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Firing Line
1966 · TV series · 30 min episodes · 34 seasons
Firing Line was an American public affairs show founded and hosted by conservative William F. Buckley, Jr., founder and publisher of National Review magazine. Its 1,504 episodes over 33 years made Firing Line the longest-running public affairs show in television history with a single host. The erudite program, which featured many of the most prominent intellectuals and public figures in the United States, won an Emmy Award in 1969.
3 positivefrom 3 commenters
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3 comments on Hacker News
+1, I also fell down a rabbit role of old Firing Line episodes recently. Buckley can be condescending and paternalistic; but he nonetheless engages in good faith with the other side, letting them sink or swim by their own words, which is an immense improvement compared to today's soundbite-strawman media landscape.
A couple elements I found interesting: young Arianna Huffington was explicitly anti-feminist [0], and Ann Coulter's case for impeaching Clinton [1] provides an interesting contrast to her modern support for Trump.
[0] https://youtu.be/NDs966SDgVY
[1] https://youtu.be/YbmAROJMswU
This is a pretty weak article with a smarmy attitude and mostly just a hit piece on Buckley (who I certainly have no love for) and a lionization of Baldwin. It's also filled with quite a few misleading, if not actually false, statements. See the paragraph mentioning Malcom X for an example.
Nonetheless, it's interesting to watch old episodes of Firing Line on YouTube. Buckley doesn't generally come across as the smarter person, but the guests themselves are usually worth watching. The show is a calm, rational discussion between people with diametrically opposed worldviews. This seems almost unthinkable in the shouting match, tribalistic media we have today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFeoS41xe7w
For those with Amazon Prime, a number of "Firing Line" episodes are available with better (relatively speaking) quality from Amazon for free. I think this is the same episode that you linked:
https://amzn.com/B007Q292FE