Which One's the Fake Journalist Again?
I'll admit, when I first heard that Stephen Colbert was running for President, my reaction was: Oh, Stephen, you can do better. Colbert, I thought, was too much of an original to be reviving a stunt that's been done for generations by TV comedian and cartoon character alike. But as with so much about The Colbert Report, having a real-live actor performing in straight-faced character adds much more potential to the joke. The potential, for instance, to have Tim Russert volunteer to make an ass out of himself on Meet the Press.
It made perfect sense that Russert would offer to host Colbert on his Sunday-morning show. Washington journalists have an endearing if desperate desire to show that they can let their hair down and hang with the cool kids, a fact to which The Capitol Steps owe much of their careers. And last year's wave of hype around Borat made it safe for major media outlets to do fake interviews with a fake character, an embarrassing pander that Joel Stein vivisected in The LA Times.
Russert gamely answered Colbert's parody of a politician with a parody of himself, grilling Colbert about the South Carolina state amphibian and his decision to leave the "t" in his surname silent. But you might have noticed that it was pretty hard to tell the parody Russert from the real one, which, of course, is part of Colbert's point. With Colbert (and Jon Stewart), journalists repeatedly make the mistake of assuming that the joke is on the politicians when it's also (or mainly) on themselves.
Media groupthink and cliches are The Daily Show's bread and butter, and the sheeplike performance of the post-9/11 news media was the real butt of Colbert's infamous White House correspondents' dinner routine, which the journalists present decided was rude and unfunny--until the home audience hailed Colbert as a genius. Now Russert, like the rest of his colleagues, has rushed to lead Colbert's bandwagon from behind, apparently oblivious that his eagerness to give over a third of his show to a comedian selling a book is part of the joke.
Sure, when Colbert kicked off the interview with platitudes about wanting to run for president because America was at an "unprecedented" "juncture," he was skewering vague political speak. But he was also implicitly skewering the clubby Washington press routine that gives a platform to this empty bluster without calling it what it is. The only thing that made Colbert's opening statement a joke, after all, was Colbert's presence; if Mitt Romney or John Edwards had said the same thing in front of Russert, would anyone have batted an eye? Would Russert?
The more Russert tried to be a sport and go with the joke--bad move, by the way, to try to be as funny as the comic you're interviewing--the more he made himself into the joke, as when he pulled out a Bert doll to argue with Colbert about the silent "t." A serious Washington journalist was holding a Muppet and grilling a comedian--a joke, yes, but born out of the very real, and very serious, desperation of the old-line media to stay relevant and popular amidst a groundswell of blogs and Comedy Central shows that feed on the audience's disgust with political journalism.
Russert was sitting across from someone feigning a persona and pretending that it was real. How is that any different from what Washington journalists do all the time--going along with some politician's playacted, politically convenient outrage over a MoveOn.org ad or an opponent's campaign contribution? The only difference here was that the dialogue was more clever.
Colbert, at least, is playing a character. What's Tim Russert's excuse?
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You should go join swampland. Post under a surname =).
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That was brilliant, James.
The only thing I would add to it is to note that Russert's other guest that day was the author of (ANOTHER) book on the Clinton marriage. The utter inanity of what passes for 'serious' journalism was even further highlighted....
(I mean, Paul Krugman just released a book -- and given his consistent prescience on this administration, should have been all over the Sunday gabfests. But he couldn't get a booking -- instead, we got the usual bloviating that concentrated solely on the horserace, and reduced the Democratic primary to Obama v Clinton, and Clinton v Clinton.)
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Wow....excellent post, James. The comedy is in the fact that these political "journalists" are, to some degree, as uninterested in the "truth" or investigating stories and exposing hypocrisy in our system as the "comedian journalists." In a sense, this was Jon Stewart's point in the famous "Crossfire" appearance - what the heck is going on with political journalism when they are interviewing comedians, as opposed to candidates?
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This is good!
Dick Parsons really lets you write this stuff? Does he know about this blog?
I give you about two weeks before Parons via Stengel shuts this down if you keep up the good work.
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Journalists must feel like they need to be entertainers to stay relevant.
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well, you can't say I didn't try....
A couple of hours after you posted this, Ana Marie Cox over at Swampland posted her own, far weaker take. I commented that she should have linked to her colleague's (that would be you) blog post in her own -- and include the link. She does and update, thanks me for bringing your post to her attention, quotes from your post, BUT DOESN'T PROVIDE A LINK. Sheesh....
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it seems like more 'mainstream' media types are trying to jump on the "look at how cool I am, I'm writing about Colbert" bandwagon. AMC does link to the Post's Chris Cizilla's take on Colbert's poll numbers, and a post in the Atlantic by Josh Green that presents a serious analysis of Colbert's chances. I suspect that both are an attempt to pander directly to Colbert in the hope that he will mention them on his show..... too bad for them that Colbert is on vacation this week, which makes the likelihood of success of their efforts pretty small....
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@p_luk: Your commission's in the mail.
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excellent piece!
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grow up. get a life. get a little perspective upon your take on this life.....
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Sorry, James, but I disagree. While you are generally right about Jon Stewart and Colbert's take on the media (and the way the media jumped on the Colbert bandwagon), you are way off with respect to Tim Russert. Russert is one of the best journalists out there today. Better than Keith Olbermann. Better than Koppel when he was doing Nightline. Stewart and co. will be the first to acknowledge that. Colbert was not skewering Russert -- watch the show again.
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Get real Jonathan. Of course he was skewering Timmy, the Bush family's favorite media interviewer.
p_lukasiak is correct, better than Swampland and they should have provided a link. Lukasiak was one of the original and best researchers on AWOL Bush.
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@Jonathan: I will agree with you in one sense--this wasn't specifically about Russert. That is, the interview could have just as well taken place on any number of other TV news shows, with the same meta-implications about the media.
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@Jonathan...
Russert is one of the original media whores. The man has had all-Republican panels to discuss Democratic candidates. How whorish can you get? I'll note he doesn't do the inverse.
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It's a relief to see you get what Colbert was about, unlike Cox. The best part was how he declared gay marriage a threat to his very own marriage. Russert was goonish because he didn't just accept the role of straight man. but this is hardly the first time these shows have had comics aboard. i'm pretty sure russert has interviewed reagan and clinton impersonators in the past. evans and novak used to do a wonderful annual intvu with Art Buchwald, with Novak slightly overseething at Buchwald's blue-collar sarcasm. by the way, you should get after this stuff next - sheer genius from l'onion.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/poll_bullshit_is_most_important?utm_source=EMTF_Onion
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To top this whole thing off, O'Reilly did his weekly "body language expert" segment last night with a look at the Russert/Colbert footage.
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@Jonathan Ara
Russert is a "journalist"? Could have fooled me.
For example, close your eyes and imagine a serious interview with someone like Moyers instead of Russert. A little different, no?
And admittedly it is a subtile kind of point, but Colbert didn't HAVE to skewer Russert.
The joke is Russert did it to himself. Good writeup.
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