Ever on Sunday: Talk shows are not immune from the expectation of good journalism

It is simply good journalism to give viewers relevant 

background about a news source before awarding 

that talking head access to the national ear.

Sunday is the day of rest. But if you're gonna do journalism, you darn well can stir yourself to do it right. That means background, perspective, needed information to parse what those guest talking heads are saying on the talk shows.

First it was NBC's Meet the Press with Tom Brokaw as host. Then it was CBS's Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer. Finally it was a replay by CNN's Wolf Blitzer with "the last word in Sunday talk."

All brought U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., onto their languid, day-of-rest airtime to oppose a bailout for the Big 3 automakers in Detroit. None of the talk show hosts apparently did their homework about the ax-grinding Mr. Shelby. 

Maybe the senator is right. Maybe he's wrong. It's an important national debate regardless.

So is knowing that Sen. Shelby represents the state that calls itself the "New Detroit" with a foreign accent thicker than his Southern drawl.

Shelby's home base is Tuscaloosa, Ala. –– just up the road a piece from the new Mercedes M Class plant. 

Follow Interstate 20 east past Birmingham, and you come upon the Honda plant for Odyssey and its other vehicles manufactured in Lincoln, Ala.

Or turn south onto Interstate 65 to see the new Hyundai plant outside Montgomery.

Cruise those Interstate corridors for the supply firms, the sub-contractors and enhanced dealer showrooms that complete the Dixie-Detroit manufacturing base that would benefit from a decline in the economic prospects of the original car-building capital.

Alabama achieved its status by opposing union work forces with Right to Work Laws and providing generous financial bonuses to the overseas carmakers for locating inside its borders.  

Is Sen. Shelby so parochial as to adopt a position just to protect, enhance and extend his own state's economy? Well, let's save that discussion for a day when we also want to decide whether the pope is a Roman Catholic.

But I'll do what the network journalists did not: I will divulge in fairness that Shelby is being consistent with his opposition to bailouts generally and voted against the original $700 billion legislation to come to the aid of Wall Street.

I am not, however, debating his consistency. 

I am declaring it is simply good journalism to give viewers relevant background about a news source before awarding that talking head access to the national ear.

At stake is the franchise for the whole Sunday morning talk phenomenon.