Like most everyone else, I believe it’s time for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich to fade away. But his national media blitz before and after he was removed from office deserves revisiting — hopefully for the last time — because it highlights the often fuzzy line between news and entertainment.

Blagojevich conducted more than 20 interviews with television, radio and newspaper outlets, according to his public relations firm, The Publicity Agency, whose trademarked motto is “We Know News.” He was arrested on federal corruption charges last December 9, and his Illinois Senate impeachment trial ended with his conviction and expulsion from office January 29.

Despite questioning by more than a score of commentators during his 
frantic quest for media exposure, he stuck to his message:

• I didn’t do anything wrong.
• I’m not allowed to bring witnesses who will prove my innocence to the impeachment trial.
• The whole impeachment process is a political vendetta because I refuse to increase taxes and because I’ve fought to improve the health of children and seniors.
• I won’t comment on the upcoming criminal trial, but the statements on the prosecution’s secret tapes are out of context.
• I’m doing these interviews because I don’t want my young daughters to believe their father did anything wrong.

Time and again, Blagojevich repeated those mantras on such programs as NBC’s Today show, CNN’s Larry King Live and Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull, Fox News’ On the Record with Greta Van Sustern and Fox & Friends, MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, ABC’s Good Morning America and The View and CBS’s The Late Show with David Letterman, among a dozen others. 

Some interviewers, such as Letterman, did their best to try to pin the governor down on specifics; others, such as Geraldo Rivera, let him perform his routine without subjecting him to tough questions. The flamboyant Rivera even shouted down state Rep. John Fritchey when Fox brought the Chicago?Democrat on to try to add some context.

Day after day, Blagojevich kept showing up on network after network, until what may have started out as news morphed into merely nuisance. And by and large, the venues were not “hard news” shows, where he might have faced an adversarial interviewer, but so-called “news and entertainment” programs, where the hosts are more used to making conversation with celebrities and cultural icons.

In all, most of the interviewers did all right, but they didn’t venture far from their comfort zones. The bulk of the questions were of the “how did it feel when …” variety, and the follow-ups were few. That’s to be expected, though. Blagojevich was there mostly as a curiosity; the interviewers’ purpose wasn’t to bore audiences, who had turned on their programs to be entertained, or make them uncomfortable. And Blagojevich has proven time and again that he can be charming and glib when he needs to be.

Letterman probably asked the best question of all: “Why exactly are you here, honest to God?”

Blagojevich deflected: “Well, you know, I’ve been wanting to be on your show in the worst way for the longest time.’’

Letterman then hit the served-up pitch with the expected response: “Well, you’re on in the worst way, believe me.” It drew laughter and applause from the audience.

The talk show host later did demonstrate that he had done some homework by playing a taped conversation between Blagojevich and his brother about a campaign contribution the governor expected from a horse-racing lobbyist, then asking Blagojevich why he stressed that he needed the contribution before the end of the year. But he let the former governor get by with responding that he wanted to make the end-of-December reporting deadline. If Letterman knew that the more probable reason was because a new law restricting contributions was set to take effect January 1, he didn’t let on. But that probably would have drawn the conversation too far into minutiae for Letterman’s purposes, anyway.

The interview venues undoubtedly were calculated on the part of Blagojevich and his PR firm, though I’m not sure anyone — perhaps not even Blagojevich — knows the real answer to Letterman’s “why exactly are you here” question. And the sardonic host may well have been directing it as much to his own producers as to the former governor.

But after all was said — and said and said and said — in all the interviews, much was still left unexplained. Blagojevich’s problems aren’t new. The Chicago Tribune first reported the federal investigation into whether administration insiders were trading board appointments and contracts for campaign contributions in June 2004. This isn’t a recent reaction to his being recorded as apparently trying to auction off the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama.

Also, throughout Blagojevich’s time in office, he and his administration made it a public point to flout state and federal regulations. He spent $2.6 million in an attempt to import flu vaccine from Europe — which was never used — when he knew the federal government would not permit it. He authorized the importation of prescription drugs from Canada, which clearly violated FDA regulations. And he implemented a quasi-universal health care program after a legislative committee that normally signs off on such initiatives refused to approve it. Whether those actions were criminal remains to be seen. But in doing so, he alienated nearly every governmental entity he needed to work with.

And Blagojevich was allowed to profess over and again during the interviews that his purpose in choosing Obama’s replacement was to do the best he could for the people of Illinois. However, the court papers filed after his arrest contain a taped conversation in which he states his motives as “our legal situation, our personal situation, my political situation. This decision, like every other one, needs to be based upon that. Legal. Personal. Political.”

Had Blagojevich permitted himself to be interviewed by more traditional journalists than talk show hosts, he might not have skated on those and other issues. And he knew that.

Because a lot of newspapers and other mainstream media are facing tough financial times, many are turning away from traditional hard news and filling their pages and broadcasts with more stories that are meant to entertain readers more than inform them. There certainly is a place for that — I’m addicted to many of those aforementioned news-talk shows myself. But as more news outlets move toward entertainment and away from interviewers who confront their subjects, readers and viewers need to keep in mind that there is an important distinction.

Clarification

In an earlier online column, I referred to Kevin Finch, who recently was elected to the Bill Miller Public Affairs Reporting Hall of Fame at the University of Illinois at Springfield, as the Peabody Award-winning news director for WISH-TV, the CBS station in Indianapolis. He points out that “my station won a Peabody, and as news director, I went along to soak up the glory at the ceremony in New York. But a reporter, photographer and editor did the good work.” A clarification worth noting but still an honor to be proud of.

Dana Heupel can be reached at heupel.dana@uis.edu.

Illinois Issues, March 2009