On Sunday, November 8—exactly one year before the next presidential election—Hearst Television will debut a new weekly political talker, Matter of Fact with Fernando Espuelas, across all Hearst stations.

When people ask host Espuelas what his agenda is for the half-hour show, his answer is clear.

“My agenda is to give people information and hopefully the enthusiasm to get involved in the political scene,” he says. “It’s not partisan. It’s not pushing one idea or ideology. It’s a broader concept of how America needs to fix itself, how we can’t sit back and say, ‘Washington is broken’ as if it’s some sort of excuse of our own inaction. “

Hearst’s VP of programming, Emerson Coleman, had wanted to work with Espuelas for some time.

“I’ve watched him in a lot of interesting circumstances, and have been able to gauge how he answered questions and interacted with audiences, and how he was really in tune to what’s going on in the political world,” Coleman says. “I thought the opportunity was right to do something on a regular basis.”

Coleman adds that in most Hearst markets, the show will be sandwiched between local Sunday morning local and national political shows like This Week on ABC, Meet the Press on NBC or Face the Nation on CBS.

“Because it’s a news-focused program, we have the ability within our newscasts to promote the show,” says Suzanne Grethen, VP of marketing and promotion for Hearst Television. “This show is a good fit with our on-going First Commitment coverage,” an initiative tied to biennial political cycles. Commitment 2016 is just now getting underway.

To help promote the show, Espuelas taped multiple custom promotions for all Hearst stations, and will also be available for “talk back” interviews with local stations leading up to premiere.

Initially, Grethen says, Matter of Fact will be touted via on-air, web, and mobile promotions.

“Once it’s on the air, we’ll have additional elements as well,” she says.

While there are currently no plans for entire episodes to be available online, highlights and segments will be posted on the show’s website, MatterofFact.tv, after each episode airs.

Espuelas believes many Americans are disengaged from politics, perhaps jaded by partisan bickering or the feeling that one vote won’t change the way things are done in DC. He notes a lot of political coverage is aimed at insiders, and therefore has limited appeal to the general public. That’s why his mission is for the show to provide Americans with the tools and resources to better understand and engage in the political system.

“In my experience broadcasting for Univision about politics across the whole country, I found the audience reacted most positively when we took a complex issue and deconstructed it in such a way that they could understand what really was behind the curtains, what really was happening with the Oz figure you never see but you hear about,” Espuelas says. “Once it’s demystified you bring it down to the essential formula for understanding or engaging in politics.”

His goal is to boil down political issues so viewers can understand how those issues impact them personally, and the nation as a whole. How does he plan to do it? By pushing politicians to go beyond the same old talking points they use in stump speeches.

“Most political leaders are so well media trained that the chance of them saying something interesting is really low, so we’ll redouble our efforts to have discussions with political leaders that are not standard, not canned,” Espuelas says.

“[We’ll be] filtering questions in a positive way so you’re actually forcing political leaders to explain their policies in a coherent fashion and be brave enough—it’s always a balance because people can get very flustered if you get them off their talking points—to question the logic of some of their decisions when they’re wrong. Empirically speaking, not as a position. Two plus two equals four, there’s no getting away from that. So when someone decides that equals five, you have to call them on it.”

Despite Espuelas’ reputation for asking tough questions, as soon as word spread about Matter of Fact, he was bombarded with calls from Capitol Hill insiders and other power players.

“[They were] congratulating me, but the subtext was, ‘We want to be part of the show, we want to be part of the conversation.’ That says a lot less about me, frankly, and more about the importance both political parties are putting on reaching voters across the nation.”

Coleman says Matter of Fact will air 48 episodes leading up to the 2016 presidential election. “We’ll be on the road from time-to-time, as it fits our needs,” he says.

Grethen adds, “Fernando is going to be making several market visits, typically tied to upcoming debates.”

“I’m very optimistic we’ll be successful,” Espuelas says. “But having Hearst as the producer adds a tremendous amount of credibility to the whole show. I think that will be a determining factor of whether we’re successful or not.”

Image courtesy of Hearst Television

Tags:


  Save as PDF