NBC’s Cognitive Dissonant Hack Syndrome
By Michelle Malkin
MichelleMalkin.com
I’ve always thought entrenched left-wing
journalists in Washington needed their heads
examined. Much to my satisfaction, it appears the
corporate media bosses of at least one Beltway
anchor now agree.
According to The Washington Post this week, NBC
News hired a
“psychological consultant” to examine why
flailing “Meet the Press” moderator David Gregory
has been bombing in the ratings. The overpriced
shrinks (NBC prefers the euphemism “brand
consultants”) came from the New York-based brand
fixer-upper Elastic Strategy.
They interviewed Gregory’s wife. They
interrogated his friends. They crunched their
numbers. They compiled their reports. And after all
that, the “experts” are still scratching their
noggins:
What’s the matter with David Gregory? And why don’t people like to watch him?
I could have saved the honchos at NBC News a lot
of time and trouble. The first answer is: David
Gregory is a phony. The second answer is: He’s a
jerk.
And no amount of brand therapy and rehabilitation
consulting can fix him.
Gregory’s predecessor, Tim Russert, was highly
respected on both sides of the political aisle. The
former chief of staff for iconoclastic U.S. Sen.
Daniel Moynihan turned “Meet the Press” into
mandatory viewing for any American serious about
politics and policy. Yes, he was liberal. But he
never pretended to be anything he wasn’t. He did his
homework. He didn’t pull punches. He helped
enlighten the nation about our entitlement crisis.
He conducted interviews, not one-sided partisan
lectures.
Russert was also a decent man, as so many warm
eulogies across the ideological divide attested. I
had a chance to meet him a few times as an intern in
the videotape library of the Washington political
unit at NBC News in 1992. He was always friendly and
engaging. (Andrea Mitchell was a whole ‘nother
story. Gah.) Before I left to work for the Los
Angeles Daily News, I drafted a little memo on
suggestions to improve data collection and entry. I
never expected acknowledgment. But Russert took the
time to respond and thank me. A lowly intern. I
never forgot that.
Gregory is the anti-Russert. His boorish behavior
around D.C. is legendary — from his juvenile
tantrums with the Bush press staff to his
drunken radio appearances to his diva snit fits
with innocent bystanders while filming news
segments. One of the most telling and notorious
anecdotes involves Russert himself, who reportedly
reprimanded Gregory in 2008 for
going ballistic on a poor waitress while the two
TV stars dined at a D.C. restaurant. But “Gregory
still treats most of … the newsroom like s**t,” an
insider told the website Jossip. “Amazing how NBC
cares more about food servers than about the people
who have to deal with Gregory’s arrogance every
day.”
Since Gregory doesn’t have the intellectual heft
to carry in-depth interview segments the way Russert
did, “Meet the Press” producers have reduced
substantive exchanges to a few minutes and larded
the rest of the show with fluff and stunts.
That means: If it’s Sunday, it’s “Meet
the Jerk.”
Last fall, Gregory the gun-control activist
masquerading as a Sunday talk-show journalist made
headlines with his brazen
hectoring of NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre — while
illegally brandishing a 30-round ammunition magazine
on national television. He has used the show to
fawn over vulgar, misogynistic “comedian” Bill Maher
and to
repeatedly browbeat Timothy Dolan, the
archbishop of New York, over gay marriage.
As I’ve noted many times over 20-plus years in
this business, the problem isn’t bias. It’s the
pretense of non-bias. Gregory and his peers suffer
from cognitive dissonant hack syndrome, a common
affliction among incurable left-wing journalists who
sanctimoniously pay lip service every day to
neutrality and objectivity, while brazenly using
their platforms to promote partisan political
narratives.
Desperate NBC suits in denial tried to get
Gregory to
immerse himself more in social media to appeal
to “younger viewers.” But he detests the hoi polloi
and refuses to respond to critics. You don’t have to
be a high-priced brand guru to know that for social
media engagement to work, it requires an engaging
personality to actually, you know, engage.
Another NBC muckety-muck gave his expert analysis
on the network’s David Gregory Problem: “You need to
be who you are.
We’re trying to look at who David is.”
Well, there’s the rub, isn’t it? Gregory, like
many of his ilk, is a thin-skinned elite who lives
in the Beltway bubble and can barely contain his
contempt for his audience. With rare exceptions, the
supposed watchdogs of Washington journalism are
lapdogs for the establishment with “Don’t You Know
Who I Am?” egos as big as the politicians they sidle
up to every weekend.
To the chagrin of NBC and its brand EMTs, Americans have discovered an effective cure: the “off” button on their remotes.
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2014