Issue date: May 23, 1999
You have to pay close attention to Chris Matthews' Hardball, the nightly current events talk show on CNBC. Turn your head and you may miss an important point. The same is true of his off-screen conversation. We kept up and learned:
SLOW IS BORING
"I think you should talk on television as fast as people can
hear... On my show, you get my point of view and the passion level that you'd get
from sitting next to me at the dinner table."
PACING IS IMPORTANT
If it's too slow, people will "find themselves doing what they do during Sunday morning shows - you can go to church and come back and they are still talking the same sentence." Take that Tim, Cokie & Sam.
Like other shows, political scandal dominated Hardball. In a post-impeachment, post Monica world, can shows like Matthews' survive? "Absolutely. The
show still has high ratings. Our show developed a very clear and
exciting character. It has a distinct personality...it's fast and hard
driving, no nonsense and important."
FAST TALK KEEPS FOOD ON THE TABLE
Matthews grew up in Philadelphia with four brothers. "You had to fight to get second helpings of food and fight to be heard." Also, he says, "You grow up in a big city, you talk fast."
HE KNOWS OF WHAT HE SPEAKS
He's a former politico, having worked as a speech writer for President Jimmy Carter and as a long-time top aide to Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. He also served with the U.S. Peace Corps in Swaziland after graduating from Holy Cross and graduate work at University of North Carolina. He's author of Hardball (HarperCollins, 1998), a political handbook and Kennedy & Nixon: The
Rivalry That Shaped Post-War America (Simon & Schuster, 1996)
LIFE IS A BALANCING ACT
Yes, he's an important TV host and syndicated columnist for the San Francisco
Examiner but at home he's just a typical dad and loving husband. He's married to news anchor Kathleen Matthews at ABC affiliate WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C. "She's the class of the family," says Matthews. Though he describes her as his "moral, intellectual and academic superior," she didn't share his harsh criticism of President Clinton during the year of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. "Her view is Bill Clinton is like the rest of us '60s guys, so everything he is guilty of is familiar and we shouldn't be so judgmental." Did they argue? "No, she just kept her views to herself."
-- Jeanne Wright
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