Tucker Carlson Gets Game Show; Media Coverage Typical

April 14th, 2007 11:24 AM
photo on MSNBC of Carons

 TVWeek and TMZ announced that “conservative MSNBC pundit" Tucker Carlson, will host a game show pilot remake of the Johnny Carson 1950s classic, “Who Do You Trust." While this is potentially good news for Tucker, what is more interesting is how these two sites described the former “Jeopardy” champ. 

TVWeek focused on Carlson’s conservatism while describing the show instead of his journalism background and non-scripted TV experience with shows like “Jeopardy” and "Dancing with the Stars":

CBS has tapped conservative MSNBC pundit and famed bow-tie aficionado Tucker Carlson to host its game show pilot "Who Do You Trust?"

(…)

And he would not be the first conservative pundit to make the leap. Columnist and former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein was the centerpiece of Comedy Central's 1997 game show "Win Ben Stein's Money."

TVWeek didn’t refer to Keith Olbermann as “famed big-browed liberal.” The closest it came was accurately stating that Olbermann has “swayed MSNBC’s prime-time tone to the left” but only in the context of describing why "Countdown's" ratings increased and his admitted dislike of MSNBC’s coverage of Clinton’s scandals.

TMZ was less professional and played the partisan game more strongly than TVWeek in a post called “The Price is Right Wing.” Does TMZ think people on the right don’t read their site? Like TVWeek, TMZ tosses out the name of his old MSNBC show, instead of his current one:

Bob Barker, Wink Martindale, Chuck Woolery and ... Tucker Carlson? Come on down!

 The conservative bow-tied pundit has a new "situation." He's signed to host a CBS game show pilot, "Do You Trust Me?"  

Now for the inevitable political slap-down of Carlson that confirmed that those who wrote and edited this do not watch his show:

How players feel about the Iraq War, the 2008 election and gay marriage will not play a role. *buzzer*

        

TMZ doesn’t label Chris Matthews and Olbermann “left wing” or “liberal.”  If TMZ were familiar with Carlson and his views, they would know that Carlson thinks we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq and isn’t fond of the choices for 2008, but in any way indicating that those on the right can have diversity of political views would ruin the typical media portrayal of them.  

So far, the major media haven’t picked up this story.