'Situation Room' newsman not shy with his opinions

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- To watch Jack Cafferty in action on CNN is to see a 1930s celluloid character fitted improbably but neatly into the 21st-century TV news model.

Whether condemning the actions of politicians, Democrat or Republican, or calling out what he sees as government incompetence, Cafferty evokes the old movie version of an aggrieved newspaperman trying to slap sense into his town.

But Cafferty, a Pied Piper for viewers who are as mad as hell and have the Internet capability to tell us, is truly a modern electronic journalist.

On CNN's daily political news program "The Situation Room," Cafferty lays his opinion on the line right next to that of online correspondents who respond, sometimes in the thousands, to his topical questions and complaints.

He leaves the loud baying to other TV commentators, instead favoring a world-weary growl that approaches soothing. But his refusal to hew to a consistent partisan checklist on issues is startling; this guy would probably defy a label instructing "dry clean only."

And he has style. He's dour, he's dyspeptic, he's any choice of words that describe a chronic dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and he knows how to convey it.

Cafferty is at ease defending his approach and his right to the TV soapbox that, courtesy of cable and satellite, has plenty of room.

"I'm 63 years old, put four kids through college, survived two marriages, paid an awful lot of taxes and I figure I'm as qualified as the next person to take a look at the world around me and have some opinions on what I see," he said. "They're not always right but they're always heartfelt and they're always real."

"I think that's what viewers pick up," he said. "I'm not some hair-sprayed, programmed anchorette who's wound up for an hour, wheeled into the desk and sat there and the computer turns me on and off and the script comes out like it's supposed to."

Instead, the "Cafferty File" trains its gimlet eye on immigration protests, the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina and conduct of the Iraq war and to Muslims and 9/11. In return, he's drawn fire from those on the left, right and middle, as well as sometimes-scathing personal insults.

He said he shrugs off the character assaults. ("I'm a target. I ask for opinions.") But he is quick to defend the approach to newscasting so distant in time and style from his start as a TV newsman in his native Reno, Nev., when he turned to journalism because he couldn't afford medical school.

Does he have concerns about how he operates on "The Situation Room" (4-6 p.m. and 7-8 p.m. EDT)?

"If the question is, 'Do you have a sense of personal responsibility and professionalism about what you do?' the answer is yes," Cafferty said in an interview from his New York office, sounding more relaxed but not necessarily cheerier than on the air.

"I follow the news, I think about the stuff I'm going to talk about. If you second-guess everything you do, you begin to sound like everybody else, I suppose, and it becomes diluted and cautious and measured the passion goes out and the emotion goes out," he said.

Cafferty, his memory triggered, segues directly into recounting the newscast in which he got a jump on then U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay's legal woes.

"I thought (anchor) Wolf Blitzer was going to eat his script when I asked if Tom DeLay had been indicted yet, because he hadn't been," Cafferty recalled, adding: "If he hadn't been indicted he probably should have and I hope he goes to prison and sits there for the rest of his life. He's a jerk."
No longer 'dry, workmanlike and at times, dull'

There he goes again, spouting off with the kind of stuff that gets him pilloried on Web sites such as NewsBusters ("Exposing and Combatting Liberal Media Bias.")

But he can easily whipsaw, as he did with an on-air attack on immigration reform marches in which he argued that illegal immigrants "have no rights here, and that includes the right to tie up our towns and cities and block our streets."

That earned him an online brickbat from media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, which said Cafferty belittled protesters while "ignoring or dismissing their concerns."

He considers himself an equal opportunity detractor, one not wedded to an ideology.

"I tend to be independent. I went from cheering George Bush on to thinking he's one of the great failures to ever occupy the White House," Cafferty said.

This provocative figure is the same one who, as a longtime local New York anchorman, once was dismissed by a TV critic as having a broadcasting style that was "dry, workmanlike and at times, dull."

If that was the case, it changed substantially when Cafferty joined the now-defunct CNNfn. On a lark, Cafferty started to read on-air the e-mails "that were trickling in (and) kind of built this following," he said. His performance after the September 11 terrorism attacks led to a co-host spot on "American Morning," where his "Here's What I Don't Get Segment" allowed him to rant at will.

On "The Situation Room," he plays color commentator to stolid play-by-play man Blitzer. Cafferty also anchors CNN's weekend business show, "In the Money."

"In many ways, he's the voice of the Everyman on our program," said Sam Feist, senior executive producer of political programming for CNN/U.S., with "The Situation Room" among his responsibilities. "He just wants to hold our political leaders accountable, and he takes it very seriously."

Feist called Cafferty "a major factor in why the show is doing well." Compared to a year ago, "The Situation Room" has improved ratings in each of its time slots by double digits, with the competitive 7 p.m. hour up 12 percent from a year ago, movement that matters for CNN as it battles front-runner Fox News Channel.

When asked, Cafferty said he would love a program of his own but wouldn't say whether he's in discussions with CNN management. (Feist declined to comment.) The brass know what he has to offer and that, as Cafferty makes clear, is unlikely to change.

Asked how he feels about being routinely tagged a curmudgeon or grumpy granddad, as one writer fondly put it -- he is a grandfather, Cafferty notes dryly, married 33 years to his second wife, Carol -- his response is a verbal shrug.

"It doesn't matter whether I like the labels or not. People have their opinions and that's fine. ... I'm not working on an image."

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