Al Gore's favourite word right now is "progressive." He believes that the United States is, in general, becoming progressive. He believes that the tiny-but-growing all-news TV channel he co-founded, Current TV (which remains bizarrely unavailable on Canadian cable) is truly progressive. He says "progressive" a lot.
The former U.S. vice-president is sitting across the table from me and two other journalists in a tiny meeting room at the hotel here. I ask how he would define his role now – "political activist," "climate-change campaigner" or, for today, "TV executive"? This amuses him. He has a chuckle that sounds well-practised. In answer, he says "I'm just a recovering politician" and the truth of that is easy to see. He sits there, in what looks like an awkward position. His legs are splayed and he places both his hands on his left knee. Like a man waiting, always waiting, but alert, waiting to be called upon to stand, go to the podium and make a speech.
Today he's here to talk about Current TV, but also about the general state of TV news in the U.S. "We're the only independent TV news organization on the entire television platform," he says of Current TV. "And this is important to note. The country is in trouble. The dialogue about democracy is broken."
He's a bit steamed at the other all-news channels. Something that bugs him about CNN (one of his Current TV anchors, Cenk Uygur, would, at a later press conference, describe CNN as "drivel"), Fox News and MSNBC is the treatment of every issue as one with a 50/50 opinion context.
"What about the climate issue?" he says. "98 per cent of all the climate scientists in the world say that it's real. Every national academy of science, every professional scientific society says it's urgent. You gotta act. And then there are a couple of wackos who are on the payroll of large carbon polluters, so on TV it's a 50/50 issue. It's not a 50/50 issue, but both sides are given equal time."
He also says that most all-news channel coverage is biased, not just politically, but because it aims to favour the rich.
"The dialogue that occurs on most of the other news networks is seriously tilted toward the top of the income ladder, the corporate point of view, the conglomerate view. Current TV isn't part of any conglomerate."
This is true but it also means that Current TV remains a small outfit. It is in 63 million American home. (Fox News reaches 90 million, CNN, 100 million.) The channel's own website says of its distribution, "Despite our efforts, not all cable-TV providers carry Current TV at this point in time. The unfortunate reality is that while the dial of every provider is filled with literally hundreds of channels owned by the same six media conglomerates, it is a challenge for independent programmers to get a foothold."
Current was founded by Gore and Joel Hyatt in 2005. Last summer, clearly with an eye on an upcoming election year, it began to reinvent and strengthen its coverage. It brought on board veteran CNN producer David Bohrman. It hired Keith Olbermann, the outspoken, left-ish MSNBC anchor and he brought his show called Countdown to Current. With a new show anchored by Cenk Uygur (famous in the U.S. for his long-running radio show The Young Turks) and a new nightly election-coverage program hosted by former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, it aims to have impact.
It can only have a tiny influence but Gore says that Current is "a start-up" and, anyway, real impact and change is now coming from the fringes.
"I have an illustration of how we think we have already brought something to prime-time television that nobody else has. When Occupy Wall Street began, nobody was covering it except Keith Olbermann, and night after night after night he hammered away on it, harangued the other networks, asking, "Why is nobody covering this?" Eventually they did. And now a few months later, the 99 per cent/1 per cent framework has become a key part of the political dialogue in America. You have Republican candidates in South Carolina accusing Mitt Romney of being a vulture capitalist. I never thought I'd live to see the day! The whole dialogue has changed. And what we bring that's different is a consistent, progressive point of view, politically direct and hard hitting."
There's the "progressive" thing again. Gore is asked to explain what he means. "There's some polls that say X per cent are conservative, X per cent are liberal, X per cent are independent. When you dig deeper, what you find is that the one label that is used to self-describe people far more than any other in the U.S. today is 'progressive.'
"I think the country is getting tired of this "Borg" [a Star Trek reference to evil collectivists]of all-news channels putting out this right-of-centre agenda that keeps building the concentration of wealth at the top. The implicit agenda is eliminate the inheritance tax, cut taxes on the rich, don't worry about unemployment, even cut unemployment benefits," Gore declares with passion in his voice.
This is a good rant about American all-news channels but, I ask Gore, how can the news media, in general, get people to consume news and hear opinions that challenge pre-held beliefs? After all, anyone who reads a newspaper online is familiar with the daily onslaught of sneering from one partisan camp to another.
"First of all, I'm not sure that media feedback sites are entirely representative of popular views," Gore says. "Because I think there are organized efforts to influence them. You see the sameness in the comments. And I think the Internet culture, which is accused of 'balkanizing' audiences into separate points of view actually serves to cross-pollinate views more than the Internet gets credit for. I don't believe that people are really self-segregating into ideological cul de sacs."
A conversation with Gore is a bit bizarre. He veers from political issues to opinion on news media. Asked about the negative advertising campaigns that have dominated the current Republican primaries race, he has an answer that could last for hours, if there was time.
"I think that one of the reasons why politics in America has seemed to get crazier and crazier is that it's now dominated by big money," he says with a sigh. "Of course, the Supreme Court, with whose opinions I've not always agreed, declared that corporations are people and that money is free speech. You all know this, but now you're seeing how it plays out with the casino billionaire dropping $5-million onto Newt Gingrich's so-called Super PAC. That's happening in a very pervasive way.
"And on TV you see all these candidates line up to deny science and say that up is down and black is white; it's because that helps them get more big money. When you see gridlock in the Congress where they're willing to put the credit rating of the United States at risk and when the Tea Party Republicans are willing to drive the country towards actual bankruptcy in order to avoid any slight increase in the tax rates paid by the wealthiest Americans, that's because that's where their campaign contributions come from. They are bought, lock, stock and barrel."
The question is put to him – is this issue ever really covered by Fox News, CNN or MSNBC? "These networks add some value," he replies. "I don't want to be just critical of them, but I'm differentiating Current TV. We are politically direct. We do have a progressive point of view. It will be consistent 24/7."
At the end, of course, one can't help but ask for his take on current events, specifically the race to be the Republican candidate to challenge Barack Obama. His instant rely is this: "Romney is the probable, but in the course of winning will have created so many problems for himself that Obama is the probable winner. However, if the European economies collapse and the U.S. feels the brunt of the recession that ensues, then all bets are off."
In the context of all-news TV in the U.S., I ask, is it all just TV entertainment? Gore thinks for about five seconds. "It's pretty crazy, I'll tell you," he says. "The Republican race reminds me of a reality show where nobody gets voted off the island. How many times has a candidate been named a front-runner? I think seven times, at last count."
That's a good line. A recovering politician's line. In fact it's so good that, an hour later he repeats it, word-for-word, at a press conference. Then, inevitably, he told the press conference that Current TV is "progressive."