- Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich lasted four weeks in the Spring 2010 season of Celebrity Apprentice. He was fired four months before a federal jury found him guilty of lying.
Last week’s conviction of former Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich on 17 criminal counts reminds us of how TV found a way to turn a man facing federal corruption charges into an entertainer.
Blagojevich did not shy away from the spotlight after his December 2008 indictment on federal charges. And he received plenty of help from NBC and other media organizations who own the spotlights.
After the Illinois legislature voted to kick him out of office in January 2009 because of corruption, he found ways of staying in the media’s eye by appearing on The Late Show With David Letterman, on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and also took part in Rod Blagojevich Superstar, a Second City musical about him. Neither is exactly Meet the Press, but it’s common for politicians and others in trouble to avoid conventional journalists.
And then there’s the entertainment division of NBC, which wanted to put him on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me out of Here! during the summer of 2009. A judge wouldn’t let a man facing federal indictment leave the country, noting that Blagojevich should be preparing for his defense. (He would have earned $80,000 a week and made the trip to Costa Rica with contestant Geraldo Rivera, a Fox News employee, in a further blurring of journalism/entertainment lines.) Wife Patti Blagojevich took part instead, but was ousted after a few weeks and eating one tarantula.
Instead, NBC put him on the ninth installment of Celebrity Apprentice, where Donald Trump “fired” him after four weeks. (Blagojevich lasted one week longer than ex-pitcher Darryl Strawberry, who also knows about arrests and convictions.)
Blagojevich was fired on April 4, 2010. On Aug. 17, 2010, a jury convicted him on charges of lying; in June 2011, another jury found him guilty on most of the charges in which the original jury could not reach a verdict.
As U.S. News and World Report’s Susan Milligan wrote days after the verdict, “But there’s a line between being accessible and undermining the dignity of holding public office by appearing on so-called celebrity reality TV shows. There’s nothing to celebrate about breaking the law.”
In NBC’s defense, it didn’t have Blagojevich on an entertainment show after his first conviction. On the other hand, on multiple occasions it sought to entertain viewers by hiring a public servant who was impeached by his state’s senate and not allowed to hold another public office in that state.
Some questions for discussion:
- Should NBC have hired an indicted/impeached politician to be on its entertainment programming?
- What level of moral development (Kohlberg, etc.) would you say NBC opearated at when hiring Blagojevich?
- Would you say that any sort of indictment/conviction should keep them out of mass media? Should there be a distinction between types of people — athletes vs. musicians vs. actors vs. politicians?
- Is it useful to note that NBC did not continue to use Blagojevich after his first conviction?