Commentary

The Rise of Newt Gingrich... and the Lack of Entertaining TV

Attack the news media! One of the best TV story lines makes a comeback in the political scene. But why just stop there? Perhaps a new movement will start up.

The rise of Newt Gingrich as a strong Republican candidate brings to the forefront a typical political whipping post of years ago: the news media.

Gingrich also has problems with the news media -- he says it looks to pit Republican candidates on each other!  Gingrich, during the debates, also has no problems attacking the media for its questioning in general.

A NPR report says this is common Gingrich stuff; he use be a strong attacker of the media -- back in his House of Representative days.

One former Gingrich staffer, Rich Galen, told NPR about a recent debate appearance. "He was able to get the crowd behind him in the arena, get the crowd behind him in living rooms around the country — because you can't go very far wrong attacking the media in front of a Republican audience, whether it's true or not."

advertisement

advertisement

It also never fails to make good television.

This works well with current news media stories. TV news programs have given much time in showing how the public's confidence in Congress is at an all time low -- somewhere under 10%. Now some politicians want to turn the tables. Why not the media? (Already some are taking a whack at how the media -- and TV in particular -- covered the Penn State scandal.)

So, who can you trust? Not politicians, not Wall Street, and, now, not the media.

But why stop there? Maybe U.S. voters just hate other TV stuff. Gingrich should be piling on because of lacking entertainment programming -- especially those primetime TV shows that don't have any moral grounding.

Last season, ABC offered up 10 new scripted series and brought back two; CBS had eight new scripted series, and brought back three; Fox had seven new scripted series, bring back three; and NBC had 12, returning one.

Those kinds of numbers are probably the result of poor senior-level decision-making -- like a few government officials he knows. Maybe he should be asking: "What were you thinking with... "Charlie's Angels"? That would get the crowd going in the right direction. Maybe he needs to occupy... Hollywood.

4 comments about "The Rise of Newt Gingrich... and the Lack of Entertaining TV".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. Mark Walker from aka Media Mark, November 18, 2011 at 4:55 p.m.

    Lord help the country- and the world- if this Newt gets elected to ANY office, ever again.

  2. Carey Warren from Coterie Media, November 18, 2011 at 7:03 p.m.


    God help us - and the world - if Barack Obama stays in office. Newt would be a HUGE improvement over BO; in fact, I'd support Charlie Sheen if he ran against BO.

  3. John Grono from GAP Research, November 18, 2011 at 7:19 p.m.

    Carey, I'm in 'the rest of the world' (and it's quite a sizeable chunk by the way).

    It may surprise you but in my part of the rest of the world we tend to think that he is the best US leader for many, many years (of course this is not universal - just more do than don't), and offers genuine hope as opposed to baseless rhetoric.

    We watch your news coverage in bewilderment. If the cat had kittens you'd blame Barack Obama!

  4. T Y from Freelance Producer / DP, November 21, 2011 at 7:59 a.m.

    Carey has an interesting selection of candidates to support... Newt who filed for divorce from wife #1 when she was in the hospital being treated for cancer (and had been cheating on her) and Charlie who has many "issues." Next, will Carey be supporting Jerry Sandusky?

Next story loading loading..