Seven Days Goes Dark
by Jim Pasero
Stephanie
Fowler, the host of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Seven Days,”
has an out-of-step attitude these days on moderating a current events
or public affairs show.
“I
like to have an ear for what is not said. The space between the sentences
leads you deeper to a person. Because what’s not there is just as
important as what is there, and that’s true in layout, in news stories,
at news conferences; absences are just as important. I listen for different
levels of discourse. I tune out the loudest, and attune my ear to other
tones.” What modern day TV moderator talks like this?
Maybe Stephanie
Fowler talks like this because she
is determined that “Seven Days” be a public affairs show and
not a current events show like its cable counterparts. And maybe it’s
because Fowler also is
a successful family counselor—that’s an unusual
second occupation for a television journalist.
Chris Matthews,
the host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” who is frequently lampooned
on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) for his shouting,
doesn’t talk like Fowler (Fowler describes Matthews as too pugilistic).
FOX News star Bill O’Reilly, who once anchored Portland’s
KATU News in the early 1980s, doesn’t talk like Fowler (Fowler on
O’Reilly: “It’s all about Bill. I’m the exact
opposite in every way). And KXL’s Lars Larson, who on Labor Day
launched his new national radio show on Westwood One radio network doesn’t
talk like Fowler (Larson is one of only three guests on “Seven Days”
in its seven year history not invited back. “He had his own agenda
and took the conversation way off course to get there,” says Fowler).
Matthews,
O’Reilly, and Larson, all successful, all male, all stars, and all
talk show hosts comfortable with the large ego it takes to get a show
to that level, and all three not worried in the least about the absences
of what’s not said, the tones, and the quieter levels of discourse,
the meaning behind the words. But that’s not Stephanie Fowler’s
style at all. She is not a big fan of the star system.
“I’m
uncomfortable making myself the subject,” says Fowler, “I’m
not a performer, never was a good television anchor. I don’t have
a great TV voice, don’t have the look. What I am is a purveyor and
analyst of information.” But it’s not that she can’t
do it, says Fowler. “I’m perfectly capable of being mean and
sarcastic, but I try to keep it in check.”
For nine
years as the host of Oregon’s only public affairs program, Stephanie
Fowler has delivered an understated but quietly powerful political discussion
show. And she’s done it for not a lot of money. Says Jack Galmiche,
OPB’s Chief Operating Officer, “it costs around $200,000,
maybe a little less than that, to produce.” “Seven Days,”
“Oregon Art Beat” and “Oregon Field Guide” are
OPB’s only local shows; the rest of the programming is national.
All three shows are popular and have considerable audiences. “Oregon
Art Beat” and “Oregon Field Guide” have local corporate
underwriters. “Seven Days” does not. And now that the legislature
is cutting the ten percent of OPB’s budget that it annually contributes,
Oregon’s only public affairs show is about to go dark.
Says Galmiche
about the show’s future, “We are going to take the show on
a hiatus in September. We’ve had difficulties getting funding from
the state, and with no outside funding, no corporate underwriter…”
Does Galmiche want to keep the show if he could find the funding? “Absolutely,
it’s a top public affairs show and our viewers have real value.”
Fowler admits herself that she has “no idea of the status of the
show.”
Seven Days
Producer Pete Springer comments, “I don’t think Seven Days
is going to come back. OPB is planning to do a public affairs radio show
in its place that will start in November.”
As word
leaks out that “Seven Days” may be cancelled, the response
to save the show hasn’t yet amounted to an outcry, or uprising.
Stephanie
Fower has heard it all before--that the show is… boring. One Portland
journalist who happens to be a regular participant says about the show,
“You know what they call it down in the legislature? “Seven
Viewers.”
Ouch. And
it’s not exactly a ringing endorsement when OPB’s Galmiche
responds to whether “Seven Days” is fast moving enough by
saying, “No, I wouldn’t say it’s too boring.”
More than
a decade ago, in response to a shrinking national audience for serious
television news, a national magazine ran the headline “Is ‘MacNeil-Lehrer’
Too Good for Us?” A headline like that all by itself might be a
show’s death, reminding readers of H.L. Mencken’s advice that
nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American
public.
In the “go-go
1990s” serious public affairs shows were not considered chic, hip
or fashionable with TV programmers. The ’90s was the decade that
saw KATU’s popular “Town Hall” disappear from weekly
viewing. Against this growing cynical chicness of a disengaged public,
Stephanie Fowler has been swimming upstream. Comments Fowler, “I’m
amazed at how unhip I am. I try to have some sense about what’s
going on in popular culture, but my tolerance is diminishing.”
But consider
for a second that Oregon and America in ’03 are very different places
than in the boom decade of the ‘90s. In the new, more serious decade,
and with more serious threats, does the public’s attention come
back to public affairs shows?
Hasso Hering,
editor of the Albany Democrat Herald, and a regular on “Seven Days,”
isn’t so sure. Says Hering, “People are as distracted now
as ever, and the state of the world has caused more people to turn off.
They are more likely to retreat into their own lives. The threats now
seem more unmanageable, more mysterious. They’re now stupid things
like Liberia and North Korea. Then, it was the Soviets and ICBMs and people
after awhile got used to it.”
Is Hering
right? Are people more disengaged than before the Nasdaq bubble burst
and before September 11th? The question was put roughly to OPB’s
Galmiche when asked about the size of the “Seven Days” audience.
“Your
question about the ratings for the show got me thinking and I went back
and looked at the numbers for “Seven Days.” I’m impressed,”
says Galmiche, “and I want to take a new look at the show.”
What Galmiche
found when he looked at “Seven Days” numbers is that between
the show’s airing on Friday night (after “Washington Week
in Review”), its repeat on Sunday afternoon, and its radio airing
on Monday during “Oregon Considered” that the cumulative numbers
for “Seven Days” for a week were “between 90,000 to
100,000.” That’s 100,000 Oregon college graduates, business
leaders, civic leaders, activists and voters. “I was surprised by
the numbers,” says Galmiche, “I am continually amazed what
a bang for the buck we get out of “Seven Days,” especially
because the cost of production is so low.”
Not a bad
audience for a show with no corporate sponsor. So how has the understated,
swimming-against-the-tide moderator, Stephanie Fowler, built such a quietly
powerful and loyal audience over the last seven years?
Fowler answers
by sticking to her life’s premise. “I’m just a middle-aged
lady with some expertise in public affairs trying to help people understand
what is going in this part of the world. It’s about the content.”
Having “some expertise in public affairs” is a typical Fowler
understatement. Fowler’s had a lot of firsts in her time.
“I
was in the first female class at Princeton,” says Fowler. “And
I was the first weekend sports anchor in Portland,” for KGW, although
she adds that longtime sports anchor Doug LaMear wasn’t crazy about
the
idea and that her interest in sports diminished when
“I discovered we didn’t have any major league sports teams.”
After doing
feature reporting for KGW, which she didn’t enjoy, Fowler joined
KOIN to cover the legislature. She says the change in assignments was
like going from “junk food to steak.” A few years later, Fowler
earned another first when the Oregonian’s editorial page editor
Robert Landauer hired her as the first woman on the paper’s editorial
page. Fowler took the duties, as usual, seriously.
“The
status of being on the Oregonian’s editorial board was not important
to me. I never felt anybody had to kiss my ring. What was important was
to take a strong position, so people can come to a conclusion. An editorial
writer needs to create a strong opinion, so that it creates sparks/tensions,
so that people can react. Not to persuade, but to help people come to
an opinion. I don’t like two-sided editorials. There’s an
obligation to help people come to an opinion.”
After a
number of years on the paper’s editorial page, Fowler became the
first woman to resign from the paper’s editorial page. At the time,
she was engaged to Oregon Senate President, soon-to-be Governor, John
Kitzhaber (Fowler and Kitzhaber would later terminate their engagement
and both eventually marry). Says Fowler about her departure, “I
wasn’t old enough to appreciate the stillness of the editorial page.
In TV, everything was perpetual motion.”
From the
Oregonian editorial page Fowler moved to
private
consulting in the early ’90s, or as she puts it, “I just toured
the other side of journalism.” She did media training, speechwriting,
advertising, ballot measures, and public relations. “It was interesting
work but I wanted to get back to my side of the fence.”
In the mid
’90s Fowler became the first
ex-sports anchor, ex-TV political reporter,
ex-editorial page writer to enroll for a masters degree in counseling
at Lewis and Clark College. Today, Fowler is a licensed counselor in Northwest
Portland. Is she any good? “They say I’m good,” says
Fowler.
It was during
her studies at Lewis and Clark that OPB’s Mike Sullivan approached
her with the chance for an unusual career combination: family counselor
and political moderator. “I told him I was shy about being in public
… that I was a harsh critic of myself and he said ‘we want
you for your background, your knowledge, your analytical skills.’”
Willamette Week’s Mark Zusman confirms Sullivan’s judgement,
“Stephanie is smart as a whip. If she ever takes sides in a debate,
I want it to be on my side.”
Since Mark
Sullivan picked Stephanie Fowler seven years ago to moderate the show,
she and executive producer Morgan Holm have built the quiet but powerful
audience. Says Oregonian assistant editor Dave Reinhard about that audience.
“I am amazed at the number of people that come up to me on the street
and say they watch the show. Hasso Hering takes it further. “I get
more comments about appearing on “Seven Days” than anything
we do in the paper (Albany Democrat-Herald). All kinds of people talk
to me about the show, whether I’m at Safeway or at the coast in
Yachats.”
There are
a couple of reasons that the audience for “Seven Days” is
as solid as it is, and they have to do with Stephanie Fowler’s approach
and growth as a moderator—a job that can look easy, but is deceptively
difficult.
Jack Kane,
general consultant to Kevin Mannix’s near-miss gubernatorial campaign,
acknowledges, “Yes, I watch ‘Seven Days.’ It’s
a pretty good show. I think that Stephanie has grown as a moderator. She’s
doing a better job than when she started. She’s more of a centrist
now than she is liberal.”
Adds longtime
senior political advisor to
U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, Dan Lavey, (who
calls “Seven Days” the show for the junkies
of the political junkies) “She is better and
more balanced. She’ll ask a question from a conservative angle if
others are not asking it, and even if she doesn’t necessarily agree
with that position. Two years ago she wouldn’t
do that.”
Conservative
columnist Reinhard agrees with Kane and Lavey, “Fowler makes an
effort to make the show balanced, but it’s hard because of the way
the media is in this state.” When Reinhard says, “the way
the media is in this state,” he means liberal.
Fowler is
aware of the problem and it’s one of the reasons she’s built
trust as a moderator, especially with Oregon’s business and civic
leaders.
On a recent
“Seven Days” episode that aired during this year’s legislative
session, the issue of media balance came up. Says Fowler, “This
session there were print stories saying the Republicans had a budget plan,
while the Dems had no plan, but they wanted more money. The press skated
on it for a while, and the Dems got a free ride with the media for having
no solutions. It was the exact same thing that the Democrats and the papers
railed at the GOP for last session—because they refused to be specific.
The media was saying it was more okay for the D’s to do it than
the R’s. Well, it’s not okay. If it’s fair to attack
the GOP in the ’01 session it should be equally fair to criticize
the Dems in ’03. After we did the show, it seemed more evenhanded
in the press. It’s a small, subtle point.”
Perhaps.
But it’s indicative of the kinds of things that matter to Fowler
and how she moderates for “Seven Days.”
Whether
it’s the media or whether it’s the people who have migrated
to Oregon in the last decade and a half, Oregon, and especially Multnomah
County, have developed a liberal culture (and something of a national
reputation) which these days some are calling more provincial than progressive.
Fowler comments on what seems to many to be an Oregon disease.
“Oregon
is the only place where I’ve met anyone who felt that friends and
associates should be picked on party affiliation. I find it shocking.
I’ve never experienced that before. Most people here are not like
that, but even if a few people here say that… It amazes me. People’s
worthiness should not be judged by how liberal they are, what party they
belong to. It’s very important not to dismiss people because of
their party; that is absurd and unintelligent.”
Fowler brings
these convictions to her role as moderator. “I have a sense of fairness.
I don’t affiliate with either party. I try on the show to make sure
that we’re not overweighed one way or another … I would be
horrified if ‘Seven Days’ was a mouthpiece for any one view.”
Fowler is
also “very aware of trying to maintain a statewide audience. I try
very hard not to be Portland-centric. The last thing we want is for viewers
to think it’s just a bunch of people from Portland yakking about
Portland. It’s only two or three times a year that we do a Portland-only
debate.”
Does she
have a favorite Oregon politician that she’s covered? “Vic
Atiyeh was one of the most underrated politicians in Oregon.”
Fowler’s
sense of fairness has led to only three people in the show’s seven-year
history getting the “Seven Days” axe. One, as mentioned earlier,
was KXL’s Lars Larson. Another was a reporter from OPB, and the
third was a reporter from North Portland ‘s Skanner. All three were
banned because in Fowler’s words they weren’t trying “to
further the conversation.”
The incident
that got the reporter from the Skanner banned occurred in an exchange
with Hasso Hering. “I think there were some punches thrown,”
laughs Fowler, implying it was a little too wild for her tastes.
“No,”
says Hering, “no punches. “What happened was, I was turning
and I made a conversation gesture and I bumped her (the Skanner reporter)
on the arm. I said, ‘Oops.’ The conversation had something
to do with welfare.”
Fireworks
may not be Fowler’s style, but she remains quietly tenacious about
the value “Seven Days” brings to Oregon. “This show
is important. I’m not saying it’s great. I’m not saying
it couldn’t be improved, but if it’s gone, there will be nothing
left, it’s the only public affairs show in Oregon. Whether or not
I’m the host is not important…sure I like being the host,
but that’s not the issue. This little show is the only meeting place
in the state for opposing and serious viewpoints.”
And Fowler,
like a lot of Oregonians, sees more need for a public affairs show now
than in the previous decade.
“People
are now more at sea about how to do it--how to operate government. What
role government should play in people’s lives. What solutions should
come from government. And what solutions from the outside. And how do
they interact. Where higher education is going. We don’t know the
answers. Lately we wallow around in the undertow. There are not clear
figures emerging…yet.”
“As
long as Seven Days is there,” says Executive Producer Morgan Holm,
“people don’t give it much thought, but when it disappears
people will say, hey, what happened?”
For moderator
Stephanie Fowler, a person who has made a career out of listening, of
finding the meaning in the silences, in the absences of things not said,
the absence of “Seven Days” from OPB’s lineup next month
would be a sour irony. And it would also leave a powerful audience wanting.
BrainstormNW - Sept 2003
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