The classic gameshow "Jeopardy!" is turning 60 this year, and CBS recently interviewed its new host Ken Jennings, a former contestant who took over after the passing of its longtime legendary host, Alex Trebek, in 2020.
It was a friendly interview and puff piece where Jennings talked a bit about his background, how he wanted to be (and ended up on) the show, and his 74-game winning streak that earned him a cool $2.5 million and led to NBC eyeing him as Trebek's replacement.
Even thought I don't watch "Jeopardy!" (or TV in general, for that matter), what caught my eye about CBS's interview with Jennings was near the end, where he said,
The great and the odd thing about "Jeopardy!" is, it's kind of universally popular. Old people like "Jeopardy!," young people like "Jeopardy!," red states, blue states. It's bizarrely universal. America still agrees that there's, like, a half-hour every day where facts do matter, and we are allowed to adjudicate things as right or wrong actually based on science and history. And I do think that's an important bulwark.
When you look at the current state of affairs, Jennings is on to something.
How sad is it that a 60-year-old gameshow is one of the last bastions of objectivity and lack of political bias in a world where everything must be politicized and viewed through some social lens?
That may be a bit of an exaggeration since there are still plenty of places where politics don't matter and objectivity is the order of the day, but not all of them hold the same universal appeal and prestige of "Jeopardy!"
Still, just in the past couple of days alone some of my fellow PJ Media writers have cataloged how even things like getting married are somehow racist.
Robert Spencer just wrote about how some white feminist professor used a bunch of ten-dollar words to basically say, "If you believe marriage is only between a man and a woman, you hate non-white people. Do not question me, look how smart I am. I teach at George Mason."
Related: Okay, So Now Marriage is Racist
Just the day before, Ben Bartee talked about a British report recently suggesting that because levels of melanin in people's skin can affect oxygen saturation in your blood, the people who manufacture oximeters are somehow racist because this was not taken into account in their designs for the devices.
Like Bartee said, maybe they simply could have included more non-white people in testing their products or incorporated means of measuring oxygen saturation taking melanin levels into account?
Nope, it has got to be racism.
Even just today, former President Donald Trump gave a speech during a campaign event in Ohio, where he said that he would implement strong tariffs on imported cars.
"We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those guys if I get elected, he said. "Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it."
Our friend Rick Moran described how the mainstream media only picked up on the second half of what Trump said, accusing him of calling for violence if he loses the upcoming election, blatantly taking what he was saying out of context.
Thankfully, the backlash to such obvious lying was swift and brutal.
See why Ken Jennings felt it was important to say "Jeopardy!" retains its appeal because it is apolitical?
