TV: Those Infotainment Shows of the Morning

A reader forwarded us this e-mail from Pete Sessions (it's not a private e-mail, he sent it out to all of his constituents who signed up apparently):

This week in Washington, George W. Bush was sworn in for his second term as President of the United States. This occasion, like each presidential inaugural, is an opportunity to celebrate our democracy and the principles of the Constitution. The tradition is over two hundred years old, but its magnitude and message are ageless. In this country, we elect our leaders and the transfer or continuation of power is peaceful. Even after a hard fought election like the last, on January 20 our nation unites behind its commander in chief.

Petey, read your Constitution, Bush is commander-in-chief of the military, not the nation.
That's basic government 101. Maybe all those breathless pants of "commander in chief" from Diane Sawyer confused you on this, but, as a member of the U.S. Congress, we know you have to know better. The same reader wondered if we could weigh in on Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, Matt Lauer and the "hideous Early Show." Glad to.

Let's start with Diane Sawyer. The glossy blond, who looks mysteriously less wrinkled with each passing day (we won't say she looks younger, just ironed out), has rode her moment at 60 Minutes about as far as it will ever take her.

That "serious news" credit has long faded in the face of "gutsy" interviews like the infamous one with Whitney "Crack is Wack!" Houston. Did Diane sniffle back a tear or two this week as the industry was a titter that Katie Couric might be moving to the anchor chair at CBS Evening News? Did Diane realize that she herself would never reach that lofty perch?

In 1999, she agreed to fill in on Good Morning America and she's been trapped in infotainment hell ever since. She's adapted quite well to such non-news events as brow beating those uppity Dixie Chicks who actually thought that in a free country you could speak your mind! Those ingrates. With her whispered queries of "but our commander in chief" and "but our president" and the soft lighting and camera diffusing, viewers had to wonder who was this strange creature and where had Diane gone?

Poor Jessica Savitch, she broke down the wall for all the (now aging) golden gals of TV today. She may not have mastered the news (some think she didn't even understand most of what she reported), but she was smart enough to surround herself with people who had. The women of Golden Gals 101 have gone on to longer careers. Maybe Lesley Stahl's actually earned her perch. She certainly didn't marry into the D.C. beat like Andrea Mitchell (those blond highlights don't make you look younger, Andrea). And she hasn't gone off on the fluff circus the way Diane has.

But if Savitch hadn't imploded her own career, how much further would women be? Would she, and not the creepy and pompous Brian Williams, have been tapped to replace Tom Brokaw? Surrounded by a team of professionals, would she have continued to focus on news or gone the soft route of Diane?

Some are aghast at the thought of the eternally chipper Katie Couric getting an evening news slot but it's been a long dumbing down that's brought us to this point. And let's face it, of the morning anchors on the infotainment shows, none appears to work harder at being informed than Katie. With her clippings and glasses, she appears to have actually done work while her faded pretty boy co-host is consistent to play the blowhard.

If Jessica Savitch was the puppet that so many whisper she was, at least the people controlling her knew about news. Matt Lauer's people seem determined to turn him into our Rona Barrett of Latter Day Saints. Nothing matters to Matt as much booby -- that was the lesson we learned during last year's Superbowl flare up. Other than that Matty's hallmarks appear to be tracking the love life of Jennifer Lopez -- think of him as the Dian Fossey of the glam set -- and finding the time (repeatedly) to tell us how happy he is that he had some good news to report. When Lauer puffs out his chest and self-importantly intones, "It's not often that we get to you bring you good news" pay attention because the laughs are about to start a' coming!

Lauer's personal "good news" high in 2004 was when he got himself all worked up over the kidnapped co-ed. Interviewing her friends, Matt tried to pump them up into levels of excitement. Interviewing a police officer, he tried even more so. Damn it, there was good news to be had here and Matty was just the boy to bring it to you.

A reporter (which Lauer isn't) would probably have sensed right away that something was amiss by the reactions (low key at best) of the people he was interviewing. Not our Matty who kept pimping this good news story for all it was worth. But fate, like a "fact" in a Judith Miller story, can be quite slippery and by the next day we were all learning of the kidnapped co-ed that wasn't -- wasn't kidnapped.

Was Matty taken in? Was he the victim or just guilty of shoddy reporting? Where's the NBC investigative panel on that? Where's the outrage? We demand a head on a platter, preferably a bald head.

Over at The Early Show, they try to push their own version of Babe Watch, er Bay Watch. Actually, it's more like a plain (but culturally diverse) version of Charlie's Angels with Harry Smith playing the loveable, but dimwitted, Bosley.

Hannah Storm, having honed her craft in sports, may picture herself as the Farrah Fawcett of the bunch -- the active angel. She does everything but scratch her groin as she attempts to alternate solemn face with jocular. Rene Syler passes for the pretty angel (look at who she's up against) and is of interest only because each morning you wake up hoping this might be the day that someone manages to fix her hair. It never happens but there she is pretty face, bad hair. Which leaves Julie Chen to play the smart angel or at least the brainy one. She's not up to either task but a romance with the boss (and now marriage) certainly hasn't hurt Mrs. Leslie Moonves chances at airtime.

Speaking of conflicts of interest, aren't those officious news readers who give us two minutes of headlines at the top of each hour in conflict with whatever network tie-in that's being promoted?
Don't they distract us from the really important segments like learning how Freddie Prinze Jr. manages to maintain a career as well as a marriage to Sarah Michelle Geller? That's an amazing feat for the Prinze considering that he's yet to master acting. And can we really spare two minutes out of each hour at a time when each network has their own reality based series to promote? Isn't a reality based show in conflict with these non-reality based morning "news" programs?

We're longing for the day when one network exec channel flips on a lazy Saturday afternoon and discovers paid programming on over half the channels. "Paid programming! Hmmm."

No longer will Good Morning America, Today and The Early Show feel the need to even pretend to be about anything objective, let alone news. They'll just trumpet at the start that "the follow hour has been paid for by . . ." and off we'll go into the land of delights such as what does Jennifer Garner really think about Ben Affleck in that Daredevil costume? And is she just a major horn dog in real life or overcompensating for something she doesn't want people to know about? Alias is in season four, but her love life's quickly becoming the longest running soap opera around. (At least until J-Lo chooses to switch partners again.)

Picture it, you've got your morning coffee. You're sitting down on the couch in front of the tube and there you see Diane (with Charlie Gibson nodding off yet again in the background) exploring the post-Everybody Loves Raymond period with hacktress Patricia Heaton. Heaton will be assuring us that she's no Patricia Richardson (which would be correct, she lacks likeability) and that America's going to hear from her. Diane's eyes will mist over and not a doubt will be raised nor a commercial break taken. It's the perfect format switch for the morning "news" and we're honestly suprised that the networks haven't thought of it since they're already using each hour to hawk their own products and those of their subsidaries.

Synergy, schmnery! Infotainment has trumped news already, it's time for them to stamp out the last bits of reality from these programs.