TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/100190/1001250.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.5 KB | 114 lines

                                                                                VIDEO, Page 82

Keeping All Kinds of Hope Alive


Jesse Jackson makes an uneasy jump from politics to journalism


    The guest list will not, in all probability, include any
homosexual priests, women who fell in love with their rapists
or people who have had mind-expanding encounters with UFOs. The
show will air mostly in sober-minded Sunday time periods and
deal with such unsensational topics as the plight of the poor
and the future of the family farm. Yet TV's newest talk show
could easily rival Oprah's or Geraldo's on the controversy
front, largely because of its host. He's a newcomer to the TV
gab circuit, if not to controversial gab on TV: Jesse Jackson.

    The big question during the 1988 presidential race was, What
does Jesse want? For the present at least, the answer is, To
be a TV star. Early this month, Jackson made headlines (though
not as many as he would have liked) when he traveled to Baghdad
in the role of TV reporter to interview Saddam Hussein. Now he
is about to get his own weekly TV forum.

    Jesse Jackson, which debuts this weekend on 129 stations,
will be something of a cross between Donahue and This Week with
David Brinkley. Each hour will focus on one topic, opening with
a taped report followed by a round-table discussion led by
Jackson. A live studio audience will be on hand, and show-biz
celebrities may appear occasionally. The program will feature
other unconventional elements, including dramatic re-creations
and newsmakers acting as reporters. On the first show, for
example, Native American activist Russell Means will report on
Indian living conditions from reservations around the country.

    But what makes the show a unique, and potentially troubling,
venture is the politically charged presence of Jackson himself.
While asserting that the show will be "fair and balanced," the
former Democratic presidential contender does not hide his
advocacy goals. The show, he says, will not be "just reflecting
and recording and research. We intend to communicate, to act,
to make things happen." Says Michael Linder, who is producing
the show along with music magnate Quincy Jones: "It's really
rethinking what `issues TV' is. We want to be subjective as
well as objective."

    Talk-show hosts with strong opinions are not uncommon on TV,
but those with such clear political ambitions are pretty rare.
The question of how nakedly Jackson will brandish his political
agenda has caused concern among some show staff members as well
as station executives. "A small amount of political involvement
is inevitable," says Al DeVaney, general manager of WPWR, which
is carrying the program in Chicago. "But we certainly don't
want the show to turn into a soapbox for Jesse." Dick
Robertson, president of Warner Bros. Domestic Television
Distribution (owned by Time Warner Inc.), which is syndicating
the show, insists that it will be balanced. "What we hope we
will achieve is a forum for discussion," he says, "not a
platform for political ideology."

    What is uncertain is whether Jackson will fulfill that hope.
The host-to-be has already surprised his producers by running
for a "shadow Senate" seat from the District of Columbia, an
unofficial post that would give Jackson a vehicle for lobbying
for D.C. statehood. (Jackson won the Democratic primary and
faces only token opposition in the Nov. 6 election.) That move
has forced two important stations in Washington and Baltimore
to keep his show off the air until after the balloting, to
avoid any potential equal-time conflicts.

    Jackson obviously sees the show as a way of staying in the
public eye while contemplating his next political move. For a
model, he need look no further than former President Ronald
Reagan, who kept hope alive during the interregnum between the
California governorship and the White House by doing radio
commentary. Jackson's advisers hope the show will present a
"cooler" Jesse Jackson than the image viewers usually get.
"Most people only know Jesse from a 20-to-30-second snippet of
a speech, where he's near a crescendo," says longtime aide
Frank Watkins. "In TV terms he's `hot,' and he scares the
bejesus out of white people."

    Jackson sees no conflict between his dual role as TV
journalist and partisan political figure. "I'm a communicator,"
he says. "I'm a public servant, and some of my missions are
journalistic." But news executives are more dubious. When
Jackson tried to line up a TV backer for his recent Middle East
trip, he was turned down by all three major networks and
several other news organizations (including Warner Bros. TV),
before the magazine show Inside Edition ponied up $125,000. The
interview was something of a bust, partly because CBS's Dan
Rather got to Saddam first and partly, according to Inside
Edition producers, because the sharpest exchanges were deleted
by Iraqi officials.

    In his new guise as TV journalist, Jackson will have to
prove that he can elicit the opinions of others and not just
expound on his own. He will, moreover, have to demonstrate that
his TV platform is not simply a political launching pad. Does
Jackson consider his new bully pulpit a key to the White House?
"I see this as a key to all houses," he replies. "Everybody's
house will see this." Sounds suspiciously like a yes.


By Richard Zoglin. Reported by Michael Riley/Washington and
William Tynan/New York.