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Recently in Salon Media

Media
Former Disney exec dodges a bullet
The federal sex case against Patrick Naughton falls apart as jury and old friends see something other than a monster.
By Sean Elder
[12/22/99]

Media
Out of Time
The L.A. Times internal investigation is complete and someone has to take the fall.
By Sean Elder
[12/21/99]

Media
Just in time for the holidays: Guilt
Want some Christmas cheer with your magazines? Forget about it.
By Sean Elder
[12/20/99]

Alt
All tech, all the time
Going e-postal and other tales of the technological revolution. Plus: Blood-spurting penises and mushrooming: adventure sport for the elite?
By Jenn Shreve
[12/17/99]

Media
Mickey's surprise
An alternative juror gives his impression of the case of a Disney exec charged with crossing state lines to have sex with a minor.
By Sean Elder
[12/13/99]

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At ABC, they could see that when a punchy Peter Jennings has to stay on the air for almost 24 hours straight, he has to change his outfit as often as Cher. Some folks may have stayed with him, hoping he would come apart at the seams like Jerry Lewis used to at the end of his muscular dystrophy telethons. By the time I tuned in, shortly before the witching hour, Jennings (by then in blue blazer and khakis) was talking to illusionist David Blaine for the second time that day.

Maybe it was due to his lack of sleep, but when Blaine performed a rather obvious stunt, Jennings just kind of lost it. After asking the anchor for the names of the people he cared most about (Jennings named his two children), Blaine set his own coat sleeve on fire -- and then pulled it back to reveal "Elizabeth" -- the name of Jennings' daughter -- magically written on his arm in charcoal!

Jennings was stunned.

"I was freaked out," he admitted later to USA Today -- which caused me to wonder whether the old boy gets out enough. "He had no idea what I was going to say," Jennings continued, though you don't have to be David Mamet to suspect that Blaine could have found the names of Jennings' loved ones and written them in charcoal all over his body before the show.

It was with somewhat similar skepticism that I greeted ABC's pre-Christmas announcement that it would not be renewing the contract of "This Week" regular William Kristol and that his dismissal had nothing to do with his politics. The conservative commentator and Weekly Standard editor had been one of the not-quite-furious five on the network's Sunday morning wonk fest.

Together with co-hosts Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts and fellow regulars George Will and George Stephanopolous, Kristol used to kick around the issues (and candidates) of the day. Will and Kristol held down the conservative corner, defending their turf against the vaguely liberal majority of Donaldson, Roberts and Stephanopolous, thereby lending a certain credibility to the show's rather soft-focus approach.

Though remembered by some as the man behind Dan Quayle, Kristol has proved to be a surprisingly savvy and seemingly good-natured voice of conservatism, and is credited with being one of the first of the chattering class this election cycle to take the challenges of presidential hopefuls John McCain and Bill Bradley seriously.

Yet suddenly, he met the ejection seat. Kristol's dismissal would have been insulting enough but it came almost contemporaneously with ABC's announcement that fellow panelist Stephanopolopous would be staying.

Dorrance Smith, former "This Week" executive producer, told the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz that ABC's management is "tone-deaf when it comes to political evenhandedness ... Rather than being journalistically honest, they're much more comfortable with people who share viewpoints closer to their own."

(Said Kristol of ABC: "They gave me a good run. I paid for the kids' college tuition. I'm not complaining.")

Kristol may not have been much of a factor in "This Week's" ratings crash, however. The problem is probably more in the competition: Tim Russert. Since taking over "Meet the Press" in the early '90s, NBC's intractable interviewer has made that show his own and the one for political junkies to watch. It is not just Russert's style that keeps audiences (and important political guests) coming back. (Though with his pile of notes and tenuous smile there is something riveting about him: he's like the sly small town detective people think they can put one over on, or an indefatigable IRS auditor.) In fact, "Meet the Press" has become so identified with him that CNN's Bernard Kalb refers to it wryly as "Meet the Russert."

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