sizefourteen

Nine Media Heroes I’m Thankful for this Holiday Season

It’s very easy to dismiss today’s journalists as high maintenance and pampered celebrity pundits, unworthy descendants of their beloved and revered Walter Cronkite. And you’d be right in enough most cases. You can blame it on their network bosses and corporate owners, who have reduced much of the “news” to easily digestible distraction nuggets for a woefully uninformed public.

But as much energy as I spend turning off my TV in disgust these days, I’m equally in awe of those who use the airwaves for good, building our understanding of a topic and sometimes even, sorry, advocacy. Good TV, as rare and oxymoronic as that may sound, can produce some of the best narrative to our world. And no matter how much more I consume online, in magazines or books, I’m still a boob tube kid.

So with the holiday festivities bringing us all around TV sets (ahem, I mean Hulu and video streaming) in the coming weeks, this is a good time to celebrate some of the best and brightest we have at camera one. In no particular order, my 2009 media heroes:

RACHEL MADDOW — Maddow is not a new face to diehard MSNBC viewers, having been a frequent guest before she got her own high profile show. Not allowing a poorly researched or factually porous statement—by the Right or Left—to waft by without getting swatted down, Maddow was a formidable pundit but an unlikely nightly host. But that was then, and with her popularity, original wit and anti-TV persona, she’s making it easy to tune out Olbermann’s sorely repetitive Bush Fox News bashing. A tough lesbian liberal thoughtfully dismantling conservative hypocrisy and dogma during prime time? For the Right, that’s got to sting a bit. (@Maddow)

BILL MOYERS — To me, Moyers epitomizes the journalistic hero who takes his powerful role of informing the public to heart. His gray hair and kindly southern demeanor is comforting and his storyteller style is perfect for his hour-long PBS format of Bill Moyers Journal. I can’t imagine who’d replace him if he decided to retire one day (he’s 75). For a dose of what you get with Moyers, just watch his recent report on the LBJ tapes and escalation of the Vietnam War (hint: here we go again). Clearly with a progressive mindset, Moyers is not shy about where he wants you to end up after he’s finished laying out his impassioned case. But you never get the idea that you’ve been convinced—simply informed and illuminated. (Moyers: To Twitter or not to Twitter)

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON — She’s not technically my boss since she doesn’t pay me, nor does she care if I show up for work each day. But I have been a blogger on the HuffPo since early 2008. If you don’t mind sifting through a ton of daily content, there is no deeper archive of current event news, opinion, aggregated content and citizen journalism around. Decry the titillating nipple slip shots and political star fucking if you want, but AH represents, in many ways, the future of journalism. (@HuffingtonPost)

GWEN IFILL — Although she’s been around in DC circles for a while now, Ifill’s national coming out was during the 2008 vice presidential debate that also introduced the world to the wink and smile of Sarah Palin. As moderator of Washington Week, Ifill conducts a round table discussion with some of the best journalists around. It’s a format that allows the cordial sharing of perspectives and expert opinions on wonky policy matters and political acrobatics. As a woman—not to mention one of color—she’s a rarity in the pantheon of political media power brokers. Personally, I’d like to think Ifill was at least in the running for the recently filled Meet the Press slot, now occupied by MSNBC’s David Gregory. Maybe they’ll let her sub one Sunday. (@WashingtonWeek)

JON STEWART and STEPHEN COLBERT — I could cite Jon Stewart’s genius, but that’s just fact at this point. More importantly to me, if it wasn’t for him, I’d be a depressed mess. I know this. I’ve skipped him for a few days and it isn’t pretty. The daily real news is only digestible so long as there’s a chaser of The Daily Show. There’s no way to survive the daily barrage of bickering, stupid newscaster tricks and 2012-level world problems without a Stewart happy ending. I need fake news because the real stuff is just too damn fucked up sometimes. I can only yell at Wolf Blitzer so much before I need Stewart to do it for me. And with much better funnier results. (@The_Daily_Show)

Stephen Colbert is so good that he invented a replica of Stewart’s show (I know, it’s not the same, but in essence) that is just as indispensable daily viewing. Not an easy task to immediately follow TDS. Colbert, besides having one of the sharpest wits on television, is the pseudo right wing to Stewart’s left. It’s obvious when Stewart tears into Sarah Palin, but when Colbert calls her book a “steaming pile of shit,” it’s like her own party is saying it. Sort of. The very best comedians (think Pryor) get their biggest laughs when they speak the truth. The Colbert Report and the Daily Show might be the truest broadcasts best news we have these days. (@StephenTColbert)

CHARLIE ROSE — Charlie Rose is the Larry King of public television—minus the Ms. U.S.A. pageant winners, reality TV stars and celebrity attorneys. If you have status, you’ve sat with Rose. And while this includes film producers, prime ministers and Wall Street dons, it’s the surprises I like. Such as Jay-Z, who’s guested several times and seems to save his best-face-of-rap-music prose for Mr. Rose. Not everybody at Rose’s big wooden table has me glued to my seat, but it’s must see TV when he spends an hour with folks that might soon discover a cure for AIDS, decipher our financial crisis or invent the next Google. Which is almost nightly. (@CharlieRoseShow)

BILL MAHER — Old schoolers remember Maher from his ABC show Politically Incorrect which lived up to its name until the network fired him over some post 9/11 comments. Maher is still bitter about the incident, but his HBO show allows cursing and he has an often A-list cast of guests, so take that, suits. Maher is brash and fearless when it comes to grabbing an issue by the throat even as his guests sometimes stare in shock. He’s not as funny as Stewart, but just as in your face in an attempt to save the world from idiocy. (@BillMaher)

TAVIS SMILEY — There are a ton of reasons I watch Tavis. For one, it’s rare for a black talk show host to get the face time Smiley does with government officials and other players in foreign and domestic policy. Smiley’s nightly PBS show has been as much about the day’s events as they have about percolating pop culture, which he approaches with the inquisitive depth of Charlie Rose. Even an interview with 50 Cent can be a candor-filled eye opener. Outside of Rose, I don’t know of a more eclectic cast of guests (Israel’s U.S. envoy to drummer Sheila E.). This diversity is part of the show’s strength. Another reason I love Smiley is his clear agenda for discussing more thorny issues race. His book The Covenant with Black America was a clarion call for black responsibility and self reliance and he unabashedly uses his PBS pulpit to carve out related conversations and sidebars wherever they fit in. But even without an overt line of discussion, his mere presence in the national media (recently appearing more frequently on Meet The Press) broadens the public dialogue. (@TavisSmiley)

Worth also mentioning: CNN/Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria; most anything on PBS or NPR; and PBS Frontline narrator Will Lyman because how can you doubt anything that voice declares?

Who are you thankful for?