Last Thursday I cut out of work early to trek out to NBC Studios. It was part of a series of events hosted by the Institute of Politics with Harvard students interning in the area. Although I’m not doing an IOP internship, I’m happy to jump on the wagon, especially since my first–and last–event was definitely one of the more interesting of the summer. We lotteried to attend a taping of the MSNBC show “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and then chat with the star and his wife, Kathleen Matthews. I think 47 signed up but there was only room for 15, my luck.
The taping itself was an interesting segue to the chat. Tom Ridge, who is a celebrity in his own right, was a guest that day. Although I confess that I don’t quite remember much of what he said during the program, he wore a pair of spectacular red shoes that Abby and I couldn’t take our eyes off of. Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker also appeared later in the episode, wearing jeans and scuffed casual shoes along with his suit jacket (I guess no one can tell on television anyway.) Lizza made a somewhat disappointingly empty polemical argument against the general media approval of Obama’s Berlin speech earlier that day. Maybe my perception is a bit skewed against him though, since set against the other guests of the day, Lizza looked barely older and significantly more ornery than the motley assortment of college students huddled across the stage. Matthews later told us that, though Obama’s venue and ambitious trip may have appeared to be products of overconfidence, he thought the speech itself was fantastic.
After the taping, Both Chris and Kathleen Matthews met with us in his large corner office, which was filled with obscure political artifacts (e.g. a flag that was a relic of the Whiskey Rebellion), photos of Chris Matthews with famous figures from his years on Capitol Hill, and evidence of later success as a cable news personality.
Both of the Matthews’ spoke with us at length about politics. Given the fact that shortly thereafter I would begin interning at a place that named Chris Matthews “Misinformer of the Year” and keeps a beat on his verbal indiscretions, and also given the fact that I watch Harball and don’t quite like the loudmouthed, stubborn caricature he portrays, I hadn’t realized how much experience Matthews had in government and policy before this meeting. In fact, the Matthews couple was politically aware in a way that reminded me that many pundits and personalities have much more depth and nuance in their views than they choose to portray. It doesn’t make their programs any more nuanced or informative, but I understand why they make them sensational. People would rather see a brawl between pundits than a friendly chat among friends. Kathleen was also a pretty impressive woman, though it was interesting to see how the journalist in her (she was an anchor for the local ABC affiliate for a long time) reconciled itself with the PR and business world she is now a part of. (Mrs. Matthews left ABC News’ Washington affiliate to be Executive Vice President of Global Affairs for Marriott. She had apparently been in Dubai earlier this month).
Their speeches where perhaps a bit more careful than they would otherwise have been, since there was a reporter in the room who was covering Matthews for a profile. I asked the reporter some questions about his story later (I tend to gravitate toward journalists rather than their subjects) and got his card so that I could look up the piece. Throughout our time in the office, he was easy to miss and managed to draw minimal attention to himself and his enormous camera. I later learned that he’d been covering capitol hill for 13 years.
Overall the event was interesting, and would have been better if the two overzealous and arrogant freshmen had elected to stay home rather than ask unnecessarily rude questions. We weren’t, after all, on Hardball ourselves.
