Blue Collar Vogue

Abstract

Fox News No Spin Zone’s Bill O’Reilly and MSNBC Hardball’s Chris Matthews are exemplary of how mainstream news media markets the working man. As American Prospect writer Paul Waldman puts it, speaking of the two “blue collar” pundits, “[they] pride themselves in collars dyed the deepest blue, claiming to speak for the man and woman in the street … they posture themselves as ‘everyman,’ as ‘average Joe,’ or as regular folks with street smarts, and ally themselves with ‘hard America,’ where the real folks do the real work.”¹ However, O’Reilly and Matthews are modest examples of media-cultivated working-class aesthetics when compared with the media drama following the untimely death of Tim Russert in June 2008. The Meet the Press host not only conveniently held credentials as a hardworking, straight-talking man but also was the victorious “rags to riches” son of a father who toiled and soiled at two jobs, one as garbage collector. Russert’s sudden death while family vacationing in Italy initiated a more-than-week-long, nearly nonstop MSNBC tribute.²