense of real American values or the difference between right and wrong. Do you think we could have a few more real liberals on tv, other than Olbermann?

Posted by Anonymous | November 2, 2007 12:19 AM

These things are debates?

Where is the opposing viewpoint?

There is none. It's all "well, I won't negotiate until this is done" vs "well, I won't negotiate until that is done."

Meanwhile, the main issue was always: Is there something to negotiate ABOUT?

These are not "debates". These are set pieces designed to instill the Establishment view of an issue in the minds of the public.

Who "wins" the debate is not relevant to the participants. After all, they're really not going to get elected based on the debates. What matters to the participants is that the public "loses" any real comprehension of what the issues really are and why the candidates are not addressing them in any meaningful way.

There are exceptions, of course - Kucinich and Paul - which is why Kucinich has to answer questions about UFOs...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 2, 2007 12:46 AM

Anonymouse says: "It started a couple years ago when I decided I couldn't take watching Chris Matthews or Tim Russert any more. I wasn't learning anything ..."
Well said - I don't learn anything either - It really is garbage. C-span has plenty of debates that are informative without any bias that pisses off either Dems or GOPers - Hardball is just such a BS show and Matthews just lazily miquotes people and makes lazy ass judgements.
Also - Matthews seems obsessed with women and women's issues - But not in a healthy way. Who the f*** does he think he is to pass judgements on the women guests - If any of us did that in our offices, we'd be canned.
Russert went to Woodstock as youth - not Vietnam. Like Tweety, he is inflicting all of us with his guilt feelings about being a slacker - So they both make up for it with mancrushing on tough-guy chickenhawks like Rudy etc.

Posted by Comment | November 2, 2007 1:51 AM

I'm certain that Big Russ wouldn't be pleased with his son's tactics

Posted by ryan | November 2, 2007 9:57 AM

Matt--I think you should respond to Bob Somerby's criticism in today's Howler. He makes what should be the obvious point that neither you nor the Waldman piece you're responding to mention even in passing that Russert (and Williams, and Matthews) may be motivated by an animosity toward Democrats. Holy God, they don't do the same job on Republicans!

Posted by Herschel | November 2, 2007 4:14 PM

Here's the link for today's Howler that Herschel brought up. I gotta say, I'm with Somerby on the partisan bent of Russert et al's performance at the debate and in general over the last decade or so. Matt, your thoughts?

Posted by Crust | November 2, 2007 4:55 PM

It doesn't make you look weak or whiny to point out the obvious: Democrat=target.

Posted by Jonathan | November 2, 2007 7:48 PM