The thing that amazes me most about all the attention now being
given to the issue of partisan politicians appearing on talk shows is the prevalence of such guests in the first place.
We have gotten to a place in the ongoing
decline of late-night TV where a Democratic state representative from Texas can get booked on the “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”
The name
of this state representative is James Talarico. He is 36 and his district is in and around Austin. He was invited onto “The Late Show” because he is campaigning to become the Democratic
candidate who will try to unseat one of the Lone Star State’s U.S. senators, Republican John Cornyn, this fall.
advertisement
advertisement
On that basis, Talarico is emerging as
a national political figure. He will face off on March 3 in a Democratic primary against U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Texas businessman Ahmad Hassan.
But
Talarico’s scheduled appearance this past Monday on the Colbert show did not air -- reportedly because CBS feared that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr would investigate
the show for violating FCC equal-time rules.
These rules may or may not apply to entertainment shows such as “The Late Show.” But they may apply
to shows produced under the auspices of a network news division.
One such show is “The View,” the all-female panel talk-show that grows more
silly, inane and inconsequential with every season.
Incredibly, this show is produced by ABC News, although no one in their
right mind would ever classify “The View” as news. In fact, few would categorize it as entertainment either.
Nevertheless, the show is now in Chairman
Carr’s equal-time crosshairs because Talarico appeared there too, on February 2. Evidently, Talarico loves New York.
Who knows? Maybe the equal-time
rules will apply to “The View” because it’s a news show.
Meanwhile, on Monday’s “Late Show,” Colbert railed against CBS
and the FCC. Then, the entire unedited interview was posted on YouTube, where viewership was robust.
In addition, online coverage of the story has been
voluminous since Monday. If Rep. Talarico was not well-known before, then he is very well-known now.
There are a lot of nuances and details to this story
that have been reported elsewhere. After sifting through it all, the TV Blog has a couple of opinions to share.
First, the FCC’s equal-time
rules are one of those things that the Commission usually doesn’t waste much time on. The FCC’s interest in equal-time enforcement all of a sudden is a political play.
It is also a waste of everybody’s time in an era when the world is over-saturated with media where
politicians of all stripes can get ample and equal time to make fools of themselves on outlets and platforms large and small. Plus, the late-night shows have little or no influence anymore,
anyway.
But I tend to be old-school when it comes to the antics of TV personalities who lambast their own companies on the companies’ own
airwaves.
After all, these are the people who employ and pay late-night hosts such as Colbert all that
money.
In olden times, such behavior was rewarded with getting fired. For a journalist on the TV beat, these were great stories.
Many will disagree with me here, but if CBS desires Colbert to stop hosting partisan politicians on his show,
then maybe he should consider doing it.
We all have bosses and so does he. His show belongs to them. The
last time I looked, TV comedians do not have tenure.
Others may disagree with this too, but I happen to think that politicians are dull as dishwater.
If I was grazing around looking for a late-night show to watch and I saw Talarico or, more recently, Georgia
Democratic Sen. Jon Rosoff, who appeared on “Colbert” on Wednesday, I would keep grazing. And so would a lot of other people.