Last week, my colleague Megan questioned Oprah Winfrey’s inclusion on Forbes‘s list of the “25 most influential liberals in the U.S. media,” writing:
…here she is, included in a list of people who, while some of them straddle the line between entertainment and journalism, are, fundamentally, journalists–and whose influence, even more significantly, falls into the realm of “civic engagement” rather than “pop culture.” The two spheres are both significant, to be sure…but they are distinct. And we should be treating them that way.
Seems these spheres nearly became slightly less distinct. During his GMA appearance this morning, Gov. Blagojevich mentioned that he considered offering Ms. Winfrey Obama’s senate seat. Per ABC News:
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.“She seemed to be someone who had helped Barack Obama in a significant way to become president,” Blagojevich said. Blagojevich added that “she had a much broader bully pulpit than a lot of senators.”
His consideration of Winfrey was tempered, he suggested, by the fact that “she probably wouldn’t take it, and then if you offered it to her, how would you do it in a way it wasn’t a gimmick to embarrass her.”
