A couple of months ago, PBS announced the launch of a limited series program, "In Principle," produced by station WETA.
At the time, the press jumped onto the announcement as an effort by PBS to produce a “conservative” show, hosted by self-identified conservatives Michael Gerson and Amy Holmes. Many of you responded to the news, not always with enthusiasm and I urged you all to watch the show before passing comment.
Well the show has been on the air for four weeks now and some of you have been passing comment.
Jan Stuart from New York City is unimpressed:
“I’ve watched the first two installments of 'In Principle.' It is an embarrassment to PBS and a waste of 60 minutes (sic) of my time. Fawning, sycophantic interviews with dubious public figures. Coming right after the superb 'Washington Week,' the preciousness and lack of journalistic integrity is glaring.”
Ian Campbell from Wilkes Barre, Pa., writes:
“I watched In Principle. In Principle really is a bit of a Right Wing apologia. I’m not going to watch again, because there really is a surfeit of Republican positioning all over television, and nowhere near enough left of centrist response.”
Rita Miziorko from Rivers Falls, Wisc., is disappointed:
“We have just watched the initial program of 'In Principle.' We had anticipated a program that would be insightful, well balanced and critical. We were severely disappointed! The interview with Glenn Beck provided a vehicle for his biased point of view. The interviewers did not effectively counter his diatribe.”
There are a couple of fans though. Bill Carleton from Granger, Ind., says:
“Thank you for In Principle. Following Washington Week, with no conservative viewpoint, it was refreshing to have a program that centered on ideas and not hyperbolic rhetoric from either side of the spectrum.”
And Sister Mary Schmuck RSM from Belmont, N.C., writes:
“Tremendous thank you for In Perspective! (sic) Such a needed conversation, ‘breath of fresh air’ I am telling many others about this new program! Great work!"
My main concern had been trying to cram too much into such a short time, particularly with two hosts and two guests. In fact, episode 4 had four guests.
Now that the show has been on for a few weeks, my complaint with the show does not come from the partisan views (of both sides) expressed above, but about whether the show is fulfilling its promised objective.
Gerson had expressed this aim for his show: “We need serious dialogue that stands in contrast to the degraded discourse so common in American politics right now. On 'In Principle,' we intend to engage newsmakers and culture shapers at a deeper level, exploring their beliefs and motivations in a way viewers might not get in other formats on television. 'In Principle' is going to be honest, reflective, deep-dive TV.”
So far the show has failed, in my opinion, to be “deep-dive TV” that is not available elsewhere on television.
The first guest on the show was Glenn Beck, former Fox News host and right wing agitator who peddled in unsubstantiated rumors and conspiracy theories directed against President Obama, amongst others, for years before leaving Fox News. He carried on with his work at The Blaze, where Amy Holmes revealed, she once worked.
Mr. Beck has been going through a bit of a redemption tour since he came out against the candidacy of Donald Trump and you could see him on TV everywhere, including on Samantha Bee’s show, she the unabashed Hillary supporter:
I would have been better served by a deeper interview with Mr. Beck, some sense of how his earlier views were formed and what responsibility he feels for the toxic atmosphere of our politics.
In addition, a real examination of what actually changed him? He talks about leaving his show as a crossroads moment for which he was seeking spiritual guidance from Billy Graham. What the audience might not know is that he was suffering from a ratings drop and an advertiser boycott against him. How did those things make him rethink? I think the interview was a missed opportunity.
There have been some interesting bookings, particularly former President George W. Bush, the week of his mother’s death. It turned out to be mostly a conversation about one of the president’s pet projects, PEPFAR, one that the hosts took a long time to explain to the audience instead of providing some set up to the topic. And, yes, it was a successful foreign aid project that most Americans don’t know much about.
But I felt that there were some more threads about compassionate leadership that they could have pulled on. They were speaking to a president who held office for eight years, during a tumultuous time of war and division. How does compassionate leadership fit in times like that?
Last week’s show had an entertaining interview with comedian Bill Maher, followed by two short interviews with Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, and then Colorado’s Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper. With two questioners, there is not much time to get into a lot of depth with either of these men in about five minutes or so of television for each.
I applaud the show’s desire to want to take on big themes and big cultural topics. I would suggest that they do that. Pick a topic, present a thesis, dig deep and come up with some takeaways. Make the conversation lively and above all relevant. Connect the topic to the way people live their lives and how the topics might touch them.
Why am I hearing from these people at this particular moment? What do they bring that you, the hosts, thought was so important to bring to a national audience?
The show is clearly a work in progress and I look forward to seeing how it shapes up in the coming weeks.
There had been some speculation that this show would follow in the tradition of William F. Buckley’s Firing Line, a show about the ideas of our time that ran for some three decades on public television.
Well now it has been announced that Firing Line is coming back for real, produced by New York station WNET and hosted by Margaret Hoover. I’ll have more about that show soon.