One night, as he prepared to be governor of Maryland, William Donald Schaefer sat down for a simple, one-on-one television interview. The interview lasted about 60 minutes, and so did the program that followed later that night. This is known as journalism.
Not long before he became mayor of Baltimore, Kurt L. Schmoke sat down in his state’s attorney’s office at the city courthouse for a similar one-on-one television interview. This lasted about 60 minutes, and so did the program that followed. This, too, is known as journalism.
Last week, in the midst of the current White House campaign, vice presidential contender Sarah Palin spent portions of a couple of days with Charles Gibson of ABC News, an act loudly trumpeted as an “exclusive” by the TV network. Palin spent hours and hours with Gibson, and this, too, became a 60-minute program. But this is only partly defined as journalism.
It is more closely defined as a television show. There is, as television knows, a difference.
What matters here is the process, which goes on in the great presidential campaigns and in local races across the country. We turn on the TV and hope we’re getting a reflection of reality. But the closest we come is when we get away from the aesthetics of television, and the need to entertain, and the quest for ratings, to simply asking a question and getting an unedited answer.
The politicians all have their choreography of avoidance. Barack Obama sets the rules about when he’ll answer questions, and so does John McCain. But they’ve been arguing things out for the last 18 months, so we’ve got a pretty good fix on their views by now.
Palin’s different. She arrived at the Republican National Convention, but took no on-the-record question from reporters until she sat down with Gibson.
And what we got was a television show that included, for a few minutes here and there, pieces of an edited interview — and, for the past week, an explosion of analysis, across the entire country, about what Palin said and didn’t say, what she knew and didn’t know, and how both she and Gibson conducted themselves under the pressure of the moment.
But, in all the analysis, something important was overlooked: a sense of time.
Gibson was there for a couple of days, and the days were boiled down to 60 minutes. Only it wasn’t 60 minutes, because there were 16 minutes of commercials. Leaving 44 minutes. Only it wasn’t 44 minutes, because they opened the program with about eight minutes of biographical overlay. Leaving us with about 36 minutes to find out what Palin thinks about the great issues of our time.
Only it wasn’t even 36 minutes, because there were shots of Gibson and Palin strolling outside her home, with its gorgeous vistas, and visits to Palin’s old high school, and talk of her prep basketball exploits.
All of which meant that the couple of days Gibson spent asking Palin questions had to be cut and sliced even more. You could spot it repeatedly, when Gibson asked questions, and Palin answered — and then the video abruptly changed, thus eliminating any follow-up give-and-take. Palin’s supporters even were upset with the edited interview.
That’s the difference between an interview — and a sculpted television show.
It’s what made it frustrating for those waiting for Palin to strut her stuff, and show all those critics that she’s far more textured than they imagine. And equally frustrating for those who believe this kind of television show allowed her to hide her inexperience behind the medium’s constraints of time and aesthetics.
Two decades ago, when Schaefer sat for his TV interview, waiting to take on Maryland’s problems, there were no such constraints. Nor were there for Schmoke. There was no editing out answers. There were no folksy visuals of Schaefer at home, no reminiscing with Schmoke about his City College football stardom.
Those were considered irrelevant. They are the values of television entertainment, but not of an electorate wondering what these two men intended to do about the future.
Some of it might have been boring — no sweeping landscapes, no playful talk of sports — just straight-talk answers about serious issues. But we cheat ourselves when we settle for anything less.
Michael Olesker spent 19 years in Baltimore television news. His new book, “Tonight at 6: A Daily Show Masquerading as Local TV News,” published by Apprentice House, is now available in area book stores. He will be speaking at 3 p.m. on Sept. 27 at the Baltimore Book Festival located in the 600 block of North Charles St.
