Sunday, October 19, 2014

The Sunday Talking Head Shows; My Favorite And Yours

 SUNDAY ROUTINE:

Glance at the Talk Shows which have dragged lately.

Meet The Press hasn't been the same since Tim Russert's death. Not a big Chuck Todd fan. Too Beltway for my taste and looks more like a Midwest dentist.

This Week  is an acquired taste; am I the only person who actually likes George Stephanopoulos? Sure, he can appear to be occasionally pompous--it's human nature, I've been known to be pompous too.

I've tried to watch Fox News Sunday but I can't stand Chris Wallace. His dad was better.

I've saved the best for last: CBS' iconic Face The Nation is the best Sunday talking-head program. Bob Schieffer is superb--seems to be getting better with age. Great interviewer. Common sense guy with a knack for asking the right question and tough as nails to boot. No surprise that FTN is the most popular show on Sunday.

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21 comments:

  1. I agree with what you say about Bob Schieffer, but yet another reason the show is so popular is that it follows another popular program, "Sunday Morning". I don't believe the other networks have anything on prior to their shows that is comparable.

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  2. Your faves show your political bias, Moonbeam.

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  3. NBC blew it when they did NOT sign Jon Stewart. He is the only personality who could have turned around MTP. But then, if I was NBC (and I was once) I would have let it go. It's no biggee to lose at 8am on a Sunday morning.

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  4. I only Watch Fox News Sunday & CBS's This Week. This way I can get a prospective from both extremes. Face the Nation's wrath & Meet the dePressed are just too depressing to me. lol

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  5. The best Sunday talk show: Meet the Press
    Fox News Sunday has the best panel (when Juan Williams is there)
    The worst host is Chris Wallace Fox News Sunday
    (KPIX) Why can't we watch a full HOUR of Face the Nation?

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  6. I think Chris Wallace is pretty good. It is the loony regular guest 'experts' that drag it down.
    The subject matter often ends up being RNC taking points which is unfortunate. The old 'tell them what they want to hear, not what they need to know'.

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    1. Fox may be RNC talking points but the other three are DNC talking points.

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  7. I'm not sure I understand your comment "and looks more like a Midwest dentist.". Is there something wrong with people from the Midwest? It sure comes across like a "racist" comment to me. What if someone said they thought Juan Williams looks like a big city huckster (substitute an stereotypically unpleasant profession to align with "dentist"), would that be OK?

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    1. Juan Williams looks like these millions of illegals in California. That's right I said it.

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    2. I wouldn't put too much weight in a source that claims "looks like a Midwest dentist". Russert looked like a guy running a tire shop in Anytown, USA but did a great job despite his biased views. Gregory got hired based on appearance rather than intelligence or character and look where that got NBC.

      I see the major Sunday morning political shows as polar extremes and none worth their time. I'd rather listen to a Mark Liven rewind...critical of both parties, conservative, common sense views, and boils issues down to constitutional rights.

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    3. I doubt that Gregory was chosen for his appearance because I found his appearance off-putting. Plus, his delivery just didn't engage me.. I liked Russert of and I do like Chuck Todd.

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  8. 11;08 AM, Here, take a Chill Pill, in fact, you can take two or three. You are being WAY too "'made of beaded crystal glass'" hypersentitive . People are going to have opinions. Last time I checked that is still legal, even in the Bay Area Land of DIM Drones. Then again, you may have just been pressing the 'Sarcasm' button the whole time.

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    1. No, it's only "acceptable" if one makes less than positive comments about people in "flyover" states. Or "hillbillies" or "rednecks". Mustn't, however, note the quite obvious negatives of some "urban" folks. Not "acceptable".

      Four legs good, two legs bad...

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  9. I don't get up till Noon.

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  10. As popular as Face the Nation is, on both Sunday morning TV and radio, I'm consistently puzzled by the unwillingness of KCBS to broadcast the entire show, rather than only broadcasting the first half-hour.

    You'd think that the management of KCBS would want to ride on the popularity of FTN as the most popular Sunday morning news program, but no... instead they go back to broadcasting pretty much the exact same news that they broadcast in the half hour, before FTN came on the air. (barring that some new dire news surfaced, during that half hour of FTN).

    Admittedly, I'm no broadcast news scheduling wiz. So, can anyone explain why the management of KCBS still continues to broadcast only the first half-hour of the most popular Sunday morning news show, long after FTN became an hour-long broadcast?

    The old saying is that when something doesn't make sense, follow the money. Is there something financially adverse for KCBS, if they were to carry the full hour of FTN??

    Inquiring minds want to know. If there's no one who routinely visits this site, and who can answer that question, then it's probably more generically unanswerable. My bet's that somebody will have a plausible explanation... presumably someone with lots of time in the broadcast industry.

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  11. Meet the Press has that bald leather daddy with the sleeve tattoo who writes for Buzzfeed. I guess they are trying to entice the gay leather fetishists to watch.

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  12. You folks seriously need to get out more. All these shows are government meme'd propaganda outlets towing the criminal D.C. line.


    please, for the love of truth in place of the fiction you think is real news...try out Jeff Rense, or Veteran's Today, or John B Wells...Sean David Morton.

    I could go on, but the point is, these mainstream shows are the old paradigm that needs to be dusted off completely. They've done a fine job of it themselves, what with the constant war propaganda for decades now with nary a critical thought about the mosaic of the war fraud.

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  13. I record and watch most or parts of all of the Sunday morning shows. I do like This Week with George Stephanopoulos the best with Face the Nation a close second. I like George and tend to skim through it if he is not on the show. Their panels seem to be the most diverse of the shows with strong representation from both Dems and Reps. Like other comments, I would like to watch the whole hour of Face The Nation. Bob Schieffer is the best at cutting through the BS spin and has a lower tolerance for it. The panels look like a good lineup every week, but we seldom see that part of the show. I didn't really care for Chuck Todd in the past, but he is a big improvement over Gregory. MTP is still trying to figure out their format etc, and it seems and looks awkward. Chuck's strength is in the election process and coverage, so I will continue to watch MTP at least through the elections. I don't like Chris Wallace either, but do like to hear George Will's comments if he is on the show. Maria Bartiromo also has a show on Sunday mornings. A blend of financial and political topics. It may be a long shot, but I would like to see her on in place of Chris Wallace on Fox's main Sunday show.

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  14. Bob Schieffer, really?? He's so old, they have to put Embalming Fluid on him before he goes on the air!!

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  15. Why are you capitalizing "embalming fluid"? Bob Schieffer is no youngster, but I doubt if he'd hold your youth and inexperience against you. He has seen presidents and politicians and world leaders come and go, and he's interviewed all of them many times.In other words, he knows what he's talking about.

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  16. These shows run the from the middle to the right. The extremists are always from the right. There are the occasional moderate demos put up against the extreme right with the host finding the middle of that. Thank skew righty much ,but no thanks. Russert was light years ahead of all of them by cutting through the crap and making all of these idiots back up their vitriol through hard questions that demanded direct anwsers.

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