The journalist and television presenter, who died on Sunday at the age of 88, left his mark on our society. He fought for the disadvantaged. He did so with style and grace and a wonderful sense of humor. He changed my life and the lives of so many others.

Jeff Cohen / Common Dreams / August 19, 2024

Phil Donahue died Sunday evening after a long illness. He was beloved by those who knew him and many who did not.

He started out as a local reporter in Ohio, pioneered a daytime television show that brought social issues to a national audience, and was then more or less banned from television by MSNBC for questioning – accurately, correctly and morally – the cruel U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In the 1970s, Phil’s progressive themes on his syndicated daytime show brought his work to millions of people. He was a pioneer in syndication. He was also a pioneer in issues; his most frequent guests on his daytime show were Ralph Nader, Gloria Steinem and the Reverend Jesse Jackson. They appeared dozens of times as Phil advocated for civil rights, women’s rights and consumer rights. He regularly hosted Dr. Sidney Wolfe warnings about the greedy pharmaceutical industry and unsafe drugs. Although raised Catholic, he also presented advocates of atheism.

Mainstream media obituaries will likely focus on his daytime TV episodes that featured male strippers or other provocative performances, but Phil took the issues seriously – and did far more than most mainstream TV journalists to address the biggest problems.

I was executive producer of Phil’s short-lived MSNBC prime-time show in 2002 and 2003. It was frustrating for us to have to deal with the men Phil called “the suits” – NBC and MSNBC executives who were intimidated by the Bush administration and opposed all NBC/MSNBC efforts to do journalism and ask Washington tough questions before our young people were sent to Iraq to kill or be killed. Ultimately, Phil was fired because – as the leaked internal memo put it – Donahue was “a difficult public face for NBC in wartime.”

But before we were fired, we brought guests to the screen not normally seen on mainstream television. We offered a full hour with Barbara Ehrenreich on Labor Day 2002; a full hour with veteran journalist Studs Terkel; interviews with progressive members of Congress like Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich; and segments with “offbeat” Texas Observer columnist Molly Ivins; and gave a platform to foreign policy experts like Phyllis Bennis and Laura Flanders and Palestinian activists like Hanan Ashrawi.

No one on American television has cross-examined Israeli politicians like Phil did when he interviewed then-Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and later former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. They seemed stunned – they had never before been subjected to such questioning by an American journalist.

But “the suits” ruined our show when they took control and effectively implemented a quota system that favored the right wing: If we booked one guest who was anti-war, we had to book two who were pro-war. If we had one guest from the left, we needed two from the right. When a producer suggested booking Michael Moore – who is known for opposing the impending Iraq war – she was told she had to book three right-wing guests to maintain the political balance.

Three weeks before the start of the Iraq War, and after some of the largest antiwar mobilizations the world had ever seen (barely covered on mainstream television), the editors in chief of NBC/MSNBC canceled our show.

Phil was a giant. A major celebrity who supported overlooked independent media. He loved and supported the progressive media monitoring group FAIR (which I founded in the mid-1980s).

Phil brought Noam Chomsky to mainstream television. He fought to get Ralph Nader on the 2000 presidential debates. After 9/11, he appeared on every television show urging caution and resisting calls for a vengeful, endless war that would senselessly kill large numbers of civilians in other countries. He opposed active wars and the Cold War with the Soviet Union. He supported war veterans and produced an important documentary on the subject: “Body of War,” about the life and death of Tomas Young.

Phil Donahue left his mark on our society. He fought for the disadvantaged. He did it with style and grace and a wonderful sense of humor. He changed my life. And the lives of others.

He was inspired by the consciousness-raising groups he saw in the feminist movement, and he tried to do consciousness-raising on a large scale… using mainstream television. And he did it brilliantly.

Jeff Cohen is an activist and author. Cohen was an associate professor of journalism and director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, founder of the media monitoring group FAIR, and a former board member of the Progressive Democrats of America. In 2002, he was a producer and commentator on MSNBC. He is the author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media—and co-founder of the online action group www.RootsAction.org. His website is jeffcohen.org.