In Saturday's Washington Post, CNN correspondent John Roberts is revealed as an authentic Harley-riding wild man:
A Newsman Goes Hog Wild
CNN's John Roberts plans to leave the camera crew behind tomorrow, stick his well-coiffed head inside a motorcycle helmet and join Rolling Thunder when the biker vets hit Washington for their annual memorial tribute to veterans, POWs and MIAs.
"I don't think I'm as straight as viewers may think," said Roberts. "I listen to rock-and-roll music and ride a Harley," a 2005 Fat Boy he bought last year. "I love it."
Roberts has been riding since he first tried to attach a motor to his bicycle at the age of 10. (That didn't work out so well.) The 49-year-old gave up motorcycles when he became a father at 28, but embraced the bike again last year. He rode with the Thunder with his teenage son last May. This year, his wife will be along for the ride.
"It's such an amazing show of respect of patriotism with such a broad spectrum of America," Roberts said of the gathering. "The guy who is wearing the brain-bucket helmet with the three-day stubble is just as likely to be the CEO of a company or a garage mechanic."
TCG isn't going to make fun of this, because she thinks it's cool. (His Harley isn't as cool as the Triumph she grew up riding on the back of, but we'll leave the motorcycle snob nit-picking to another time.) It's cool because, as the daughter of a war vet, she thinks Rolling Thunder is way cool; it's cool because it's highly unusual to see a member of the MSM supporting American military veterans in such a personal, positive, and high-profile way off the job; and it's cool because she thinks that news organizations vastly, vastly underuse their accumulated personality-capital, and it's great to see Roberts revealed as a real person, so to speak, off-camera. It's going to drive people who haven't watched him before to tune into CNN, I guarantee you. For starters, Roberts is giving the Americans who came from all over the country to ride their motorcycles in Rolling Thunder a highly postive view of CNN, if only through Roberts' ambassadorship. And Roberts knows this; it's why he gave the interview to the Washington Post.
TCG has been wondering for some time now why news personalities' actual personalities aren't utilized more as a kind of public relations with viewers. I'm not talking about the kind of raw emotion CNN prez Jon Klein encouraged his reporters to express during and after Hurricane Katrina (insulting in itself to the reporters trying to keep it together on air, but that's another post.) I'm talking about intriguing and light-hearted looks into the hearts and minds of personalities with the kind of ratings that indicate that there's a market for another level of information about them. Fox News Channel's Shepard Smith's Playboy interview is a great example.
All I'm saying is that news personalities have ratings, in part, because they have fans. And if there are reporters with ratings that leave something to be desired, well, sharing looks and insights into their personal lives, hopes and dreams helps politicians get elected. Why wouldn't it work to increase fan bases for reporters? Look at Fox News reporter Steve Harrigan, who files the most incredible reporter's notebooks for FoxNews.com, "Harrigan on the Hunt." Just read any of the comments people leave for him after reading his notebooks. People absolutely love Steve Harrigan for the way he puts his heart and soul into his reporting and his writing (regular readers of TCG know that she has always thought Harrigan is the greatest reporter and person ever.) More news personalities should follow Harrigan's great example, even if his great talent isn't as easily duplicated.
All I'm saying is that I wish news organizations would let us see more of the humanity and personality of their reporters...and I hope that any motorcycle-riding reporters from Fox News, or MSNBC, or any national news outlet, represent at Rolling Thunder next year.
