It’s Still The ‘City Of The Big Shoulders’
Jerry Springer’s short-lived career as a “straight” news commentator is over - and not a moment too soon. The talk show sleazemeister had a lot of people in a dither before he stepped down after only two appearances on WMAQ-TV news in Chicago.
Some had been dismayed that Springer, a member of that special band TV critic Tom Shales once described as the “kings and queens of cringe,” had been “elevated” into the august company of serious journalists in the first place.
Others rallied around former WMAQ news anchor Carol Marin, a 19-year veteran of the NBC affiliate, who quit rather than allow herself to be part of a broadcast that included Springer - and who was attacked by him in his first appearance for doing so.
Mine was a different worry: Suppose it had worked.
And don’t tell me it couldn’t have. Look at talk TV. It used to be pretty respectable territory. People like Dick Cavett and Merv Griffin and, before them, David Susskind; people like Phil Donahue, who practically invented the modern version of the genre, and, of course, Oprah Winfrey.
But the success of these latter ones - particularly Donahue and Winfrey - convinced every network and every syndicate that they, too, had to have a talk show. Since none could compete with these two on the high ground, they took the low. And the downhill race was on.
In no time at all, the once-serious Donahue showed up wearing a dress, and the top-of-the-line Oprah Winfrey show became another parade of wackos, sickos and psychos who didn’t understand the difference between professional help and exploitation. Oprah, to her credit, has abandoned the sleaze and a handful of others are - gingerly - following her lead.
The point, though, is this: Suppose Chicagoans hadn’t protested. And suppose WMAQ’s news, Chicago’s second-rated broadcast, had with Springer on board vaulted to No. 1 - and stayed there. How long do you suppose it would have been before other stations - in Chicago, first, and then in the rest of the country - started groping through the muck for their very own Jerry or Jenny or Maury or Ricki or Sally? How long could the networks hold off? I mean, Geraldo has to find something to do now that O.J. is out of the news.
Carol Marin, winner of 15 Emmys during her tenure at WMAQ, said her protest was about standards. Springer, she said, possessed “neither the standing nor the credibility” to be part of a serious newscast.
Springer, who had to step down as city councilman of Cincinnati after he was caught writing a check to a prostitute, hadn’t argued standards. For him, it was a question of free speech. He insisted he had as much right to voice his opinions as do the snobs who would have kept him off their august air. Their opposition, he said, was “part of the arrogance of television that people who sit before the camera, all of a sudden it goes to their heads and it’s for them to say who else should sit next to me.” Well, you know what he meant.
I do, too. And I found it hard not to sympathize with his free speech claims. I worry about political correctness, snobbery and the pull-up-the-rope arrogance of those already ensconced in the treehouse.
It doesn’t worry me that Springer did himself in so quickly (in addition to attacking Marin, he got nailed for misrepresenting his decisions when he was mayor of Cincinnati).
But I do worry about the news business. What we’ve seen happen to talk TV is happening, though less obviously, right across the mass media. A little “gotcha” journalism, a bit of salacious gossip, a modicum of sleaze - all justified in the name of the people’s right to know. A fair translation: It sells. We’re seeing the tabloidization of the press and it’s not a reassuring sight.
Springer understood all of this. He argued that his experience as a news anchor in Cincinnati in the ‘80s (seven Emmys) fully qualified him for work as a news commentator. He offered this bottom-line insight: “Part of television is to bring viewers to the set.”
My great fear, to repeat, was that he might have done it - and that if he had at WMAQ, it was bound to happen at other stations - and at other news outlets. At least this time it didn’t work. Thank you, Chicago.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = William Raspberry Washington Post