Washington, We Have A "Problem"

I doubt that congressmen David Drier (R-CA), John Shadegg (R-AZ) and Jim Leach (R-IA) have ever generated the kind of passionate outrage we've seen at PE this week. Their sin, it seems, was agreeing to appear on "Face the Nation" this past Sunday to discuss the indictment of Republican leader Tom DeLay and other problems currently plaguing the GOP. More accurately, in the view of the dozens of e-mails and comments we've received, the real culprit here was "Face the Nation."

This e-mail from Steve M. is typical of what's been flooding our inbox:

"This weekend's 'Face the Nation' discussion about Tom DeLay should not have been turned over exclusively to Republican politicians. … DeLay's indictments are not, as anchor Bob Schieffer put it, a 'Republican problem,' but a national one. When the 'Hammer' comes down on some hapless Democrat or Republican dissident, he negatively affects me and nearly all other Americans who are not rich and Republican. How can we assess whether the Democrats have any plan on any issue unless CBS and others broadcast the Democratic positions?"

The bulk of the criticism we've gotten is aimed at the idea, voiced by host Bob Schieffer during the show, that the DeLay indictment was a "Republican problem." I thought Carin Pratt, the program's executive producer, explained the thinking behind the show pretty well, but allow me to elaborate.

You have to begin by understanding a little bit of the nature of the Sunday morning public affairs programs. There are four of them, five counting programming on CNN. Most weeks, they all chase the same guests for the same story. All the shows would have given ample time to DeLay himself and "Fox News Sunday" won that round. "Meet the Press" featured the chairmen of the Republican and Democratic congressional campaign committees to discuss it. Nothing wrong with that.

Often times, the same guest will appear on all the shows. In the business, that's referred to as the "full Ginsburg" in honor of Monica Lewinsky's attorney who pioneered the practice. The risk and downside of going after the same story is that each show sort of bleeds into the next. Same questions asked by different hosts, same answers given by different guests. It's not always easy to differentiate between them all.

But you can approach a story from different angles. Pratt told me she did not want to get into a "partisan fight" over the actual DeLay indictment but instead was interested in pursuing a discussion about how it adds to the myriad of problems impacting the GOP at this time – falling poll numbers for President Bush, lagging support for the war in Iraq, strong criticism for the government's handling of the Katrina response and concerns about growing spending to name a few. In that sense, it is a "Republican problem," and it is that sense Schieffer was speaking of.

From the perspective of someone who spends a lot of time flipping around various news programs and seeing the same "Republican talking points" v. "Democrat talking points" arguments, I appreciate any effort to break out of that formula. One of the complaints about the media is its monolithic tendency for it all to cover the same story in the same way. Another frequent criticism is television's reliance on the "Crossfire" approach of getting proponents from each side to yell at one another.

There is no mathematical formula that demands equal numbers of proponents on both sides of every story or issue. The very idea that there are only two points of view to anything seriously shortchanges people's ability of individual thought. So why not use ten minutes trying to discuss the story's impact on the Republican Party? At last glance, that party pretty much controls the federal government and conditions appearing to possibly threaten that hold seem interesting and newsworthy.

Of course the DeLay story is much, much more than just a "Republican story." If the bulk of the coverage has not reflected that or if Democrats have not found a way to speak to it, there would be a real problem. But in fact, the bulk of the coverage has been full of partisan talking points. To take ten minutes out of a week's worth of massive media coverage and claim some sort of bias is stretching reality.