On The Mark

For the longest time, I always expected sharp, clever insight from Mark Shields, who died last week at the age of 85, on the PBS NewsHour on Fridays when he and one of the many partners he had - first David Gergen, then Paul Gigot, and finally David Brooks - reviewed the week in politics.  Shields, an unpretentious Irish-American columnist who had honed his skills of political analysis from having worked in the trenches of Democratic politics (he worked for Bobby Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign), was always ready with a trenchant observation and a perfect understanding of the ways of Washington.

What made Shields a perfect political analyst was his plain speaking as well as his experience with politics.  He treated people the way he wanted to be treated - with respect - and he never talked down to anyone.  A native of Massachusetts, Shields was someone who lived inside the Capital Beltway but always knew what people inside Route 128 (the freeway that goes around Boston) were thinking and feeling.  He conveyed that Middle American sensibility on both PBS and, back in the 1990s, on CNN.  If there was any decency left in Washington, it's because of Mark Shields.

Mark Shields retired in 2020 after 33 years on public television, and made his exit at the right time, going out on top.  He knew when to quit.  In 1982, he ended his talk radio show because, as he aid, he had nothing left to say.  And I'm going to stop here in waxing rhapsodic about Mark Shields, because I have nothing left to say, either. RIP.       

A Teachable Moment

I was really ticked off with the PBS NewsHour's regular Friday night political analysis from Mark Shields and David Brooks last night. After spending so much oxygen on Democratic party ennui and other Washington insider stuff, they addressed the Shirley Sherrod controversy - for ten seconds!

This was the biggest story of the week, and quite possibly a turning point for a presidential administration that may have finally learned it has to fight back harder against their conservative enemies in the media. It exposed right-wing newscasting as a fraud. Yet Shields, Brooks and Jim Lehrer reduced it to sound-bite analysis. In those ten seconds, Shields and Brooks agreed that President Obama showed poor loyalty in allowing Sherrod's dismissal, as if he were the only one fooled by the nonstory of her nonracism. Though Fox News was the biggest villain in this defamation of a capable and devoted public servant, the words "fox" and "news" never passed Shields's or Brooks's lips.

The PBS NewsHour brags that it doesn't entertain, it informs. What I found entertaining was how little attention PBS even chose to bother paying to a story that calls an entire cable news channel's being into question. Because PBS isn't driven by ratings as much as Fox News's Roger Ailes is ("Ratings! Ratings!" was an answer he gave to explain his programming on Fox News), I expected more from public television.

But then, maybe I shouldn't have. After all, PBS is beholden to corporate interests who "fund" them and who would just as soon see a thoughtful discussion on race and journalistic integrity not happen.

Coincidentally, journalism icon Daniel Schorr died yesterday at 93.