If It's Sunday, It's .... Who?
You don't think Bill Cosby. (For the 3,000 broadcast, by the way. Thanks, FishbowlDC) And you really don't think Stephen Colbert.
And yet, there was Bill Cosby this past Sunday – along with Harvard Medical School Professor Alvin Poussaint, M.D. – discussing his new book and America's ongoing discussion of race for the entire hour.
Then it was reported that Stephen Colbert will be appearing this week to discuss, this writer presumes, his new book as well as his decision to enter the South Carolina presidential primaries – in both parties.
What gives?
I spoke with NBC News spokeswoman Barbara Levin, who informed me not to look too deeply into this coincidence, saying "These two appearances entirely had to do with publication schedules."
So yes, this is the first Non-Cosby Sunday that Stephen Colbert – whose book came out just last Tuesday – could have been on. That's true. And yes, they're both newsmakers outside the confines of what was once relegated to the Entertainment Section.
These back-to-back interviews are another accidental example of how about ten or twenty years ago, when there would be an occasional hard news interview with an entertainment figure we'd chalk that up to the news industry coloring outside the lines. But now, there are no lines at all.
Clinton went on Arsenio. Bush sat down with Oprah. And, sure, okay – Nixon went on "Laugh-In." ("Sock. It. To me?") We thought at the time that it was the hard news folks opening the door to spend some time with the entertainment people. Little did they know that the door swung both ways, and now it's just propped open with people passing through without thinking twice.
And nor do us viewers.