It's the last Sunday of 2019, the so-called President is hate-tweeting the Speaker of the House, Chuck Todd has copped a plea to naïveté with regard to his own bothsiderism, and the first Democratic primaries are fast approaching.
There's been a lot of talk this week about how the debate gets framed for the general public. In his post ripping Chuck Todd's Christmas Eve confession, Jay Rosen wrote:
A key premise for Meet the Press is symmetry between the two major political parties. The whole show is built on that. But in the information sphere — the subject of Chuck Todd’s confessions — asymmetry has taken command. The right wing ecosystem for news does not operate like the rest of the country’s news system. And increasingly conservative politics is getting sucked into conservative media. It makes more sense to see Fox News and the Trump White House as two parts of the same organism. As these trends grind on they put stress on Meet the Press practices. But it takes imagination to see how the show might be affected— or changed. In place of that we have Chuck Todd pleading naiveté.
And so it goes. Let's see how the debate is framed on the shows today. Here's the lineup:
ABC’s “This Week” — Robert O’Brien, White House national security adviser; Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
NBC’s “Meet the Press”— Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times, and Martin Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post; author Masha Gessen and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.
CBS’ “Face the Nation” — Ivanka Trump, adviser to the president (taped); Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and James Lankford, R-Okla.
CNN’s “State of the Union” — Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.; Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass.
“Fox News Sunday” — Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.; Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La.
What's catching your eye this morning?
