100 years from now students of communications may study THIS VIDEO posted on Crooks And Liars showing a battle royal between anti-war Phil Donahue and war supporter Bill O’Reilly as a debate showing two people who know to perfectly use early 21st century television as a communications/entertainment form.
Let’s just aside any ideology for one moment (which is impossible in 21st century America, we know) — seriously. What’s truly fascinating is to watch these two guys who both know how to use the camera and the format of a talk show to the max (the sedate intro, the building confrontation, the near explosion, the argument winding up with the final summaries). Both are true experts in the form.
You can say in terms of technique that this is one snippet of a cable talk show that shows the host and guest evenly matched. And you get a sense at the end that O’Reilly is actually pleased about how the segment went, in terms of presenting compelling “hot” television to his viewers (a reason why his show is one of the highest rated such shows on cable TV).
FOOTNOTE: We’ve watched this twice and still don’t know if O’Reilly truly gets angry or is just leaping on the reference to his nephew to veer the discussion into a different direction (a technique people of all ideologies use: going after the messanger and the messanger’s motives when they don’t like a message).
Great TV…which is why fans of O’Reilly and Donahue will each feel their man won.