Before I started writing for Columbia University, my career in Manhattan media began in broadcast television with a summer internship at CBS News over on West 57th Street, in the wake of “Rathergate,” and then for a couple of years as blogger, researcher, and junior PR flack for the late, great Bill Moyers’ PBS public affairs show produced down on West 33
Exile, no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people. There is a market for vacuous chatter by a nepo baby, as evidenced by Chelsea Clinton's frequent appearances on "The View."
The only morning show I've ever enjoyed watching was the local "Good Day New York" when it was hosted by Rosanna Scotto and Greg Kelly because it had some real hard-hitting New York Post energy. I concede I'm not the target audience for the rest of the genre!
I don't find Chelsea Clinton quite as objectionable as Jenna Bush because everybody assumes that she's a limousine liberal and knows The View is a liberal show, so Chelsea doesn't strike me as fundamentally misrepresenting herself, whereas Jenna Bush is almost like a Rachel Dolezal in that she presents herself as a Middle American Mom with presumably traditional values even while being a mouthpiece for a soulless media conglomerate that has nothing but contempt for Middle American Moms with traditional values. There's a degree of exploitative pantomime going on that amounts to a betrayal, even if she had actually earned her plum position rather than being handed it on a silver platter.
When I read up on Jenna Bush's career in researching for this piece, I was surprised to find that her career experience was even thinner than I expected. I don't understand how she's not embarrassed to be a public figure, given how blatantly she stole a golden opportunity from someone who might have actually deserved it.
Finally, I feel less alone in my opinion that Jenna Bush Hagar's career deserves a lot more scrutiny. I think part of why she was able to land a plum gig she doesn't deserve is that she stays in the 'mom' lane, and doesn't present herself as a 'serious' journalist like Christiane Amanpour. The morning shows are mom-coded, though they do hire people like George Stephanopoulos and Ann Curry for some gravitas. Overall, I think standards in 'mom' media are more relaxed, but perhaps they should be tightened to the same level as 'hard' news?
It's not infrequent for politicians and their inner circles to get absolutely enormous advances for books that are extremely unlikely to sell enough copies to justify those advances, and I don't think it's too cynical to say that's typically a legal form of bribery. I would not be surprised if Jenna Bush getting a plum Today Show job was in exchange for the Bush administration doing some kind of special favor for the corporate brass, which at that time was General Electric.
I personally think America would be better off if all of the national morning news shows ceased to exist, they are just soft-focus propaganda at this point. Supposed 'hard' news has moved closer and closer to the "mom media' model rather than vice versa.
I mean he was in charge of Iraq, Katrina, the 2008 financial crisis and letting China into the WTO. Apart from Katrina we are still dealing with the fallout of all of these issues today?
Katrina I consider an act of God and China's accession to the WTO was mostly Bill Clinton's doing, but I agree that the Iraq war was a blunder of historic proportions and that Bush's whole subprime mortgages for all economic strategy was an absolute disaster. Presumably a President Al Gore would not have gotten us into Iraq, but I suspect he would have pushed the subprime mortgages even harder. We were kind of damned if we did and damned if we didn't.
I know it's not the focus of the piece, but I am curious about the vibe at CBS around Rathergate at that time. That event marked, in many ways, the birth of the right-wing blogosphere and was the first pebble of the avalanche that elected Donald Trump 12 years later.
I was at CBS News in Summer 2006 as the network was preparing to roll out the new version of the Evening News with Katie Couric. Morale was extremely low as few outside of the corporate brass thought Couric was a credible face for the network or that she'd succeed in turning ratings around for the perennial 3rd place finisher of nightly news shows. Dan Rather had not yet been formally fired when I got there but was fired a number of weeks into the summer--the writing was obviously on the wall, I don't think he was even coming into the office anymore, but yet the building lobby still had a huge portrait of him and many of the halls of the complex were decorated with various news clippings and screenshots from throughout his career. Even on the day he was fired I don't recall anyone mentioning his name the entire summer, he was just too much of an embarrassment. I've often wondered if all that Rather bric a brac just went into the trash or if somebody bothered to save it. It's a shame, I always liked Rather better than Brokaw and Jennings, he had more substance and I very much doubt he knew that the documents in his report had been forged. Perhaps he might have been able to salvage his career had he not kept doubling down so stubbornly.
Presented with the scenario that he has come across information from enemy combatants that American soldiers were about to be ambushed, his instinctive reaction is that he would warn the troops. Then he is browbeaten by Mike Wallace into reversing himself, acknowledging that he is a journalist first and an American second (if at all).
As a PBS aficionado, you would love the old Fred Friendly series.
Thanks for the link, I wasn't familiar with that and have always been interested in some of that Fred Friendly content. I briefly worked with Friendly's widow during my time at Columbia J-School.
Exile, no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people. There is a market for vacuous chatter by a nepo baby, as evidenced by Chelsea Clinton's frequent appearances on "The View."
The only morning show I've ever enjoyed watching was the local "Good Day New York" when it was hosted by Rosanna Scotto and Greg Kelly because it had some real hard-hitting New York Post energy. I concede I'm not the target audience for the rest of the genre!
I don't find Chelsea Clinton quite as objectionable as Jenna Bush because everybody assumes that she's a limousine liberal and knows The View is a liberal show, so Chelsea doesn't strike me as fundamentally misrepresenting herself, whereas Jenna Bush is almost like a Rachel Dolezal in that she presents herself as a Middle American Mom with presumably traditional values even while being a mouthpiece for a soulless media conglomerate that has nothing but contempt for Middle American Moms with traditional values. There's a degree of exploitative pantomime going on that amounts to a betrayal, even if she had actually earned her plum position rather than being handed it on a silver platter.
When I read up on Jenna Bush's career in researching for this piece, I was surprised to find that her career experience was even thinner than I expected. I don't understand how she's not embarrassed to be a public figure, given how blatantly she stole a golden opportunity from someone who might have actually deserved it.
Ya had me at aw shucks 😄
Finally, I feel less alone in my opinion that Jenna Bush Hagar's career deserves a lot more scrutiny. I think part of why she was able to land a plum gig she doesn't deserve is that she stays in the 'mom' lane, and doesn't present herself as a 'serious' journalist like Christiane Amanpour. The morning shows are mom-coded, though they do hire people like George Stephanopoulos and Ann Curry for some gravitas. Overall, I think standards in 'mom' media are more relaxed, but perhaps they should be tightened to the same level as 'hard' news?
It's not infrequent for politicians and their inner circles to get absolutely enormous advances for books that are extremely unlikely to sell enough copies to justify those advances, and I don't think it's too cynical to say that's typically a legal form of bribery. I would not be surprised if Jenna Bush getting a plum Today Show job was in exchange for the Bush administration doing some kind of special favor for the corporate brass, which at that time was General Electric.
I personally think America would be better off if all of the national morning news shows ceased to exist, they are just soft-focus propaganda at this point. Supposed 'hard' news has moved closer and closer to the "mom media' model rather than vice versa.
You are doing Jenna’s father a great compliment by describing his presidency as merely “mediocre.”
After the past four years it's hard for me to be quite as hard on 1 through 45 as I'd been before.
I mean he was in charge of Iraq, Katrina, the 2008 financial crisis and letting China into the WTO. Apart from Katrina we are still dealing with the fallout of all of these issues today?
Katrina I consider an act of God and China's accession to the WTO was mostly Bill Clinton's doing, but I agree that the Iraq war was a blunder of historic proportions and that Bush's whole subprime mortgages for all economic strategy was an absolute disaster. Presumably a President Al Gore would not have gotten us into Iraq, but I suspect he would have pushed the subprime mortgages even harder. We were kind of damned if we did and damned if we didn't.
I know it's not the focus of the piece, but I am curious about the vibe at CBS around Rathergate at that time. That event marked, in many ways, the birth of the right-wing blogosphere and was the first pebble of the avalanche that elected Donald Trump 12 years later.
I was at CBS News in Summer 2006 as the network was preparing to roll out the new version of the Evening News with Katie Couric. Morale was extremely low as few outside of the corporate brass thought Couric was a credible face for the network or that she'd succeed in turning ratings around for the perennial 3rd place finisher of nightly news shows. Dan Rather had not yet been formally fired when I got there but was fired a number of weeks into the summer--the writing was obviously on the wall, I don't think he was even coming into the office anymore, but yet the building lobby still had a huge portrait of him and many of the halls of the complex were decorated with various news clippings and screenshots from throughout his career. Even on the day he was fired I don't recall anyone mentioning his name the entire summer, he was just too much of an embarrassment. I've often wondered if all that Rather bric a brac just went into the trash or if somebody bothered to save it. It's a shame, I always liked Rather better than Brokaw and Jennings, he had more substance and I very much doubt he knew that the documents in his report had been forged. Perhaps he might have been able to salvage his career had he not kept doubling down so stubbornly.
Speaking of Peter Jennings - are you familiar with this (in)famous PBS moment for him: https://www.learner.org/series/ethics-in-america/under-orders-under-fire-part-i/
Presented with the scenario that he has come across information from enemy combatants that American soldiers were about to be ambushed, his instinctive reaction is that he would warn the troops. Then he is browbeaten by Mike Wallace into reversing himself, acknowledging that he is a journalist first and an American second (if at all).
As a PBS aficionado, you would love the old Fred Friendly series.
Thanks for the link, I wasn't familiar with that and have always been interested in some of that Fred Friendly content. I briefly worked with Friendly's widow during my time at Columbia J-School.