Sidebar: Sunday School 1/15/23

Last week, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd aka What's-his-name (WHN) received a lot of attention from folks on the left for his interview with Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson. 

Cheers rang out for how Johnson was 'handled' and how WHN was 'finally doing his job.' The video of the interview was widely shared, too. (Here's the transcript if you want to follow along.)

Give the accolades, you'd think it was a journalistic powerhouse of an interview, right? Well, not unless you think that mocking, laughing, taunting belligerence is the right way to conduct an interview. I don't agree; I think prior hosts of the show would be appalled, and I think WHN is the wrong person for this job.

I'm no Johnson fan; I think he's a partisan hack. Even as I dislike him, I admit he's not wrong on everything. For example, he and I agree, the American people deserve to hear about the bad behavior of government officials, and Congress deserves the chance to provide 'oversight' of the government, even if no criminal statutes have been violated. 

WHN thinks that's ridiculous.

So, I guess the problem that I feel like you run into with that decision is what you're saying is if the Justice Department decides a crime wasn't committed, they're not going to prosecute a crime, it sounds like you still want the information out there because you want to politically damage the person that was investigated?

Or - maybe - we'd like to see bad actors held accountable for their actions? 

Would WHN say that if the subject of the investigation was Clarence Thomas? Brett Kavanaugh? Marjorie Taylor Green? Matt Gaetz? Ron Johnson? Has he ever said that about any Donald Trump investigation?

That leads to another point on which Johnson and I agree: there is a lot of bias in the media, and in politics, of course. We know Johnson and the Rs have no interest in investigating their own guys, or Jared Kushner, or Trump, even as they relish going after the other side; that was clear in this interview. The Dems aren't much different. 

In addition to bias, there's a striking inability by many to discern the difference between a news report and an opinion piece. And a good part of the blame for that belongs to folks like WHN, when they clearly, even eagerly, cross the line between fact-seeking and smoke-blowing in their interviews.

Here's an example; this exchange came after Johnson said the FBI suppressed information about Hunter Biden's laptop before the election. (I clarified which 'they' Johnson was referring to in his comment, and I added emphasis).

JOHNSON: Chuck, Chuck. My concern -- you know, Chuck. You know, part of the problem, and this is pretty obvious to anybody watching this, is you don't invite me on to interview me, you invite me on to argue with me. 

That's true - more on that in a bit. 

JOHNSON: You know, I'm just trying to lay out the facts that certainly Senator Grassley and I uncovered. They (the facts) were suppressed. They (the facts) were censored. They (the FBI) interfered in the 2020 election. Conservatives understand that. Unfortunately, liberals in the media don't. And that's part of the things that -- part of the reasons our politics are inflamed is we do not have an unbiased media. We don't. It's unfortunate. I'm all for free press.

WHN: Well, Senator -- JOHNSON: It needs to be more unbiased. WHN: Senator, look, this is -- JOHNSON: There's misinformation on both sides -- WHN: Look, go to partisan -- JOHNSON: -- but the censorship and suppression -- WHN: Senator -- Senator -- look, we’re trying to do issues here and facts.  JOHNSON: -- primarily occurs on the left. WHN: Partisan cable -- JOHNSON: It's frustrating. WHN:  Look, you can go back on your partisan cable cocoon and talk about media bias all you want. I understand it's part of your identity. 

Notably, this exchange came after WHN said, "I am a journalist. I have to deal in facts." No one believes a word of that - or, I should say, no one should believe a word of that.

Why does Johnson say WHN only wants to argue with him?

He's got history on his side. An October 2019 Extra Credit post included a link to video where WHN was asking Johnson why he 'winced' when he heard that the aid to Ukraine was being held up because Trump wanted the Bidens, and the DNC, investigated. My take on the interview?

While some are applauding Todd for his efforts, others suggest that giving him kudos for doing his job is kind of like giving everyone a participation trophy or something...

I think there's a respectful way to get questions answered, and this was not that, but I do understand the frustration - I just don't know that it needs to be applauded. I mean, you can always just end the interview, can't you? "I'm sorry, sir, but clearly we're on different missions today. Thanks for coming in."

And, here's a January 2021 Sunday School post, with more of the same behavior from both of them.

Johnson's a notoriously bad interview, as I've pointed out. But a good journalist should know better than to expect anything different, and decide whether it's worth having Johnson on the show for something other than taking potshots at him. If the answer is yes, go ahead and invite him, get whatever "facts" you're after, and end the interview.

If the answer is "Nope, I just want to call him names and act like a bully, instead of like a fact-seeking journalist," you're on the wrong show on the wrong network on the wrong day - and there's probably a seat for you in someone's partisan cable cocoon.