Fareed Zakaria

There was a great article that I stumbled upon yesterday that is a bio of Fareed Zakaria. It is interesting to read if you follow Fareed at all, but the interesting part was the discussion about his television show on PBS Foreign Exchange:

Zakaria may be the pundit world's answer to the Backstreet Boys, but there's nothing sexy about Foreign Exchange. It has the standard muted tones of a serious news program, complete with generic set and antiquated electronic theme music. "People ask how we'll distinguish ourselves from the competition," Zakaria says animatedly. "What competition? There's literally not another show on American television that deals only with foreign affairs—you know, the other 95 percent of humanity."

In a daring move, Zakaria has chosen to have mostly non-Americans as guests, a technique that often yields surprising insights. He's discussed the Iraq situation with the country's deputy prime minister, talked to a Yemeni editor about the connections between Yemen and Al Qaeda, and gabbed about Islam's treatment of women with Muslim feminists. Perhaps in another era this wouldn't have seemed like such a bold move, but as one nation under Bush, we've grown increasingly proud of our insularity. Zakaria sees the media's reaction to the London bombings as an example of American self-centeredness: "Ten minutes after the British have gone through this terrible tragedy, we were already saying, 'How safe are our subways? Sure, London has just suffered this terrible catastrophic loss—but enough about you, what about us!' " he says, smiling. "I think this attitude does translate into the way we interact with the world as a government and as a people." He envisions Foreign Exchange as a half-hour corrective: "If you want to understand what's going on in the rest of the world, listen to what foreigners are saying about it."

Although he exudes ambition—simultaneously editing a magazine, writing a weekly column, hosting a TV show, and writing a book—Zakaria refuses to infect his show with glitziness. Movie star Natalie Portman recently appeared on Foreign Exchange to riff on her pet cause, microfinancing in the third world. Most hosts would've been thrilled to nab an actor with crossover potential, but Zakaria agreed only on the condition that if she gave a vacuous interview, he could kill it. "It turned out she really knew her stuff, and it's an important issue that's not at all sexy. But I was still ambivalent, because I feel there's a reason to be a PBS show, and I don't want to lose that." Chances are mainstream news outlets will continue to court him, but Zakaria claims he doesn't want to be the new Peter Jennings. "I love the opportunity to amplify my voice through television, and I love the idea of making more Americans aware of what goes on in the world. But being a TV star, you're chained to the camera; you can never really travel. And I don't know how you can understand the world that way." He's been to Iraq, China, and Germany in the last few months alone—he'd travel even more, he says, if he didn't have two small children and a wife in New York.
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He hopes Foreign Exchange can remain nonpartisan, unruffled by PBS's recent obsession with ideological balance. "Conservatives are now all of a sudden asking for affirmative action!" he quips, before bemoaning the way the media treat American politics as a partisan spectator sport. "The reality is that the American public isn't that polarized. I bet you a lot of conservatives watch Jon Stewart, and a lot of liberals watch O'Reilly, because they make news fun."

Bizarrely, Zakaria cites The Daily Show as an inspiration for his own earnest series, because "it gets to the core of news items in a funny, quick way. Obviously I have to do it differently since I'm not doing a comedy show—and, as Jon Stewart likes to say, I'm not preceded by talking puppets. But who knows, in some PBS markets Sesame Street might be on before me."

The bit about him and Portman is great. Zakaria has become incredibly unique. He enjoys a cult following through his frequent appearences on The Daily Show. He is an extremely charismatic and telegenic guy yet he chooses to dedicate the bulk of his attention to his smaller media opportunities, where the money and fame isn't. I don't think this is a bad decision, but instead one that makes his intentions crystal clear: he wants nothing but to increase the level of discourse in this country and to do so on his terms. Zakaria is another guy (like John Tierney) who deserves attention for his contributions to the country.

-Mr. Alec