Chris Matthews Explains His Hardball Reporting Method To Alex Trebek
Alex Trebek began his semi-annual “Power Players” edition of Jeopardy! last night, hosting Chris Matthews, Lizzy O’Leary, and the eventual winner, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. While the episode was as eminently watchable as every Jeopardy! installment, the most entertaining segment of the show was watching Trebek interact with the contestants– and, especially, watching Matthews explain to Trebek his method for covering political news.
Trebek joked with all the contestants, asking Gibbs why press secretaries were generally so nice before and after taking on the job (“Alex, you don’t ask follow-up questions!” Gibbs joked) and O’Leary whether she gets to cover the TSA as part of her CNN aviation coverage. He then turned to Matthews and asked how he prepared to cover the news: “Do you approach it from the point of view of ‘I have an opinion on the subject that I’m going to discuss today,’ or do you get researchers to find information first?” Matthews broke it down with a dramatic hand gesture: “this is how I work: fact, analysis, and then opinion. Report the news, figure out what it means, and then figure out what you’re attitude is about it.”
The interviews via ABC below:
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