Jerry Springer - Host, 'Jerry Springer' HARDtalk

government in trying to find the girls. Now on BBC, it's time for

HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen Sackur. What do you

really want to watch on TV? I'd like to believe that it is the serious

and challenging interviews you get here on HARDtalk. My guest today

maybe has a different take. Jerry maybe has a different take. Jerry

Springer is the king of tabloid trash talking television in the US.

His show specialises in dysfunctional relationships and sex.

His guests curse, they throw chairs and sometimes they fight. Critics

call it cynical and manipulative TV, but it's made him famous and rich.

So does he care? Jerry Springer, welcome to HARDtalk.

Thank you for having me. It is incredible. Your show from small

beginnings has made you famous around the world and it is still

going across America and internationally. Probably because it

has a niche. When it first came on, we had never, at least in the

States, I can only speak about what goes on there, we had never seen

people on my show on television before. American television was

primarily upper`middle`class white. All of the sitcoms whether it was

Friends or Seinfeld were always well`scrubbed people speaking the

Queen's English and all of that. All of a sudden, in 1991, you come on

with a show with people who don't speak the Queen's English, they

might not be as lucky in their gene pool of parents or whatever, didn't

get an education or as much of an education. Yet, what they are

concerned about are the same things that wealthy people are concerned

about except that wealthy people learn to hide it better. I don't

find any difference between the people on my show and, I would even

say, the people who ultimately come on your show except that the people

of this show are better educated. But to think that they are morally

superior to the people on my show, I would say: Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Aren't you missing out one step in your story? When you first stepped

from politics, you were the mayor of Cincinnati for a while, to doing TV,

you did straight news and then when you first got the interview show,

from what I understand from looking at the records, it was pretty

serious. It was more like my show. But then you discovered that the

best way to get ratings and make money was to dumb it right down. OK,

that is not accurate but I understand why you would think that.

The show changed after three years. Two things. First of all, you make a

lot more money doing an Oprah`type show than you do during my show. The

other discussion about how we got to the show we had, I'll tell you

exactly how it happened. At the time we started, there were 20 other talk

shows on television. Everyone was trying to be like Oprah. We were all

trying to appeal to the demographic which at that time was referred to

as middle`aged housewives. Then, along came Ricki Lake. She was the

first talk show to go after young people ` high school and college`age

kids. We were walking down Michigan Avenue in Chicago with the executive

producer and I say to him, "As a business model, why are we trying to

be one out of 20 shows like Oprah, why not go after Ricki's show and be

the one out of two?" From the next week, we said that only young people

in the audience, young people on stage and young subject matter.

Young people are much wilder in their lives, much more open about

their lives so the show occasionally went crazy. Universal bought us.

"From that now on," they said, "you are only allowed to do crazy."

That's what the show was. You accepted the rules. You needed it

crazy. I wanted to be employed. Of course I did. Why would I quit? I am

interested in this: Why did you decide to go as far down the track

as you did? Typically on your show, the people you have on it, the

titles that you churned out, Pregnant by A Transsexual, Honey,

I'm A Call Girl. These are just from the 1990s. As your ratings got

higher and the audience got more and more crazy, you went for shows like

I Married My Horse, about a guy who had a five`year sexual, romantic

relationship with a horse. The implication of the show was that it

was sexual. If they were married, you would think so. Even a lot of

the affiliates across the US who took your show could not take that

one. They said that it was too extreme. It was! Why did you decide

that that was the kind of TV which you wanted to make? Why are you

proud of it? I'm proud of my show. Why wouldn't I be? Because it's

stupid. Yes, it's a stupid show. I always said it was stupid. But for

my audience, it's an escape from regular life. Here's what the show

is. I'm hired to host a show. I don't choose the guests or am

allowed to know what the show is about. I never know what it's about

until I walk in and they hand me the card and the card that you see me

carrying only has the name of the guests. I'm supposed to ask the

questions and then make jokes. That's my job. I don't watch my

show. It's not my interest. I would do one on basketball or on politics.

That's my interest. If I chose to do one on my interests. You take it of

your own volition. You chose to do this show. I'm not saying I

shouldn't do it. I love doing it. You tell me it's stupid and you

would never watch it yourself and it does turn the people on the show

into freaks and losers. You say it gives them a voice but... You have

made an elitist judgement that you are superior to the people on the

show. You are better educated. You have had better luck with parents.

You have a better life but we are all alike. Do not think that the

well`educated people are morally superior in any way to people of

lower income. For one hour per day, our show is about people that act

outrageously. That's what the show is! When you do the news, you don't

say, "I'm not going to report a murder because I find murder

dysfunctional. I find murder a horrible thing and don't want to be

associated with it. I will not do a show that talks about murder and

rape". You don't say that. That's your job to report it. It doesn't

mean you endorse it. If my job is to show dysfunctional behaviour, I

don't say that a man marrying his horse is not dysfunctional. Of

course it's dysfunctional! The murders are real. Tragic but real.

Yours is a circus show. Yours isn't real. It's real! They are living

with a horse! You don't think that's real? That's real. Trust me. If your

kid came home one day and said, "I'm marrying a horse", you would say

that that's real. You may have found the one human being in the whole of

America who thought he had married his horse. Let's not get stuck on

the horse. For people who don't know Jerry Springer, it may be worthwhile

to look at the style of the show. This particular edition was about a

transsexual. It was called Transsexuals Attack. It was about a

transsexual woman who was furious with her boyfriend because he has

run off with another gay guy. Let's look at the clip. Women don't

conduct their selves like this. He wants to be a woman! He can't fill

my shoes! INAUDIBLE. If I wanted a woman... I put time in this

relationship... You're going to flush this down the toilet with

that? CROSSTALK. Now you are telling me that that's not real? Those

people aren't really angry about that? Of course they are. That's the

great question about honesty and reality. Let me explain to the

watchers that the sound was out because you edit out swearing. The

show runs through the daytime so we edit out the swear words. You do see

plenty of fighting. The talk about being real and honest. You know that

back in the late '90s, 1998, 16 people who had been on your show

went to the media and said that the fights aren't real. They said, "We

are told when and how to fight. It's staged." They were proven wrong. It

is not staged. The lawyers were all over it. They made the accusation

and we got duped by them because they had made up their stories. That

sometimes happens. If you come and watch us, before the show starts,

they meet in a room with the lawyers and there is a camera on them while

they swear that everything that happens... There are documents to

show that it is true. Picking out that in 1998, someone said that they

faked it, well none of it is staged. That is wrong. It's not staged. An

individual guest may be dishonest from time to time but I'm telling

you that with 44,000 guests ` someone was probably on the show

once and didn't tell the truth and duped you. That doesn't mean, don't

watch HARDtalk anymore because people lie on the show. You speak to

politicians so it's a given that they aren't telling the truth!

Politicians may be a different category. Let's stick with what you

do. Vulnerability. You've had thousands and thousands of guests on

the show which you can't even remember, so many. There are many

people who had been on your show who probably were on your show against

their own better interests. How often do your staff, your team of

researchers, come across a great, unbelievable story of emotional

turmoil and say, "You know what, we couldn't put you on TV because that

would be counter to your own interests"? Quite a few times. I'll

tell you the process. We get thousands of calls a week from

people who want to be on the show and then give us the story and the

producers and researchers check to make sure that it is a true story.

Every once in a while, during that interview process it becomes clear,

for example, that a person may not be mentally stable or, as you say,

really vulnerable. They don't get on the show. Sometimes they do get on

the show. I'm thinking about the stories you knew I would bring up.

Asking that question assumes that because person is of lower income...

You in the news would never, ever ask a question... This isn't about

income. This is about what happened after the show. Nancy Panitz came on

the show with her ex`husband Ralph. He was in a new relationship. The

new woman came on the show as well and the new woman and the husband

attacked Nancy, calling her old and fat. Nancy Panitz went off that

show, distraught apparently but not so long after, when the show was

actually on TV, within hours, there had been a murder. Ralph was

convicted of murdering Nancy Panitz. Having exactly nothing to do with

the show, which is the part you didn't bother to mention. How do you

know? The court said... You asked me how we know. You just made the

inference that because someone was on a show, four months later they

committed murder, that that has to do with the show? You don't know

what happened that day. That day they got into a big fight about

being evicted from house which had nothing to do with the television

show. If you are asking me if of the 44,000 people on the show, whether

any one of those 44,000 people subsequently ever committed a crime,

of course. You give me any population of 44,000 people and I'll

tell you that a certain percentage of them will have committed crimes.

Don't connect it to the show. The warring couple who ended up in this

tragedy after the show was aired, hours after it aired, I just wonder

whether you sat yourself down and for a moment had a think about

whether it was time to move on, to do something else? They were fine

when the show ended. Go back to the assumption which I'm saying,

respectfully, is totally incorrect. You didn't mention to the audience

what caused the murder. It was four months later. The murder was born

out of the dysfunctional relationship which you aired on

national television. I'm asking whether that, having done that, and

seen what happened to that couple... It had nothing to do with the show!

Excuse me. I'm not responsible for the behaviour of 44,000 people who

at some point were on the show. If later in life, they commit a crime,

you will say that the reason is because for one hour, 20 minutes,

they were on the show? Which, by the way, the murder had nothing to do

with what they were arguing about on the show? You just told everybody

that our show had something to do with that. I do ask questions. Let

me talk about the course of American culture over 20 years of your

programme. When it started, it caused a huge stir. It was doing

something different. Now, every nation in the world has reality TV.

It gives voices to people that you have said, were voiceless. It

probably is not so much the case anymore. Do you think that the role

your show played has served its purpose? That it does not have the

shock value it used to have? It is not meant to have shock value. We in

television get too impressed with ourselves like we are really shaping

society. Let me tell you, human behaviour has not deteriorated

because of television. I would argue that human behaviour has not

deteriorated, period. There is nothing you see on any television

show in England or America or anywhere in the world that is

something that has not existed for thousands of years. The difference

is, 3000 years ago, people would gather in the marketplace or the

town square and they would chat with each other about who was doing what

in the neighbourhood. The difference is, we now have technology.

Technology has made the neighbourhood global. All of a

sudden, with kids on Facebook, the Internet, their cellphones.

Everybody is talking about what they do in their lives to the whole

world. Do they need Jerry Springer any more? Do we need HARDtalk any

more? I am just asking. Yes. We are social beings. We are fascinated by

what other human beings are doing. It is not needed. It is television.

It is television! I love the honesty with which you tell me that you

would not watch this show and you think it is stupid. If I may, I will

get a little bit personal and reflect on how you feel about a long

and successful career doing this show when in so many ways, your

early years pointed to something else. You were hired to work for

Bobby Kennedy in 1968. You were a very committed, political lawyer who

then turned to politics. You were a progressive mayor in Cincinnati. You

believed in things. You are a passionate progressive. I still am.

How do you feel about spending so long in this particular niche in the

TV business? You are a great interviewer. The way you ask the

questions, you make it seem like this is something I should feel bad

about. I am still passionate about politics as I ever have. People in

Ohio know that I do political speeches, organising campaigns. I am

politically active, I am not running for office. I still do want to run

the world but it is not how I make my living. I believe in politics

like I believe in religion. I take it very seriously. I do not want it

tainted by the need to make a living. I believe that when

politicians have to make a living, being re`elected, that you build

into an incentive for intellectual dishonesty. If I know that the only

way I can put food on the table is by winning the election, there is a

real incentive for me to say whatever the public wants to hear,

whether it is what I believe or not. I decided early on that my politics

would always be pure. But I would never stop being a liberal. Never

stop being progressive. I always decided I would not make a living at

politics, my job is being an entertainer, my passion is political

and I am just as active. I worked tirelessly for Barack Obama,

campaigning all around the country for him. Contributing a ton money

for him and I will do the same for Hillary Clinton, bless her. What I

find fascinating, it is a cliche, but the journey of your life,

because it is incredible. People will not know that your parents

escaped from Nazi Europe and your grandparents did not and were killed

in the camps. I know that you were very close to your parents, in a

sense, a lot of your life has been reflecting on what they went

through. Again, I come back to this point, you have been a huge success.

But were there not other things that you really wanted to do in your

public life that meant at some point, you might want to leave the

TV business? No. I will tell you why. I will say it again. I am very

active politically. Understood. I have not given up on that at all, I

just do not run for office. I am 70 now, what's the point? I do not run

for office, because that is not how I want to make a living. Politics is

my religion. I mean, I'm Jewish. It is like a religion to me. I really

believe in liberal causes. That is really important to me. I do not

compromise on that. I make my living... How I make money? I am an

entertainer. Why, in a free enterprise system, should I

apologise for being an entertainer? My views, someone should challenge

me on my political views. Yes, let's talk politics. You have always been

very open about... Maybe you are more left than most democratic

views. You are very progressive. You have just seen Barack Obama in power

for a term and a half. There are many liberals in America who are

disappointed with what Obama has actually delivered. Are you one of

them? No. Would I like him to be successful in every single thing he

is in favour of that I am in favour of? Of course. When you are

President, you are not a dictator and you do not get everything you

want, or everything I want. What I am happy about are the big issues,

he has been a great president. He saved the financial system, he saved

the auto industry, he saved the economy. He got us almost out of

Iraq, out of Afghanistan and now, for the first time, embarrassingly,

the Americans, we were the last to come to the table on health

insurance. We got off to a sloppy start but a couple of years from

now, all Americans will have health insurance. God bless him for that!

History will look back on these achievements and say, wow, great!

The President is 100%, so I am happy. Coming back to this point of

changing social attitudes, do you think that Americans are still

deeply conservative? No. We all give conservative speeches but if you

look and how people live, liberals always win in the end. I will say it

again: Liberals always win in the end! In the beginning, conservatives

will fight. They fought against Social Security, now no American

would even think of going without Social Security. They fought against

civil rights, now we have an African`American president. They

fought against women's rights and now, we may have a woman president.

Women have much more equality in America, compared with 30 years ago.

Conservatives fought against gay marriage and now, as you said, over

50% of the country is accepting gay marriage. Liberalism ultimately will

win but there will be battles along the way. If you had your time over

again, would you choose to have the political career that you tried to

have that, in the end, did not go national? Would you still take the

deal that you actually have? If God comes to me and says, Gerald, my

full name, I will give you?you can have another life and you can sign

for the exact life you've had or take your chances on another one.

Where do I sign? I am the luckiest person in the world. I have no right

to complain about everything. I have a privileged, lucky life. I say

luck, I did not choose to be born. I did not choose to whom I be born

with what health, brain, country. I was born in England, by the way. All

of this is a gift. Life is a gift. Lots of people work hard, I do not

know why I got lucky. Would I sign on, hell yeah! A great way to end.

Thank you very much. Unfortunately, northern areas were

rather cloudy again on Sunday with outbreaks of rain. To the south, a

good deal of sunshine around. Through the course of