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ABC's Gibson goes 'out in the country,' to Dayton
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
You have to respect a guy who, off the top of his head, can spell "kerfuffle." Which is, of course, an obscure word of Gaelic derivation that means "commotion" or "fuss."
So ABC anchor Charlie Gibson earned my admiration when I phoned him last week to talk about the logistics of bringing the "World News With Charles Gibson" broadcast to Dayton, which the network did Monday, Oct. 6.
"It's a whole lot of kerfuffle," he conceded.
"I'm not sure I can spell that," I admitted.
"K-e-r-f-u-f-f-l-e," he said, without hesitating.
Not only is Gibson a good speller, he couldn't have been nicer or more generous with his time. Generally when you call media stars you get a stern warning from a PR person that the subject is very busy and has no more than a minute and 14 seconds to talk to you. But when I called Gibson at 11 a.m. and said I wouldn't take up much of his time, he replied, "That's all right. I don't have anything to do until 6:30." Which probably was a little joke, because I'm sure he had to go to lunch sometime.
And, regardless of their literacy, I certainly welcome all visitors to our city, especially those with generous expense accounts.
That said, the whole concept of television networks sending their news stars "out in the country," always struck me as a bit condescending. A little too much like, "Well, we've interviewed all the important people here in New York and D.C., so let's go see if Ma and Pa Kettle have anything interesting to say. And maybe we can buy some sweet corn while we're out there."
In a blog he posted in advance of his visit, Gibson explained it by writing, "When broadcasting solely from New York or Washington, we begin to worry that our viewpoint is a bit myopic, even parochial." Then he used the phrase "out in the country" five times in one paragraph. So when I reached him at his office in New York, I asked him why the opinions of those on the East Coast would be much different than those of us "out in the country." Especially those of us who have televisions.
"You have to guard against making it sound like 'out in the country' means 'quaint,' " he conceded. "The only thing I was trying to say there is you get so much of this city focused on Wall Street. It's a signal that the program really does care about what people all over the country are thinking and not just the ones in New York, Washington and California."
But why send an $8 million anchor when you can have a minimum-wage local reporter ask the same questions and feed them to the network?
"I think it's important for blokes like me to get out and hear these things," he said.
In half an hour of questions, the only one Gibson ducked was about why his interview with Sarah Palin had little impact, but subsequent ones with Katie Couric were widely ridiculed as "gibberish" last week and sent the candidate's stock plunging like a bank stock.
"To be absolutely honest, I don't want to get into that," he demurred, "I don't want to influence things in any way."
Which sort of disappointed me.
But it was no big kerfuffle.
Contact this writer at (937) 225-2439 or at dlstewart@DaytonDailyNews.com.
