Mark Sanford emails expose how David Gregory plays the game
By John Amato Sunday Jul 19, 2009 10:01am
David Gregory sure learned his Villager lessons well. Want a big Scoop? Just sell out the integrity of your platform (In this case Meet the Press) that the American people depend on for access.
When the stories about South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's love of hiking and the ensuing revelations about line crossing and soul mates were first revealed, I think it's safe to say that most people never saw it coming. But what hasn't been a surprise is the resulting confirmation of how many in the media are willing to sell their journalistic souls for political access.
And leading that list has to be David Gregory, who went out of his way to continue the proud tradition of Meet the Press kissing the ass of shamed elected officials.
From his emails to Sanford's office, where he begs for an interview:
Left you a message. Wanted you to hear directly from me that I want to have the Gov on Sunday on Meet The Press. I think it's exactly the right forum to answer the questions about his trip as well as giving him a platform to discuss the economy/stimulus and the future of the party. You know he will get a fair shake from me and coming on MTP puts all of this to rest.
... So coming on Meet The Press allows you to frame the conversation how you really want to...and then move on. You can see (sic) you have done your interview and then move on. Consider it.
In the middle of the breaking scandal, Gregory not only offered to let Sanford guide the story, he was willing to give him a platform to change the subject. And then Gregory would "move on."
Move along now little doggie. No story here, that's it..just a couple of kids in love...run along. Nothing here to see. I can only echo what Vernie Gay said about the new Meet The Press:
But he also seems more intent on covering the waterfront than digging for news, or in pushing the talking heads off their talking points. Recent interviews with Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) felt like a waterfront that went on for miles - an endless vista of chatter and spin.
BOTTOM LINE "Meet the Press" is now the de facto safe show on Sunday morning - "safe," that is, for those being interviewed.
Gregory has been handed perhaps the most important program in television journalism. It's time to start acting like the king who rules wisely yet ruthlessly. Otherwise, his legacy will match that of Garrick Utley or Bill Monroe - moderators who were highly respected but not highly feared. In this job, it's vital to be both.
These Mark Sanford emails proves Vernie's point perfectly.
Login or Register to post comments.
Cheney thought MTP with Russert was the safe place to get out their message too.
What would Walter Cronkite (have) done?
Journalism is DOA on TV.
I agree, their aren't any journalists left. They get paid big bucks to tow the corporate line and all to often the corporation is run by wingnuts.
And just when I thought I was incapable of hating this pathetic little ass licking puke any more, he manages to throw a few more white hot suns onto the pyre of my already white hot loathing. Go fuck your self Gregory, ask KKKarl how.
*smart salute*
Just trying to further the discourse any way I can. Thank you, I'll be here all week.
yer comment gets tugged. i had the site monitor take exception with sumpin' I said, devoid of profanity, but eaten nonetheless!
I don't care, I just got a chance to vent in a world wide forum, YEEE HAA. I spent half of my Catholic school years standing in the hall way for being a bad little boy, bring it on site monitor.
Capt, I am enthralled by the way you express yourself! I couldnt have said it better myself.
"Press the Meat" was crap during Russet-boy's tenure (for the very reason Ron cites above).
It has sunk even below that under Gregory's direction. What a complete ass-kisser. A great show to *NEVER* watch if you want journalists interested in getting beyond the cover story and at the truth.
Screw you and your smarmy grin, Gregory. Your show has outlived its usefulness, and your lack of integrity is on display for all to see.
MTP is message and damage control, purely. It's a place where the corporations [ad buyers] meet their employees [politicians] to tell the rubes [the public] anything they want. I'd rather not hear any boo-hooing about Lil' Russ because he was just as bad, or ever worse, because he had the 'taint' of respectability.
This is a shocking example of how cowardly and accomodating the press have become to those in power. Instead of being adversarial towards those they cover, they are only adversarial towards those who question their lack of journalistic integrity.
Gregory SHOULD be fired because of this - but sadly, won't.
Glenn Greenwald says it best here:
www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/18-4
Our MSM needs more people like David Halberstam and Walter Cronkite, not flaccid corporate sellouts like Gregory. People like him and Russert were little more than whores doing their sordid stenography for their corporate pimps. And these Beltway assholes have the arrogance to congratulate themselves on how great and wonderful they are today. They are a disgrace and an insult to the memory of Halberstam and Cronkite, who were principled people that had the courage to stand for what was right.
Be sure to read the whole thing, especially the comment at the end by Cronkite---which will never be admitted publically by our media.
Cronkite was actually very critical of what the "media" has become. He was a sharp mind, and because he was so publicly respected, media executives (like Les Moonves) feared him.
I'm surprised he's been lionized this week to the degree that he has. CBS and NBC both did lengthy segments on him last night. Moonves looked very uncomfortable when Morley Safer basically admitted that Cronkite was a buffer between his reporters and "the management." ("That's you, Les," Safer said, and Moonves squirmed, trying to smile but clearly unable to hide his contempt.)
Cronkite was asked what his biggest regret was--as follows:
"My biggest regret? Well, I regret that in our attempt to establish some standards, we didn't make them stick. We couldn't find a way to pass them along to a new generation."
Like Glenn Greenwald says in his article, the MSM wants to celebrate Cronkite while ignoring what he did.
Hear that David Gregory? I didn't think so.
grew up watching Walter Cronkite and respecting him. I was very saddened to discover he had feet of clay. Shortly after his retirement from CBS he did a little "documentary" about health care. The documentary was sponsored by the AMA and specifically targeted single payer health care systems, particularly the Canadian system. In it he repeated on camera and in voice over every single lie and distortion that has been used ever since. If it had not been so painful to watch him flush every ounce of credibility he had down the toilet it would have been laughable. I haven't respected him since.
But I do give him credit for having better clarity and principles than the current MSM does. They just want to blabber on about how great he was and not adopt the redemptive things he did.
that he was infinitely better than the current crop. To a certain degree journalism has always been symbiotic with politics. Journalism careers are secured by access to high level sources. The "get", as Gregory has demonstrated, is far more important than journalistic integrity. It has not always been as bad as it is now. I find it truly appalling that the most incisive questions are asked by John Stewart and not the talking heads of network television.
I heard that some heard that some one told some one that Gregory comes here and reads stuff, so let's all really let our deepest inner feelings about this turd out. Don't hold back boys and girls.
I'm such a HUGE FAN!!
[If ur completely turned off by this, then u'l know how WE feel].
I hope David reads the article by Glenn Greenwald posted above. A little shock therapy to these apathetic and self centered fools would be a great help.
It's time to start acting like the king who rules wisely yet ruthlessly.
I disagree. For me to once again pay any attention to a damned thing said on this show, what it's *really* time for is new leadership. Gregory has telegraphed his disinterest in being a journalist: going beyond party-line memes and holding to the fire the feet of those who supposedly work for the public. He'd rather have martinis with them (much like Cokie Roberts, an industry joke).
If NBC doesn't realize this, it should. Gregory has no credibility left. If "Press the Meat" is to return to any level of trust it once had, this shill needs to be out on his ass. Maybe he can get on as a correspondent for "Entertainment Tonight," where he need only be a tad less probing than Mary Hart. That's all Gregory seems capable of.
Replace him with Matt Tiabbi. That young little whipper snapper would shake things up for sure.
Can you imagine how much the media would shake things up under a complete change in format? If instead of repeating and furthering the whispers of politicians and corporate heads, media executives put their "news" shows in the hands of actual young journalists, hungry for the truth?
Revenue might be generated from companies who wanted to prove they had nothing to hide--I don't think ad sales would fall in the long term at all. Networks might even be able to ask for donors (as PBS does) if they support the new format.
Capitalism doesn't cut it. Everybody's in bed with everybody else. Something better can rise up, bite capitalism's head off, and replace it. It sure as hell won't look the same, though--and you won't be seeing people like Mrs. Greenspan or David Limp-grin Gregory or Charlie Gibson anymore.
Who would we see? People who ask tough but honest questions that they want actual answers to. Lara Logan. Matt Taibbi. There are people who currently report for all the news networks who would LOVE to let their inner pitbulls out if they were just let off their leashes.
ignore the news programs and newspapers is because they can't get the truth or the facts from them anymore.
Except Helen Thomas or Sy Hersch?
Russert was regarded by serious reporters and commentators a joke. On his demise. Harper's' Lew lapham penned this Eulogy for a Rubberstamp, in which he derides the Potato-head:
If he had a progressive or liberal on, he would challenge and almost berate them on most points.
Exactly right. Russert was nothing but a toady, gout-ridden from the hyper-cholesterol of waste he ingested from the powerful and influential without spitting it back out at them and forcing them to explain and defend their disingenuous and nonsensical spin. He was supposedly there to help us get at the truth; in reality, he was there simply to get closer to power. And it did us no good.
Gregory seems to have bought into this game in a more transparent way: I don't like it when they abuse and deride me. If I simply go along with them and make them look better, they'll treat me with respect. No, David, they won't. You're nothing but a tool. You'll be discarded at the first convenient moment.
I'm sure Russert was a nice guy around his friends and at the cocktail parties with his friends but how many times did Russert have Cheney on to spew is bullshit lies and never did Russert call him on it or even in the future indicate that Cheney was taking the country down the right wing toilet. Like the rest of them Russert never questioned the hole these assholes dug and were digging. Shame shame shame.
And to be fair, he wasn't the only one. But Russert certainly wasn't the "maverick" political journalist so many lionize him as publicly. He was, as you said, the Bush White House's megaphone.
From everything that's been written about him from just beyond the beltway (and its insiders), he was only interested in maintaining access to power.
But my, that foie gras does sit well upon a freshly baked cracker.
"I think that there are a lot of critics who think that (in the runup to the Iraq War) if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we did not do our jobs. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role.
David Gregory, MSNBC, May 28,2008
This is another example of their dishonesty. Not because he said it was not their job to actually say "You are a liar or this is dishonest" but because he framed it that way. It was their job to question all the information coming from the government or wherever. If he wants to say it was their job to report then they did not report. They only reported one side, the lying side. Maybe he could say that it is Nightly News' job to just report but MTP is not Nightly News. Oh fuck this. It's all bullshit. Who cares if Gregory says it is not his/their role? That is just a lie. A self serving lie. He and his ilk failed the American people. Period.
The problem with his statement is completely in the framing. Of course it's not his job to stand up and say, "Mr. Vice-President (or whoever), I think you're lying." That would not only be disrespectful but it would also be considered unskillful, the work of an amateur and/or ideologue.
Journalists, though, use both intuition and a sense of logic. When someone gives you information that you can clearly tell is false, misleading, incomplete, evasive or contradictory--especially about a topic as grave as going to war--you cannot simply sit back and be a stenographer of what you've been told.
Yes, it was his (and his colleagues') job to dutifully retell what he was told--in the Rose Garden and elsewhere. But so much of that didn't pass the smell test--we all know this. We were screaming it at the radio at the time, listening to the press conferences, yelling, "Why the fuck don't you follow up and ask him THIS? If what he said was true, what about what he said the other day? How do those two things square? How can he prove that statement?" And so on. Gregory (and many others) didn't do this.
Instead, he wrote down what he was told--save the one exception when he got into it with Scotty (and even then he backed down).
Now, say what you will, but Helen Thomas wouldn't back down. That's why she was ridiculed, banished to the back of the room, and eventually declared irrelevant by Bushco. And she never stopped writing about the fact that Bush's answers made no fucking sense, and now we have 4600+ dead soldiers in Iraq.
THAT'S your fucking role, David, but more than that: it was your responsibility. You hold feet to the fire so this sort of shit can't go without seeing the light of day. So sorry you somehow made it through journalism school with such limited tools. In any other industry, they'd call your work "malfeasance." But most of us know it by a more familiar phrase: "Heckuva job, Stretch."
Because he would have let Nixon get away with Watergate.
As you state, every journalist has the responsibility to respectfully challenge willful misstatements or intentional wrongdoing. To do any less is to be a codependent conspirator in the problem.
I used to feel sorry for Gregory when I saw him in Bush's early press conferences. Bush seemed to have a boner on for him and tried to publicly humiliate him, stopping just short of breaking wind in his face. My sympathy quickly vaporized when I saw him attempting to dance along with "MC Rove".
They talk about Texas and Alaska rumbling to secede from the Union, but DC seceded from the rest of the country some time ago. They have become a completely separate, insular society from the United States with a culture all their own. The rest of us don't even register on their radar anymore. What we need is a Cabinet-level Office of Government Ethics to shift the trend. But then, how long before corruption took root there?
rhe rest of DC, I think.
The Village is composed of (mostly white male) 'insiders' like Broder, Roberts, "Dick" Cohen, Nooners, Krauthammer, and the like, along with the former congresscritters and their staffers, also overwhelmingly white and male, whose true mission--no matter what they or their employers say--is to preserve the hegemony of the white male...
You're right. I guess it's just that the rest of DC (the "support sector") is so eclipsed by the politicians and their hangers-on, that it's easy to forget that there are other people who live and work there. Out of sight, out of mind.
I wasn't a big Russert fan, but I don't even bother to watch MtP with this pinhead.
Apparently John Dean didn't write it.......David Gregory did.
It's as if Gregory wants to be the next Mike Wallace's son rather than the next Cronkite. Instead of getting the news out truthfully with maybe a little right wing bend he can't hold back week after week and just caves into his political ideology with both feet and both arms and his pin head. I'm sure Cronkite was together enough in his final months to know that Gregory is a waste of journalistic space.
Cronkite was still working very close to the end of his life. He died an old man.
What neither he, nor his career, died of is *shame.*
David Gregory will never be able to say that.
Absolutely correct. If there is a hell these people will rot there for eternity because they facilitated the assholes. They helped and are helping the power boys put their thumbs on the working man/woman who are just trying to get by. Normal people who only want to live their life, not take anything that is not theirs but just want to get by and be able to see a doctor when they need to, take a vacation, raise their kids, send them to school. These are the people who the likes of Gregory are fucking by not holding the power broker's feet to the fire but giving them a chance "..to frame the conversation how you really want to...and then move on." God damn him and his ilk and rot his hell fucker!
I am sure the "God Folks" like Chris Matthews would compliment this story very much. I was totally enraged at the non stop "free" media support given to our current president. Matthews asked the question "could Barack Obama beat Hilary Clinton," and he proceeded to make sure he would win with examples here, here and here.
Don't get me wrong, since Obama has been elected, this county has had renewed optimism we have a "great" county. He has my total support. However, it does not change the fact the media unfairly interfered with the Democratic primaries. Ask yourself: Would Obama have won the Democratic primaries without around the clock bashing unleashed on Clinton?
Although things worked out for the Democrats, one could make the argument the media's favoritism could of worked for John McCain in the general election. We will never know if MSNBC intended to work McCain in has our president. I know they would deny all of my claim.
It's not over. There will be continued God plays coming out of MSNBC and the rest of the media. Rachel Madow seems to treat Obama like she has him in her top pocket. If he does not do what she wants when she wants it, you will hear about it in negative terms on her show. She has learned from the best. She has the power.
Joseph
you have to understand their reasoning. They didn't think "That one" the black guy woould beat the white guy and they knew that Clinton could have.
are the smoking gun to what we've suspected all along - there is no objective news/reporting media anymore. These guys (and gals) have all sold their souls to become celebs, buddy-up with the powerful, and cash in. Not just Gregory but Cilizza, Shuster, John King, etc.. - they are all exposed in those emails as ambulance-chasing tools. Sad. Without an objective, impartial 4th Estate we're sunk.
Hey! Is Drudge's red light flashing?! Because he DOES have his pulse on the beltway, you know.
And WaCompost let Froomkin go??? Don't get me started.
what does it say when we get honest and more impartial news coverage from two satire/parody comedy shows...?
A) The hosts are smarter--that goes without saying;
B) The job of "telling it like it is" has shifted from the field of journalism to the field of entertainment (recall Kanye West saying, "George Bush doesn't care about Black people"? Few truer words were spoken to our unclad emperor during his reign of terror);
C) Comedians are paid to raise hell; journalists are paid to raise the rent money.
There was a time long ago when the court jester was the only truth teller in the kingdom, that time is here again.
.
I think they should end every show with Gregory and the panel dancing. I saw Meet the Press today for the first time since Gregory took over. There were just too many obvious questions not asked.
I knew David Gregory was useless when he joined the rest of the white boys in their tribute to "black music." What an awful, AWFUL representation of rap.
He's never struck me as a good journalist and today's revelation is just another reason why.
so he gave them nicknames. Gregory's was "Stretch" and he used to just beam when the President said it.
Can you imagine Rather, or Cronkite responding to "Slim" or "Shorty".
expect journalism from M.C. Rove's background dancer?
all the morning shows today. All I saw was right wingers being lobbed softballs by fellow rightwing commentators. Oooooh I saw Donna Brazille also. I appreciate Donna Brazille, but if she's all we got we're fucking doomed. She's too submissive and not biting or witty at all. Squishy jellyfish that allow all lies to hang in the wind.
where he insists that the press has integrity and they werent cheerleaders for the war
has anyone seen this man's anus? cuz it must be huge from all the assfucking he has taken
Now, now Uncle Joe you should be ashamed of your self...Oh fuck it, BWAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAHAAAAA.
Who the HELL Would watch this Piece of Crap try to take the place
of someone who actually cared about the News he reporting.
Getting sick of these weasels that come from fluff morning talk shows, like this dude and Couric, and are given serious platforms to play mock journalist in.
I whole-heartedly agree.
I'll say this, though. If a journalist's job involves not only examining facts critically but also using one's intuition in recognizing bullshit when he/she hears it, Katie Couric has something of a "news head" on her shoulders.
Case in point: she could easily have let Sarah Palin skate when Palin was giving her non-answers (and nonsense answers) to what were really pretty easy questions. Couric, I think, sensed "bullshit," so she persisted. This gave Palin enough rope to, well, hoist herself on her own petard, as someone here said last week.
It doesn't mean Couric is Edward R. Murrow, but she got that one right--something that neither Gregory has nor Russert did in the last several years of "MTP" (and Charles Gibson largely failed to do during his interviews with Palin and McCain, but which he tried to do with Obama during the Clinton debate...great example of pursuing an ideological thread vs. a fact-based one).
It's easy to tell the boys from the...well, GIRLS, in this case. Couric has turned out to be a much better journalist than many others in her position with much more experience. Doesn't mean she's great, but she can do it--when she desires to.
RobertD I think you're on to something. Because Couric is considered a "lightweight" journalist, not much is expected of her. But I think that she realizes this and plays up to it. Her interviews with Palin showed that she is the the one network anchor who is willing to ask the real follow-up question. I think she has realized the importance of the anchor chair that she has inherited - the one occupied by Walter Cronkite. Her broadcast has won the Edward R. Murrow Award for the last two years. Charlie Gibson could have destroyed Palin in his interview with her, but he was too polite to do that. Couric asked the obvious follow-up question that any high school journalist would have asked, and Palin shot herself in the face. I'm not sayng that Couric's interview cost McCain/Palin the election, but it did more for the cause of truth than any interview Gregory has ever done on MTP.
That hard hitting question the ever sharp Couric imposed to Palin on that fateful day.
"What do you read?"
Give MTP to Lawrence O'Donnell. He'll earn his money at least.
I second your motion.
Or Shuster. O'Donnell would be better but Shuster does a good job of holding their feet to the fire. Maybe in a few years with more experience. A little more polish that the big boys like.
After Nixon and Carter, Ronald Reagan learned the lesson well. Invite the press to dinner parties, wine and dine them, make them think they are close to power.
It's been downhill ever since...under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
I said it before...any parent who is paying college tuition for a child majoring in journalism should be entitled to an immediate refund.
David gregory is a HACK.
... MTP into a shell of the POS it was with Russert.
You don't have to see exchanges like these to know MTP has gone down hill since David Gregory took over the program. It infuriates me knowing Gregory has killed the integrity of one of the best political interview shows on TV to be a friendly forum for corrupt and immoral political leaders. You'd expect to see this in Saudi Arabia, Iran or a program on Fox News. David Gregory is more suited to be the host of Hollywood Squares than fill Tim Russert's shoes.
What the Valerie Plame case and the Sanford incident have clearly exposed is that one cannot expect the MSM to address issues as bona fide journalists any longer - if we ever could.
Perhaps it is the networks' need to 'earn a profit', or perhaps Gregory and his ilk are simply idiots, but most of us already know, that if you want objective fact finding and truth, we are far better off on the web and in the blogosphere that we could ever be in the MSM.
I congratulate David Gregory and the rest for making the point that they are only hacks once again in the Sanford episode. It strengthens the case for crooksandliars.com and the liberal blogoshpere.
David Gregory is a putz of the first order, but I don't fault him for sucking up in order to get a guest. I expect a lot of folks in the media do their share of it.
Problem is, that when the David Gregory's of corporate media get their prized guest, all objectivity flies out the window and the sucking up continues. They get to trot out their talking points as fact with no challenges whatsoever.
but I quit watching MTP _years_ ago. Shouldn't everyone? The only question for me is why anyone still does.
Journalism in the MSM is dead . Gregory , King and the like make me want to puke in disgust , it's little wonder why the country is going to hell .
Just when you think you can't think less of someone, they find a way to lower the bar.
nbc news is as pathetic as it gets...
They are ALL FULL OF SHIT, ALL THE TIMNE...
USELESS HUMAN BEINGS...
he belongs in the same arena as lieberman. he is never to be trusted. helen is the lone true jounalist still writng and reporting today. gregory is plain and simple, an opportunist and a phoney. let him continue his dance with rove.
I gave up on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows over a decade ago. I might watch CBS Sunday Morning, but then the TV goes either off or to the Light Classics channel.
I get my news and opinions from the far left end of the Internet, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
HE PRETENDED TO BE A LIBERAL AND THEN SWITCHED ALLEGIANCE WHEN HE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE MORE POFITABLE TO EITHER HIS BANKBOOK OR HIS CAREER TO BE A REPULICAN. HE IS ABSOLUTELY AS PHONEY AS JOE L.
with David Gregory. It could go off the air and no one would notice.
Login or Register to post comments.