The
man who set a Guinness World Record for being the longest-running continuous TV talk-show
host, Joe Franklin, died at the age of 88.
When he signed off in 1993, he had aired 28,000 episodes of his New York talk-show over 43 consecutive years of chatter.
Dubbed “The King of Nostalgia,” he interviewed Charlie Chaplin, Elvis Presley, Marilyn
Monroe, John Lennon, Woody Allen, and every major personality of his era.
Joe
Franklin was old-school even back in the day.
As a kid growing up in New York I had watched him from time to time, but
thought he was boring and outdated. It
was just the ignorance of my youth. If
he had his show on television now I probably would appreciate it.
Even
in his late years, he didn’t shut up. He
had a radio show on WOR for many years long after signing off of television, and more recently he contributed to the
Bloomberg Radio Network.
Talk
shows today are at a crossroads. There
are interviews everywhere, from Today to Jimmy Kimmel, but how many pure talk
shows are there? The daytime ones are
putrid. Who is truly discussing and
debating real issues? The View sometimes
does. Ellen occasionally. It seems the work of informing and engaging
people on substantive issues is left to people who poke fun at things and in
the process trivialize matters. Yes,
that means Dave Letterman, Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and the late-night entertainers are leading the
nation’s dialogue on issues that are too big to be dismissed by jokes.
It’s
hard to launch a talk show that entertains enough so it has viewers and
advertisers, but that doesn’t dumb things down too much so a real discussion on
major issues can take place. I yearn for
the return of The Phil Donahue Show, Oprah, and their kind. Now, they sometimes went too far,
highlighting nonsense and things that are not so important but just
unusual. Still, I’ll take an episode of
people who slept with their daughter’s boyfriend if it means we also talk about
poverty, war, racism, women’s pay, the environment, and real stuff.
The
cable channels fail to discuss issues unless it’s done in a one-side, preachy
way. Even after watching Fox and CNN for
15 minutes each you aren’t left feeling like you heard from all sides. For one problem, they don’t confront one
another. The right and left used to
interact on TV, debate each other, and even work towards finding common
ground. That just doesn’t take place
anymore.
Bill
Maher tries, though he beats down Republican guests with a jab of snark and a
right-cross of fervent facts. America
needs – and wants – intelligent public debates, discussions, and fact-checked
presentations by qualified people. We
want to be informed, engaged, enlightened, and inspired to act.
Goodbye
Joe Franklin. Some of American discourse
has died along with you.
DON’T MISS: ALL NEW RESOURCE OF THE YEAR
2015 Book PR & Marketing Toolkit: All New
Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and
ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media
Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter
@theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more
important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by
BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.