One Complete Fuckwad I Saw on TV Last Night (and it was Bernard Goldberg)

I don't know how many of you saw The Daily Show last night, but if you didn't catch the rerun today (or you can see the interview segment over at crooks and liars). I was looking forward to the interview with Bernard Goldberg because he's someone that fascinates me. I was aware of his name from his book Bias. Then at some point I made the connection that he was one of the guys on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.

Real Sports is a great show. I'd say it's the absolute best sports show on TV, but I've been told repeatedly that "it's not TV, it's HBO." Regardless, I've never seen a better sports show in my life and doubt I ever will. Furthermore, it's the show with the strongest journalistic integrity out there. The fact that it's a sports show on a premium, subscription cable channel is a sad comment on the quality of televised news shows. Anyway, watching Real Sports is always something I look forward to. Each story covered is done in a way that is entertaining, informative, and thought provoking. It's also rare that you can detect an agenda in any of the stories, although I have occasionaly. That's not to say that those have been bad stories. I think they came off as agenda-ish because of the passion for the story that the reporter carries. One other thing that I love about the show is that there aren't any puff pieces. No stories are done purely to promote a book or a movie and no stories are done that are completely trivial or prurient.

There is one story that seems out of place in the entire Real Sports oeuvre and it's one that was done by Bernard Goldberg. Mr. Goldberg did the story of the highest paid stud horse in the world of horse breeding. It is this story that I kept thinking of as Mr. Goldberg tried to make his case against what he sees as the contemptible state of television and culture in general on The Daily Show last night. It's hard to take his allegations of luridness against the likes of Barbara Streisand, rappers, and Chevy Chase (yep, Chevy Chase!) seriously when you've seen Mr. Goldberg on TV, excuse me, on HBO stand 10 feet back of two horses fucking...for money no less. You see, Mr. Goldberg did his story of the number one equestrian gigolo in a manner that, while entertaining and even informative, wasn't exactly what I'd call the standard Real Sports quality and this seems to be what he is battling with his new book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is #37). He is talking about a culture war where, in his words, we are getting "angrier, nastier, and more vulgar." I just found it funny that the only time Real Sports has come close to getting vulgar, it was at the hands of Mr. Goldberg. Also, if one of your main points is civility why does he use the phrase "screwing up" in the title of his book and why is he pointing his finger at 100 specific people and say they are "screwing up" the country?

I should say that I happen to like Bernard Goldberg. Well, I like him as much as you can like a media figure you've never met but you still admire their work on a sports journalism show, all the while only agreeing with him a marginal amount of the time. This goodwill I have toward him was shaken the instant I saw the cover of his new book earlier this year. Not so much because I don't think I'd like it or agree with much of it (although that is probably true), but because it just seems to be a hollow, bleak, cash-grab of a book aimed at a specific demographic. That is beneath him or at least beneath what I thought of him as a journalist. I thought Bias was heartfelt. Regardless of where I think the real bias lies in television news, it seemed to me, in the parts of Bias that I read before having to return it to the library, that Mr. Goldberg was rational and passionate about what he was writing. You can get passion on topics in a ton of places, but its rarely worth anything without the rational part and that (and his work on Real Sports) is why I began to like the guy. Granted you can't (or shouldn't) judge a book by its cover, but click on that link above and look at the cover of 100 People. Just looking at the 8 pictures it's hard not to come away with a clear idea of what side of the political isle the author sits or the crowd he is trying to attract with his book. We won't even touch the fact that the "and Al Franken is #37" is actually part of the book's title! I'm strangely disappointed in Bernard Goldberg over this book. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's almost personal somehow. I thought he'd somehow win me over again with his Daily Show appearance last night, but not so much. I realize it's got to be hard to make your case with Jon Stewart cracking jokes every 10 seconds, but I thought he could do it. The points he did manage to make didn't really resonate with me. That's why I've called him a fuckwad in this post's title. If he's trying to prove the culture is vulgar and mean and can't seem to make his case very well, then I'll try to help him out a bit because I still have a smidge of that goodwill for him hanging around.