One of the former hosts of the ‘Today’ show has expressed displeasure with the show’s move at bringing in former Vice President candidate Sarah Palin as a co-host on the show last week. The former host, Bryant Gumbel, was host of the show for 15 years before leaving for other opportunities. He returned to the ‘Today’ show for its sixtieth anniversary reunion show and told Howard Kurtz that he felt embarrassed by the show bringing Palin in as a co-host.
NBC decided to bring Palin in as a co-host in response to Katie Couric returning to the show’s rival, ‘Good Morning America,’ for a week. Palin was on the show for only one day and it helped the show top the ABC show in the ratings for at least that one day. Meredith Vierira also returned to the ‘Today’ show for the reunion.
Palin appeared on the show on Tuesday of last week and played the part of host as well as the subject of interviews. Palin was involved in heated conversations regarding President Barack Obama and also had light-hearted conversations with Tori Spelling.
Gumbel had some more interesting things to say about the choice of hosts on the ‘Today’ show. He told Kurtz that hosts “used to be judged not just on their popularity level but the extent to which they were capable of interviewing someone or reporting on a situation, or able to have a degree of gravitas. Now that is secondary to being popular.”