Christiane Amanpour new host of "This Week"

Am I the only one who sees this as a disaster waiting to happen? I know the Sunday morning political shows are so 1991 but Jake Tapper did a solid job "filling in".

These shows are full of self-important politicos who are spinning. How is a humorless, no-nonsense reporter like Amanpour going to be anything less than 100% unpleasant to these spinners?

 

Depends on what you think a disaster is. I actually hope she calls some of the usuals out on the bullshit they've been slinging for ages. It won't be chummy-TV, that much we know.

 

I've always felt the Sunday shows were problematic. Kind of like realizing Mean Gene was paid by the WWF. Russert was good because he knew the players but was somewhat removed from the daily give and take between reporters and politicians. A politician could be pissed about a story and Russert could say, come on my show and I'll give you a fair shake. By the same token, a politician who feels he has a good relationship with a reporter might go on MTP and get hammered. I wouldn't have had a problem with Stephanopolus keeping the gig. There always seems to be too much clubbiness on the shows.

 

I think you are dead on here, Dan.

Amanpour doesn't strike me as a person like Russert, who I could envision not being "friends" with politicians but being "friendly" enough where he could get the top guests. Tapper struck me in the same way.

ABC has moved around a lot of people lately -- and it seems that ALL of the moves have put the promoted person into the wrong role:

STEPHANOPOLUS - Now on GMA. Should have been kept on This Week. Acts "above" the fray on GMA.
BILL WEIR - Going to Nightline. Seriously?!? Should be on GMA instead of Steffy.
AMANPOUR - Going to This Week. Should be on Nightline.

There, ABC. That'll be $175 in 20 minutes of consulting fees.

 

I didn't understand the Weir move. I don't know what he adds to Nightline. There has been a lot of movement on news shows in cable and broadcast and I'm really surprised there hasn't been more diversity in the hires. How many shows/hours have opened up in the last two years? 20 or so between CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox and the only non-white people I can think of who have landed gigs are Bashir at MSNBC and Amanpour at ABC.

 

Charles Gibson's retirement really shook up ABC.

Sawyer leaves GMA for World News. I don't like a lot of what she does. I really miss Charlie.

George leaves This Week for GMA.

This Week uses Barbara Walters and mostly Jake Tapper. He puts their balls to the flames. I liked him.

I like This Week. It's on my DVR list and I try to catch it every week. I'll give Amanpour a shot. But I'm not so sure about her. She never did anything for me on CNN.

 

The thing that mystifies me about the Amanpour hire is that she's known almost exclusively as an international affairs reporter. She doesn't seem to have the "inside the beltway" experience you would expect for this gig.

 

Maybe that will be a positive.

 

I think it goes back to Jennings dying, then Vargas getting pregnant/Woodruff almost getting killed. Gibson was just the next guy up and was heading to retirement before the Vargas/Woodruff thing. Sawyer isn't the anchor of the future. Figure Stephanopoulus is next in line.