Why ordinary Americans like daytime talk shows.

• Author: Saltzman, Joe

The daytime talk show is under attack by politicians, clergy, sponsors, critics, and any self-styled moral leader looking for an easy cause. People such as William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education, whose best-selling book helps parents teach their kids what he considers good moral values, and Senators Joseph Lieberman (D.-Conn.) and Sam Nunn (D.-Ga.) launched a crusade last year against what they called the cultural rot of TV talk shows.

These crusaders attacked the shows for sleazy and tabloid sensationalism, making the abnormal seem normal, and setting up perverse role models, but they just didn't offer a public critique. They targeted daytime TV's main source of revenue: the advertiser. And when advertisers speak, television listens. Companies such as Procter & Gamble, Sears, and Kellogg told the producers and distributors of the talk shows with whom they did business that standards had to be raised and content improved. If this weren't done, no more soap, appliance, or cereal commercials. When no one listened, the advertisers took action. Procter & Gamble canceled ads on seven talk shows.

When Rosie O'Donnell began her daytime version of the "Tonight" show and it became a ratings hit, the media jumped on the bandwagon, proclaiming that daytime trash TV was dead. Nice was in; nasty was out. Civility was back; rudeness was a thing of the past.

If the target had been any other kind of programming, there might have been a hue and cry over censorship. But the arguments focused on the worst part of daytime talk television-- sleazy topics such as "Women Who Marry Their Rapists" or an in-studio brawl with neo-Nazis. And everyone joined in the chorus: Get rid of the sleaze; bring on the nice. Hooray for Rosie!

But there is a deep, dark secret involved here that no one wants to talk about. The real reason these daytime TV programs make the politically correct Establishment uneasy is that they show a side of America no one wants to acknowledge. We live in an age where everyone on TV looks appealing and speaks and acts appropriately. There is no room on national television for the ugly, the fat, the inarticulate, the profane, or the unwashed masses. If you aren't thin, if you can't speak acceptable English, if you don't act and look reasonably normal by TV's standards, then TV has no place for you.

Daytime TV talk shows' biggest offense is that they dared to put on the faces of America we know intimately, but never see reflected in our...