MEEK IN REVIEW
Meek in Review Can playing it safe be a performing art? That seems to be the question of Washington Week in Review, which has been on the air since 1967—the longest running show on PBS. Hosted in...
...Events can reflect poorly on the President, but reporters cannot...
...Hosted in monotone by Paul Duke, the show is a kind of reading aloud of that other "Week in Review," the one that appears in The New York Times every Sunday...
...Of course, all this modesty amounts to a conceit: that these people have something to say, and some reasons for saying it, simply because they're journalists...
...It's never "What should we do in Nicaragua...
...Call it an encounter group for journalists, where each person's problem is an issue in the news...
...Then they quiz each other about what's likely to happen next...
...their job is merely to summarize and predict, which no doubt suits the show's underwriters, Ford and Ford Aerospace, just fine...
...They cannot reflect at all...
...J.R...
...The authority is suddenly placed at the center of a mock press conference, taking questions from the other panelists...
...Shop talk is therefore encouraged, but not if it develops into a debate over principles...
...In an awkward way, the panelists seem to sense this...
...Somewhere they seem to realize the banality of their own inside-baseball approach to politics...
...Then it's back to role of curious reporter, questioning the others as if they were the authorities...
...They frequently refer to themselves as "pundits" and joke in a self-deprecating manner about what they will be saying a week or two from now...
...Yet the panel members—unwilling to lend any moral force to their calling—cannot convince us that Washington reporters, the elite of the profession, have any special perspective on events...
...The regulars on this soporific show are Duke and Haynes Johnson of The Washington Post...
...Who wants to be inside a game this dull...
...Middle-of-the-road types from major newspapers and newsmagazines fill the other three chairs...
...What's odd and vaguely amusing about the arrangement is the exchange of roles the members of the panel undergo...
...The panelists ask such piercing questions as: "Haynes, don't you think it's likely that Dole will support the treaty...
...Instead, it's "What's the Administration going to do...
...They are all ever so careful not to let slip any ideas about what's wrong or right...
...Among them are: Jack Nelson of The Los Angeles Times, Ellen Hume and Albert Hunt of The Wall Street Journal, Hedrick Smith and Steven Roberts of The New York Times, Charles McDowell of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, and Howard Fineman of Newsweek...
...Four journalists invited by Duke take turns summarizing the important news of the last week...
...For a few minutes, each reporter becomes an authority, pronouncing upon the week's events while the guests nod politely...
...To keep things from becoming totally farcical, everyone soft pedals...
Vol. 52 • March 1988 • No. 3
