A political junkie takes helm at 'Meet the Press'
Chuck Todd was nervous.
There was no hesitation — no furrowed brow, no furtive glance at the publicist — when asked if he's been worried about his debut Sunday as host of the longest-running show on television, Meet the Press.
"Extremely. Are you kidding me?" says the 42-year-old writer-turned-political-maven-turned-broadcaster. "I've not slept very well in the last three weeks. I've got confidence in myself. But I don't want to let people down. I don't want to let my bosses down. I don't want to let (the late, legendary Meet the Press host) Tim (Russert) down. I don't want to let (former NBC anchor) Tom (Brokaw) down. I'm excited. But I'm nervous as (expletive). Why wouldn't I be? It'd be weird if I wasn't."
In the spurted-out answer, you can almost sense the litany of traits that drove NBC honchos to tap Todd to replace the show's former host, David Gregory, in an effort to revive the prestigious but ratings-challenged franchise — the instinctively assertive, but not prickly, response; the lack of pretension; clarity on the verge of over-articulation; and the sheer energy.
In an interview at his office in NBC News' Washington, D.C., bureau, where he spoke at length while fiddling with a baseball bat, Todd says he envisions a gradually evolving show that will navel-gaze a bit less about life inside the Beltway, report more from the heartland and rely more heavily on data and numbers to push back against self-serving talking points.
A Miami native — he's still a huge Miami Hurricanes football fan — Todd came to Washington as a teenager to study and pursue a career in politics. He left George Washington University six credits short of graduation to take an offer of a writing job from political news publication The Hotline. His frequent appearances as a guest analyst on TV, including on Meet the Press, led to an offer from Russert to join NBC, allowing him to bypass small-town stations on his career ladder.
With his non-traditional background for broadcasting, it's tempting to read his ascension at NBC News as an anomaly. But make no mistake. He's been on a natural progression, if not outright groomed, for the job since he was hired seven years ago by the universally respected Russert, who died of a heart attack in 2008.
From the beginning, Todd, a total political junkie, has served as the network's political director, assigning and prioritizing political stories for NBC's news and talk shows, as well as providing on-air commentary and analysis on NBC and cable cousin MSNBC. He has done other heavy-duty jobs for NBC News, serving as White House correspondent and host of a political talk show, The Daily Rundown. With 440,000 followers, he has a lively Twitter account. And he continues to write for the network's political blog, First Read.
He'll continue to be active on social media and write for the blog, but otherwise Todd will now focus on Meet the Press, which has run weekly since 1947.
Viewership for Sunday morning talk shows has dropped over the years. But the ratings decline for Meet the Press has been particularly alarming, eventually leading to Gregory's ouster. After dominating its rivals, it's now an also-ran, trailing ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos and CBS' Face the Nation hosted by Bob Schieffer.
After much speculation that Todd would be the guy, NBC formally named him to replace Gregory in August. Without hesitation, Todd accepted the offer from NBC News President Deborah Turness, which came via a Saturday phone call while he was vacationing at home. He says that even though he saw his name bandied about in the press, he was surprised. "Maybe it was my mother's Jewish upbringing of me, but I thought, 'Oh, that's never going to happen,'" he says.
So why you, Chuck?
"I think they're interested in the idea of Meet the Press as the political brand of NBC News," Todd tells me. "(I'm) someone who has entrenched himself in all the shows and leading the political team. I'm not a classically trained broadcaster. But I think television is moving in the idea of getting people who are passionate in the topics they cover and are experts. And as long as they can speak English and not totally scare people when they get on television, then you can find a model."
That he's no Ken-doll anchorman from central casting is not — and hasn't been for some time — an issue in his standing with his bosses. An NBC executive who was said to be once obsessed with Todd's trademark goatee — a source of many viewer e-mails — is no longer with the company, Todd says.
His father, who passed away at 40, had a beard and its color is exactly the same as that of his goatee. So he's not shaving. "This is going to sound hokey. But (it's) as if this beard is a piece of my father."
With Todd's appointment announced just last month, the transition logistics are a work in progress. Witness the unpacked boxes in his office, which is adorned with political books, George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger bobblehead dolls, cereal boxes, an unopened bottle of Coca-Cola Classic and a desk that once belonged to NBC News legend David Brinkley.
Even without a daily show, his wife, Kristian Denny Todd, frets that the new gig will turn him into a seven-day work machine and that he'll miss out more on the activities of their children, Margaret, 10, and Harrison, 7. "I'm a little concerned about the weekend stuff," he says.
When the time is right, he also wants to finish getting his bachelor's degree, to set an example for his kids.
CLARITY AND RELEVANCE
Todd jumped out of the gate Sunday with something of a bang, interviewing President Obama as his first guest. The show also named Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, as a senior political analyst and a regular contributor to Meet the Press, giving Todd a familiar face to turn to in group discussions.
But the Chuck Todd model of the show will reveal itself over time as he tries to overcome troubling viewership trends that may need solutions far more comprehensive than replacing a struggling host.
Earlier this year, Turness told The New York Times that she's looking for "more edge ... more of a coffeehouse conversation." But the show's format — interviews with lawmakers, a reported segment and a roundtable discussion — won't change right away. The set, with the familiar bookcase in the background, remains unchanged, although it will soon undergo renovations. "I view the first three months as I'm living in a house that's remodeling," he says.
Partly a ratings gambit and also an earnest effort to air out the show's stuck-in-the-D.C.-mud funk, Todd says he wants to find editorial guidance from the surging populism evident in both political parties. He will travel more to report from the middle of the country, He sees a dearth of good economic reporting and hopes to bring more of it to the show.
For the Sunday show, Todd introduced a new segment, called "Who Needs Washington?" and invited the mayors of Oklahoma City, Pittsburgh, and Tacoma, Wash., to talk about urban renaissance in their cities that the show says was made possible largely without federal help.
"I'm as pissed off as anyone watching D.C. not work," Todd says. "We're in this horrible period when no one wants to practice politics.
Todd's other goals: inviting guests who have done reporting on the subject at hand — ones who might say, "I spoke to so and so"; planning shows a few weeks in advance to ensure quality guests; airing questions closer to the hearts of middle-class America; steering guests away from talking points more urgently; and taking a more rigorous approach to balancing reporting with "facts and figures" rather than the trite he-said-she-said format of a Democratic guest jousting with a Republican.
His flair for data and strong news judgment won him the job, says Alexandra Wallace, NBC News senior vice president. "If you give him 700 pennies, he'll find the most interesting and valuable penny. He's like that about politics."
In interviewing President Obama, Todd pulled out a chart which listed the White House's to-do items -- including immigration reform and the issue of minimum wage -- that have not been fulfilled.
In a fitting display of Todd's strength and desire for data-centric journalism, the inaugural show also produced a graphic showing the percentage of Hispanic voters in southern states as the panelists discussed the immigration issue's impact on mid-term elections.
But the show needs more than tinkering at the edges, says Judy Muller, a journalism professor at the University of Southern California and former correspondent for ABC News. Pointing to Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and lately HBO's John Oliver, Muller says the show should embrace a more visceral approach to "making the comfortable uncomfortable" with deeper research. "What he brings to the table is savvy political insider knowledge, but he's got to blow up the table," she says. "This show, like other Sunday shows, is like watching a dinosaur race."
The issue of relevance isn't lost on Todd, who says he receives a ton of unsolicited advice on where the show should go. But a blind pursuit of a younger, fresher audience for the sake or ratings isn't a strategy. "I want to bring clarity and relevance at the same time," Todd says. "The entire industry is panicked about how to reach the younger set. I do go where they are. But I do think that there is a basic function that Meet the Press has to serve."
And that is explaining what Washington is up to, he says. He's less interested in digging through archives to find "gotcha" clips or focusing too much on calling out all instances of hypocrisy. "Everything should be about finding out why. Why isn't this bill going through? I know a lot about the why," he says. "I don't think the answer is to speed it up, make it funnier or make it comedic. This is Sunday morning. It's people drinking coffee."
Marvin Kalb, a former Meet the Press host, longtime broadcaster and now senior adviser at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington, D.C., also would like to see the show focus on the basics, emphasizing lengthier conversations with more penetrating questions.
"People want deeper exposure to important people," Kalb says. "We used to be able to say something as simple as, 'Senator, why do you think that's the case? Could you explain what you mean by that?' Meet the Press has gotten away from that. It'll be interesting to see if Chuck faces the new responsibility. He's clearly very bright and not intimidated by the camera."
In his interview at the White House, Todd was quick to follow up and press the president as they addressed a range of controversial issues, including the decision to delay executive action on deportations of undocumented immigrants, playing politics and the threat of the Islamic State.
He repeatedly interrupted the president's soliloquies, leading Obama to say more than once, "I'll get to that." Todd also drove Obama to admit that he "should have anticipated the optics" of playing golf after issuing a statement on the beheading of journalist James Foley.
In selecting Gregory's replacement, NBC bosses never really considered anyone other than Todd, Wallace says. And he will be given plenty of time to prove himself. Todd says his bosses reminded him it took Russert six years to go from third in ratings to the top spot and Brokaw's ratings ascension took even longer.
"I took that as, 'Oh, they have patience,'" Todd says. "Even if I have a short stint, I got to do it. And that's a pretty amazing honor."