The longest running show on television, Meet the Press, has moved to its 12th moderator and this switch is more important than most.
"Welcome to Sunday. It's Meet the Press."
To mark the transition moderator Chuck Todd made his debut on the the iconic show by interviewing President Barack Obama.
For a show that some have called broken — after all, it's fallen to third among Sunday morning political talk shows — Todd's debut elicited quick reactions from a number of outlets, including The Huffington Post, which wrote:
"The show was certainly livelier, less stuffy. It was like a living room that has been subtly tweaked—same basic concept, but isn't that a new lamp over there? The biggest changes were not in content, but in tone."
And that was one thing Todd was aiming to change, as he told CNN, to better relate viewers.
CHUCK TODD, VIA CNN: "We are in a bubble in Washington, we are in a bubble in New York. ... And when Meet The Press, when all political journalism is at its best is when it's channeling the Americans back through and translating that to Washington power players."
Still, some analysts have their doubts:
JOE CONCHA, VIA FOX NEWS: "If your goal is to go from third place where they are now to first place where they were under Russert, you have to be more appealing to the mainstream ... and I just don't know if Chuck Todd, being the wonk that he is, is the guy to do that."
Others have pointed to the fact that his background isn't in television as another potential tripping point, but Todd countered those claims by asking Politico:
CHUCK TODD: “Isn’t it better to have a political guy, and teach him television than have someone who learned all the tricks of the trade and teach them the topic?”
And that's an argument others are making, especially after the tenure of David Gregory, who some had accused of not being knowledgeable enough for the job.
As The New Republic points out, the changes in the program won't be down to Todd alone, as the show also got rid of its former executive producer, which the writer argues is a crucial role. "While the anchor is the one asking senators and cabinet secretaries the tough questions, it's the EP feeding those questions to the anchor's earpiece—as well as doing the legwork to book those senators and cabinet secretaries as guests in the first place."
In his debut, Todd asked Obama about a range of topics, including ISIS, immigration reform and the minimum wage. You can see the full interview on NBC's website.
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