We need more journalists like John Hockenberry.
I was listening to “On Point” on WBUR over dinner. I usually don’t like On Point, because I’m not much of a Tom Ashbrook fan. But he’s on vacation, and Hockenberry is filling in – I’ve liked Hockenberry ever since he started NPR’s Talk of the Nation over a decade ago. He’s since worked for NBC, ABC, written books, yadda yadda.
The exchange that inspired me to blog was the following (which starts at about 27:40). The first speaker is Jack Beatty, a senior editor at the Atlantic Monthly, a regular presence on On Point, and an often startlingly self-important commentator, even for a big-time journalist. The next is Hockenberry, and later comes John McWhorter of the conservative Manhattan Institute.
BEATTY: You know, if I might just for a minute go back to Mary’s point, I think she made a very good point, and that is the elite focus, and not so much focus, character, of the media. That continues, I think. There are whole ranges of realities that never get mentioned on television because the people don’t live in a world where, say, the minimum wage matters. Where, say, $20 to take a cab is an impossibility. Where people have to ride the subway. They live in another world. And more and more Americans feel, my gosh, we’re not hearing about the world we live in, because these panjandra [yes, he really used that word –ed.], multi-millionaires who go on the television, they live in a different world, and I think she’s absolutely right. Not only don’t we hear about minorities, but we just don’t hear about the grit of life where most people live. And I think that is one of the reasons the media is so distrusted, that it’s so irrelevant in the things it talks about.
HOCKENBERRY: Well, with all due respect, Jack, what’s your proximity to the grit? I mean, are you down with Mary, there? You’re not a multi-millionaire, I don’t think, but are you part of the “elite”?
BEATTY: Ah, gee, I would hate to think I am, but I suppose so, in that I earn my living sitting down on my duff and talking, so yeah, I guess I do qualify.
HOCKENBERRY: Quickly, John: “elite,” or are you one of the people?
McWHORTER: Well, I suppose that over time I’ve become a kind of blue American person, I mean, when the New Yorker doesn’t come I’m a little annoyed. But then I do wonder whether poverty is that obscure in our media, with the basic wisdom of the point taken.
HOCKENBERRY: The New Yorker doesn’t come, you get annoyed. Yes, John, that says it all, baby!
Awesome. A big problem with big-time journalists, IMHO, is their inability to look in the mirror and see themselves with any clarity. When they look, they tend to see hard workers who seek only the truth and who see with perfect clarity the biases of others while carrying none themselves. It ain’t so, folks. (Need proof? Look no further than the excellent Daily Howler – he’s even skewered Hockenberry on occasion.) Kudos to Hockenberry for immediately seeing through the BS, and for calling Beatty on it on the air. Kudos, also, to Beatty, for admitting (a tad grudgingly) that Hockenberry was right. All in all, an enjoyable exchange that made me wish Hockenberry would stick around town for longer than Ashbrook’s summer vacation.
Hockenberry, too, and was very sad to see him leave TOTN. The only other host to actually come close to Hockenberry was Ray Suarez, but, alas, he left for greener pastures, too.
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Just thinking about Hockenberry and Suarez pains me a bit; NPR has been circling the bowl for quite some time now, if you’ll pardon the analogy. Wow, where has the time gone? I’m getting old….
when he did the program “Heat” (my age is showing)…
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I like him then and wondered what ever happend to the show. If I recall it was pretty much in the same format (minus Beatty)
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Yes Beatty is somewhat self-absorbed but only a bit more than Ashbrook. Beatty ads nothing to the show.
Heat, no. Was it before Hockenberry’s stint as TOTN host?
http://en.wikipedia….
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I love the internets…
I was listening to most of that show in my car, and that was the most memorable moment. I think Beatty made a great point, but I don’t see what you saw in it: some sort of “I’m not like that” implication that Hockenberry then “saw through”. Beatty’s point stands on its own, regardless of how “elite” or “grit” he himself is, and in response to the followup question, he indicated that a) he hadn’t been thinking specifically about his place in that continuum, but b) he understands where he fits in and would not try to deny it. What makes you think he can’t see through his biases? You quoted an example of him doing exactly that.
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In other words, good on you for highlighting this exchange, but I think you’re being pointlessly snarky and unfair to Beatty here – he’s the one who brought up the issue that’s most valuable about this whole portion of the show.
that my write-up was colored by my generally finding Beatty quite annoying – he routinely has me wanting to wring his neck after about 30 seconds. That said, I think it’s impossible to listen to Beatty’s speech without hearing the implication of “and I’m not like that” behind it. I found his derisive reference to the “panjandra” of the media particularly entertaining, since he himself is surely one such panjandrum. In fact, the American Heritage Dictionary definition gives as an illustration “‘a panjandrum of the publishing business’ (Nat Hentoff).” That’s exactly what Beatty is.
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So yes, Beatty was raising a fair point. But Hockenberry was quite right to note that everyone on that show was part of the very problem Beatty was raising. Beatty was reluctant to admit it, but quickly saw that he had no way out. Like I said in the post, kudos to him for that. If the media routinely showed the self-awareness that Hockenberry forced on that discussion, we’d all be much better off.
Ashbrook = Ninny. Worst question framing of all time.
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Beatty = 11 out of 10 on annoying meter. Analyst? Joke.
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Chris Lydon, baby. Missed not forgotten. Haven’t heard his new thing.
Beatty is one of the most annoying people on radio. Love to see him off the air.
get it via podcast
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Lydon is still his same old self. Mostly annoying interrupting
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Search for Open source Radio in google to find Lydon’s new show.
In defense of Jack B. …
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He does come from a legitimately working-class background, I believe. Plus, he should get credit for his understanding of “grit” due to his bio of James Michael Curley, “The Rascal King.”
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Maybe he’s risen to the level of “panjandra” — but he’s earned it !
Anyone is better than the serial over-pronouncer, Dick Gordon, who Tom AshBlatherer succeeded. But none of them rate with Lydon. He always guides conversation to more interesting places, and he never did the “on the one hand, on the other hand” bull so prevalent in modern journalism.
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Open Source is on M-Th at 7 pm on WGBH (89.7 FM).
I can’t listen to the program because I find Ashbrook annoying and Beatty to be absolutely insufferable.
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I miss Christopher Lydon, and his interesting programs on things like cheese, or jazz, in addition to locak. He always had a writer or two from the current issue of the Atlantic, back when the Atlantic was a general interest, rather than a political magazine. That man was a true pompous ass, but was astoundingly knowledeable about an awfully wide range of subjects. A true renaissance man. The only time I ever heard him completely out of his element was a program on UMass basketball during their Final 4 run.
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Sniff.
loack was supposed to be “local and national politics”
I realize the programming fix would likely be quite the headache, but too many comments have become monuments to my tendency to type and post…then correct.
One of the MOST annoying things about Soapblox. I have had to delete and re-write comments countless times because there is no way to edit.
You..you can do that?
You are so right on with this post that I can only suspect it was divinely inspired. I personally have taken a very firm line with WBUR’s virus-like fundraisers: no money while Ashbrook’s mic. remains open. The final straw for me was this horrific 2003 monstrosity of credulous pandering: Rumsfeld in the Raw. If there was context or critical thinking within 100 metaphorical miles of that broadcast I didn’t hear it. The only thing that can be said for On Point is that its guests are often interesting.