PurpleAmerica Cable News Host Grades

PurpleAmerica Rates Who Delivers the Cable News

How we get the news and who delivers it really colors how we feel about it. It really does make a difference. Some just read the teleprompters and let the stories speak for themselves. Others try so hard to insert themselves into the stories to the frustration of the viewers. Of course, the pundits on panels either provide interesting color commentary on what is occuring or are simply there just to assert a pre-ordained partisan position. In any event, they’re there on TV for a reason.

Over the weekend it occurred to us at PurpleAmerica that these talking heads rarely ever get rated for what they bring to television news. The ever eager citizen journalist critics that we are here took it upon ourselves to take up the task. There were conditions on who we rated.

• They had to host a show on cable news, primarily during the week. We did offer some hosts of weekend news programs (primarily Sunday mornings) or fill in guests.

• We did not have the capacity to watch or analyze every show these people appear on, or cater to every network equally. As a result, this is far from scientific, but is subjective based on our review and historically coming across the network shows. To the extent it is possible, we watched as much cable news during the week of 8/20-8/27 on as many various networks as plausible.

• This does NOT rate the reporters providing the stories but also appear in studio occassionally. They have an entirely different job than news host, although they’re jobs sometimes results in them hosting a show. Note there are different attributes between being a good reporter and being a good host.

• We know we are missing some. We’re trying, there’s just a lot of people these networks have on contract, in our opinion way too many. Nonetheless, we’ve tried to be as inclusive as we can. If you note any we missed, please feel free to post in the comments and we’ll do our best to rate them

Today we cover the HOSTS of shows. Later this week we cover the regular pundits who appear on them, and believe me, it won’t be pretty.

And away we go:

CNN

Jake Tapper (A-). As far as the stature, the delivery and the quality of presence, Jake Tapper is the standard bearer currently on television. He’s smart, asks great questions, is substantive and takes the perspective most Americans would probably find themselves. The only thing keeping him from an A+ is the stupid and unnecessary way he relentlessly pimped his fiction book for weeks on CNN this summer.

Dana Bash (C). Can often be hit or miss. Sometimes she can ask great insightful questions and other times seems so pre-occupied with stupid D.C. parlor game scenarios and perspectives that she comes across as elitist and hollow. She spends too much time making distinctions without differences. She also has a tendency to ask questions, and then on the split screen look down at her question sheet or visibly focus on the directions in her earpiece rather than the answer to the question asked; if she doesn’t care about the answer, why should we as viewers? When she’s on, she’s really on. When she’s not, it can come across as snobbish and painful.

Fareed Zakaria (A). The single best show on global affairs on television. I wish there would be more like it. Smart guests, great issues of global importance. Looking only at Zakaria though, he makes a great host, extremely diplomatic and keeps the conversation going well. Offers great tidbits and trivial insights, along with different perspectives of looking at things. Each week I learn more from this program than any other show on television, which is what news is supposed to do; enlighten.

Wolf Blitzer (D+). Gone are the days where Wolf was the voice broadcasting from the war zones. Every time he’s on television today he seems slow, out of his depth and can’t speak without shouting. Completely out of step with today’s younger audiences. No longer offers anything of substance and instead often repeats what other reporters had just previously said, being redundant. Time to be put out to pasture, preferably before the primary season starts and CNN works to line up studio hosts for election nights.

Erin Burnett (B). She’s fine for the timeslot, she’s a great reader of the teleprompter (so good you could make a meme of her face when there’s a typo and her face cringes as she restates what it should have said). More deliberative than other hosts so relies more on the reporters and in studio guests, but that’s a good thing; its preferable to just having the host talk for an hour. Asks good substantive follow up questions as well. Serviceable and relatively reliable. Better in studio than when they have her report from the field.

Abby Phillips (B-). I generally liked her more as a reporter than a host but as she’s gotten comfortable as the host of “Inside Politics” she’s gotten better as she grows into the role. As a reporter, she was articulate, objective, had a great delivery and insightful perspective. As a host she is at her best when those qualities still drive the program. However, she is really not good at running any panel portion of the show¹ where she can often lose control of the conversation and insert her opinions instead of moderate. She’s progressed well since first taking over the seat, and I suspect she’ll continue to improve, now that she’s moved to a nightly role.

Manu Raju (B+). Raju has always been great as a reporter and a pundit and I can think of no better replacement for Phillips on Inside Politics, where he often guest hosted. Has all the qualities to be successful in the role.

Anderson Cooper (C). Boring and can seem condescending at times. Anderson Cooper is the epitome of what critics dislike about D.C. news coverage. Often inserts snide or snarky commentary that is completely unnecesary. On major news nights like the GOP debate, gets relegated to moderating a panel; suprisingly, this is usually where he is at his best because he let’s the panelists speak and keeps it on track. The less he injects himself into the stories and what is going on, the better the show usually.

Kaitlan Collins (B-). During the Trump years I thought she was the single best White House Reporter. Asks great questions, extremely articulate and objective. Unlike most on TV, she is at her best the less personality she shows, almost like a news robot. However, this attribute has been the problem as CNN works to showcase her more. First, they put her in the mornings, where personality is paramount and it was not a good fit. They’ve done better in the evenings, and she’s growing into the role, but still needs to loosen up a little more.

Laura Coates (Inc.) Coates is an experienced pundit, particularly on legal affairs (where she was very good), and had moved into a role as co-host with experienced reporter Alyson Camerota. I liked Camerota in the mornings (I don’t think she liked the early mornings) but their show didn’t find consistency or it’s footing since its inception following the dismissal of Don Lemon. When revealing their new nighttime lineup, CNN kept Coates and moved out the seasoned Camerota, which didn’t make sense to me given the problems they had. Coates hasn’t quite gotten up to speed as a host and the segments have been uneven. I’m not inclined to rate her yet, because I don’t think the problems I’ve seen are necessarily with her directly, its with the show and its production at this point. We’ll see if she gets her feet beneath her.

MSNBC

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezynski (C-). Before and during Trump’s term, this show was necessary viewing. Since then, it has devolved into nothing more than a show in which one or the other says “Trump” and everyone boos. Mika is incapable of saying anything without snark, that is when she is not promoting her self indulgent self help books. Joe seems less engaged every show. It says a lot that the show improves tremendously when neither of them are on and the host becomes….

Willie Geist (A-). Geist has become an exemplary in studio host, particularly presiding over the pundit personalities they regularly have on. The son of a newsman, Geist has all the qualities and talents to succeed; he delivers objectively, keeps the show on course, and engages excellently with the reporters and studio guests. MSNBC should be promoting Geist more for his own program.

Nicole Wallace (B-). As a former Republican on a liberal network, her show can at times be a bit of a fresh air. Unfortunately, the longer she is on MSNBC the more typical of the network the show becomes. At her best, she breaks out from the network soundbites and suggestions and branches more into objectivity. Too often though, it devolves into the same tropes Morning Joe does.

Rachel Maddow (B). When Trump was in office, this show had purpose. Maddow’s storytelling delivery of long narratives is among the best on television, and she could weave multiple threads into a great story.² By no means is the show objective, it is intended to be a subjective presentation anchoring MSNBCs lineup, and it was good at it. However, since Biden became President it’s lost it’s raison d’etre and seems aimless. I suspect that’s why Maddow is on only once a week now as she seeks other pursuits.

Chuck Todd (B-). I often feel Todd gets a bad wrap. Most of it stems from the fact he has to be fair and deliberative, even to Republicans, on NBC’s flagship Sunday news show Meet the Press, and all the liberal ire is unrelenting. Sure, I’ve often seen him “both sides” stuff in the name of the balancing act, but I’ve always found him pretty solid, and interesting as a host. A little sorry to see him leave the seat.

Alex Wagner (B-). Filling in the rest of the week for Maddow is Alex Wagner. I like Wagner as a plucky personality and she generally does a good job. Unlike the other nighttime personalities on MSNBC she can deliver commentary and subjective content with a smile and not the condescension or feeling like you are being bombarded with Democratic talking points. My impression is that she would be better earlier in the evening as a lead off rather than in this slot. She’s not the best interviewer as her personality can dominate the conversation (which is not what you want, you want the interviewee to be the focus) but her positive attitude and energy is something that MSNBC desperately needs amidst the nonstop negativism and arrogance enveloping the network.

Ali Velshi (B+). A great news personality and excellent at delivery and interviews. Outstanding at describing complex issues and problems. The only knock I regularly see is when he is forced to do things meant more intended for the network brand than on the actual delivery of the news. Sometimes it can make it feel like a hostage situation; you wish they would let Velshi just be Velshi. ³

Stephanie Ruhle (B). Nonstop energy, even late into the evening. If you are tired, turning on Ruhle and her delivery is like a jolt of caffeine into your system. That’s what I think of when I think of Ruhle. She can get so excited she starts screaming, which isn’t helpful, but can often be a fun show to watch. Should use her more.

***Ruhle and Velshi together (A). This was a great combination, mainly because they complement each other perfectly; both their personalities and deliveries are perfect antidotes to one another and it makes for great television news. I wish MSNBC would put these two back together for a regular show again.

Ari Melber (D+). Smug and opinionated, which is a terrible combination for a news show; sadly most of the nighttime lineup follows this pattern, of which Melber is at least somewhat tolerable compared to many of the others. In fact, the reason I placed him here is because this is the point where we venture further away from “news” and venture almost entirely into borderline propaganda territory. There’s nothing here (and in the personalities below) but subjectivity and partisan talking points.

Chris Hayes (D). Hayes is genuinely smart and wants you to to know it so much that he will argue and talk over anyone with whom he disagrees. So arrogant he smothers and ridicules any adverse position that doesn’t fit his preconceived worldview. This is not the point of a news program. The host should not be the primary point of focus, the story should be. At times, can be as subjective and disgustingly partisan as anything on Fox News.

Joy Reid (D-). Opinionated, and one dimensional. The show is unwatchable for more than 10 minutes unless you are a glutton for punishment and want to get knocked upside the head repeatedly by volumes of Kendi, Chomsky and Marx.

Lawrence O’Donnell (D-). Everything I just said about Joy Reid but so conceited and enthralled with his own opinion that it reduces watchability to only 5 minutes

FOX News

Anybody and everybody on FOX News (F). Yes, I watched two afternoons and nights of Fox News in the past week and found NOTHING of value here. I didn’t see a single redeeming quality. None. Not One.

It’s painful, biased, unfair, unbalanced and downright toxic. The amount of false or misleading statements on this network is overwhelming, and the patronizing of those who obviously intentionally mislead is galling. Worst of all are the omissions of actual news, which is more like hiding the ball, while they instead focus on smearing and tarring anyone left of the reactionary far right. The news stories and perspectives they choose to report are so transparent in their purpose, they may as well just rebrand as RNC News.

I’ve mentioned how sometimes some reporters on other networks are unwatchable; FOX News is unwatchable 100% of the time. Its showcase stars are horrible people and the epitome of the smug, elitist crowd, completely in contrast to the people they are supposedly preaching to. It genuinely has more in common with North Korean News or Pravda than anything else on American television. Words can’t do it justice how truly horrible this network is. What is further depressing is how they are losing market share to even further right outlets OANN and NewsMax; I don’t even want to consider how poisonous and cancerous those outlets are.

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

Tomorrow we cover the pundits. God help us.

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. To be fair, I generally hate panel portions of news programs, which devolve into the Crossfire ridiculousness and worthlessness I hate about cable news. Nonetheless, its still part of the cable news format and until it no longer is, we have to grade it.

2. One of the most compelling podcasts I’ve ever listened to was her “Bagman” about Nixon V.P. Spiro Agnew.

3. I’ll even add, he and Stephanie Ruhle are at their best when they are paired together. Ruhle is all emotion and force and Velshi is the objective voice of reason reining it in. Its a perfect pairing for nightly coverage; I don’t know why MSNBC chooses not to go this route.