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Chuck Todd likely to replace David Gregory on 'Meet the Press'

To be honest, not much of an improvement. They're both inside the beltway wonks who lack a real connection to the public. What made Russert such a star was his ability to relate to the normal folks. Same with Shieffer. The NBC News folks don't seem to understand that.

To me, Chuck looked really disinterested in the show this past wknd.
 
The Politico article says NBC is looking to restore "insider cred." Apparently they don't care about relating to "normal folks."

The article adds Meet The Press has been adrift since Russert. It was adrift BEFORE Russert, with a revolving door of hosts... Mudd, Kalb, Wallace the Younger, Utley. Gregory has held on longer than many of his predecessors. And let's face it, This Week has been drifting, too.

Unless they can find a personality like Russert or Scheiffer, they should go back to the original "press conference of the air" format, as practiced by Lawrence E. Spivak and other hard-boiled, old school newspapermen who would do their homework and rip politicians a new one.
 
FredLeonard said:
The Politico article says NBC is looking to restore "insider cred." Apparently they don't care about relating to "normal folks."
Click to expand...

That's fine. Then in a year, they'll be looking to replace Chuck. David Gregory has all the "insider cred" they need. That's not the problem. The problem is that the whole show is one hour of insider talk that completely bypasses the audience. It won't get any better with Chuck. They should fly Brian Williams in every Sunday.

Howard Kurtz did an interesting interview with Chris Wallace yesterday. Chris said that NBC is treating David badly. He's right, and he should know. It was during a similar circumstance that he left NBC, and found a comfortable home at Fox.
 
I haven't seen "Meet The Press" with Chuck Todd, but I know I quit watching it after Tim Russert passed away. I agree that Russert was able to connect with "regular folks" (think about how he talked so much about the Bills during football season), and I, too, think that only Schieffer is doing that in any meaningful way now. I care little, if at all, for either Stephanopoulos or Chris Wallace (who, as far as I'm concerned, isn't half the interviewer his dad was).

I don't know who could duplicate what Spivak used to do, but it would be interesting to revive the idea of putting politicos on the hot seat, press-conference style, and watching them squirm, which is what made "Meet The Press" an institution in the first place.
 
I guess in the world of News and Interview-programs, tastes for content are as diverse and varied as the tastes that drive us to different genres of music programming. (As an older co-worker used find some way to work into conversation AT LEAST once or twice EVERY day at work: "Everyone to his own taste... said the farmer as he kissed his cow.")

I had never sat down and 'philosophized' over what drives me TO some news people and AWAY from others the way it has come up in this thread. I guess I want some amount of "inside cred".... I didn't realize that was a totally bad trait! And I don't know what the proper terminology for this trait is.... but I am drawn to interviewers who ask the questions i would ask if I were sitting there. And I am driven away by interview questions that I would have never thought to ask... even on the worst day of my life.

Apparently there is an appetite for "panel sessions" that resemble what happens in your front yard when a gathering of stray dogs turns into a loud, ugly dog-fight. (If you have never lived in rural areas where there is no leash-law or the law is not enforced, that may be a mental picture you cannot appreciate) I am turned off by such broadcast dogfights and it appears that hosts of the Sunday morning interview programs must be paid these days on how many dog-fights they can arouse from the panel.
 
"Inside cred" suggests the purpose of the program is to impress insiders. If that's the case, the show is of the insiders, by the insiders and for the insiders. Sorry, this is network television. These programs are supposed to give the rest of us some insight and understanding of what the insiders are up to. The journalist, be definition, should be an outsider. Unfortunately, too many have formed incestuous relationships with sources. With all due respect to the late Mr. Russert, he was an engaging personality but he was an insider - not a journalist - and never should have been given the job. Same with Stephanopolous, Williams and Sawyer.
 
Fred: Let me offer you an alternate view of networks, and journalism at the national level. The Sunday Morning programs are just a component part of the big, big picture. You have do doubt seen the video clips when a meeting breaks up and no one is really ready to talk about what happened until they get out of the room, go back to their office and contemplate what just happened, and then bounce off their staff what are the best ways to explain what happened (spin?) and what are the "got'chas" to stay away from. There are dozens... maybe hundreds of reporters manning the gauntlet line.

How do you and your network (or your newspaper) become one of the few faces in the frenzied crowd that the public official/high profile citizen is ready to talk to. Maybe the only purpose of the Sunday morning shows is for the network team to gather some "Inside cred" so they can work stories off-camera with greater success than their competitor. The Sunday morning shows may be a place where journalists and think-tank people can gain some mutual respect with each other.

When it comes time for an in-depth interview that only one or two news organizations are going to get from a high profile Washington Insider, how do the movers-and-shakers look around and say: "You, and you... I will be interviewed by you." That's when what you call "Insider Cred" pays off.

I am not a typical listener if you are looking for a group of people to survey. I have worked as a journalist. I have done Talk Radio. I have been a lobbyist at the state level. I have made trips to Washington to try to provide input. I will attend Town Hall Meetings and mix it up with a Congressman. (Not a pleasant task where I live now! :cool: ) So I have distinctly different expectations of what I want when I take the time to sit still and watch an interview program.

Maybe the Sunday morning shows have gone through an evolution and today their only loyal audience is made of up people as strange as me.
 
Once upon a time, I was a consultant for the re-election campaign of a senator with tons of inside the Beltway cred. And he was in trouble. Voters kept telling us that they hadn't heard from him in the six years since his last election, that he ignored them while playing his insider game.

When we reported this to the senator, he was shocked - shocked. How can they say that they haven't heard from me, he said. I go on the Sunday morning talk shows all the time. Just goes to show who is and who is not watching.

Ironically, seated in the room was the senator's chief of staff and campaign manager, who later went on to host one of those Sunday morning talk shows.

And now you know.... the rest of the story.
 
FredLeonard said:
Ironically, seated in the room was the senator's chief of staff and campaign manager, who later went on to host one of those Sunday morning talk shows.

And now you know.... the rest of the story.
Click to expand...

This is a companion story that fits right along side your experience.

3 or 4 years ago my wife and I were at lunch with the widow of a man who had been a state campaign chairman for George H. W. Bush in his 1992 re-election bid. The campaign chairman went to Mr. Bush about three weeks before the election and told him: "You've got to shake some things loose. You are going to lose this election."

Mr. Bush was unable to receive, to accept the news. "No, my people tell me we are doing well."

And yes we know.... the rest of the story.
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Mr. Bush was unable to receive, to accept the news. "No, my people tell me we are doing well."

And yes we know.... the rest of the story.
Click to expand...

His son learned from that experience. I remember Election night in 2000, a TV reporter was invited in Bush's hotel room, where they were watching the returns. The reporter told Bush it looked like he was going to lose Florida. A loss in Florida would mean he'd lose the election. Bush smiled, and said he had very good information that things were going to change. And he was right.
 
And here is where we DON'T know the Rest of The Story.

Has the election process, news cycle and information flow changed forever in the last five years, or are we going through a temporary deviation? The arrival of the Tea Party concept of campaigning and feeding of the information flow has "rearranged the deck chairs" for now. Does any campaign apparatus today really know what is working, and what WILL WORK in the next few years.

If anything in this arena keeps we awake at night it is what I see happening because the Internet has provided almost FREE transportation for ideas and information that used to be very expensive to dispense, and you could do a postmortem on an election cycle by studying campaign financial reports when it was over and done.

Now the Internet can be the silent, unnoticed messenger that we don't know how to haul before a committee and demand answers. If we really trust the concept of self government, the Internet should be a great tool. If we believe that all mechanisms that make our system of self-government work need to be monitored and function within some guidelines of honesty and decency, then the Internet is our worst nightmare.
 
TheBigA said:
His son learned from that experience. I remember Election night in 2000, a TV reporter was invited in Bush's hotel room, where they were watching the returns. The reporter told Bush it looked like he was going to lose Florida. A loss in Florida would mean he'd lose the election. Bush smiled, and said he had very good information that things were going to change. And he was right.
Click to expand...

The way I heard it, when the networks called Florida for Al Gore, a camera was in Daddy Bush's suite and he said, "that's not supposed to happen." This was supposed to evidence the Florida race, where Jeb Bush was governor, had been fixed.

Mayor Daley did a much better job of fixing the race in Illinois for Kennedy in 1960.
 
NBC won't let Gregory do a final show for MTP, apparently fearing another Ann Curry moment.

What I'd like to see: Fox News invites Gregory to be a guest on their Sunday morning show, hosted by another former MTP host, Chris Wallace.

The skeleton in Todd's closet: Shhhh! He's another one of those liberal Democrats in the MSM. He's worked on various campaigns and for various liberal causes as well as editing one of those Washington "insider" blogs. Fellow Dem Russert hired him at NBC.
 
It looks like to me, that Chuck Todd is going to replace David Gregory on meet the press. I wonder how well they do in the ratings when Todd takes over, on September 7th.
 
Does anyone who watches "Meet the Press" tune in because the host is such a scintillating personality?
 
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