The Washington Post
May 25, 2000, Thursday, Final Edition
The New Face Of the Talking Head; Heather Nauert's Fast Path to Punditry
By: Paul Farhi , Washington Post Staff Writer
She has opinions, so many opinions, delivered straight into the
hungry eye of the television camera.
Here is Heather Nauert talking about school shootings on PBS's
"To the Contrary." And there she is yakking about politics on
"Politically Incorrect." And on Fox News Channel, she's
lambasting "the heinous tax system in this country."
The presidential election, Elian Gonzalez, gun control, foreign
policy --she weighs in on all of it. One night, the producers at
Fox News asked her to pass judgment on the latest Dixie Chicks
video. No problem!
Which makes you wonder: Who the heck is Heather Nauert? Why,
other than looking like the younger sister of another Heather
(Locklear), is she on TV at all? From what well of life-shaping
experiences do our anointed dispensers of video wisdom draw their
opinions?
Fox keeps telling its viewers that she's a "GOP Consultant" or a
"GOP Strategist," which invests Nauert with just the right
wonkiness and insider cachet. Except that she says she's never
worked for the Republican Party ("they need a label, I guess,"
she says.) Other times she's a "Fox News Contributor," which
means, rather circularly, that she appears on Fox News.
Sometimes, she's both GOP Consultant and Fox News Contributor.
Only 30, Nauert has run the alphabet gamut of TV punditry over
the past few years: MSNBC, BBC, CNBC, PBS, ABC. She has a regular
gig on the Fox News Channel, teleported via satellite to comment
on an astonishing variety of political and public-policy issues.
Sometimes--especially now, the political season--she'll pop up
three or four times a week. The Fox people think she's going
places, although it's anybody's guess where. One clue: Last year
she read for a co-starring role in a movie opposite Robert De
Niro (she didn't get it). She's got a William Morris agent, the
same guy who represents Regis Philbin.
"I told her, 'God made you beautiful. Now you've got to make
yourself smart,' " says Tony Snow, the host of "Fox News Sunday,"
who has coached Nauert in the pundit's arts. "TV can be a blond
wasteland. There are a lot of gorgeous people with only one thing
to say who vanish from the scene."
Nauert sees herself as filling a gap in the pundit firmament.
"It's more interesting to see a young person talking about issues
than a big old fat white guy," she says.
She adds, "If you're young and you can't back it up with smarts,
then people are going to say, 'Who cares what you have to say?' .
. . My belief is, honey, let me show you what I can do. Go for
it, girl."
Heather Nauert is the first to admit that her path to punditry
wasn't the usual one. She didn't work her way up the journalistic
rungs from "Sioux City to Cedar Rapids to Milwaukee," as she puts
it. Nor is she a former administration hack, or one of those
gray, grandiloquent professors retailing sound bites buttressed
by the ivied credentials of Harvard or Georgetown.
"From the time I was 16, I knew I wanted to do something on TV,"
she says. "I've been lucky opportunities have presented
themselves."
The scion of a prominent Chicago area family, Nauert wasn't even
out of Arizona State University in 1992 when she landed her first
regular TV gig in Washington. As a summer intern here ("I'd heard
that so much of the action was on the East Coast"), she won a
spot hosting a country music video program called "Young Country"
on Channel 50. It was an education: Nauert (her nom de TV then
was Heather Forrester) interviewed Willie Nelson and George
Jones, and learned her way around a TV camera.
And it led . . . nowhere. Nauert stayed in Washington and
finished school at Mount Vernon College, then went to work for a
coalition of small businesses and insurance companies, including
one owned by her father, Peter W. Nauert. She was a lobbyist and
sometime talking head, selling the insurance industry's line in
the budding health care debate. It was her first introduction to
politics and Capitol Hill. She liked it, but, she says, "I still
knew I wanted to get back into TV."
Her next chance came in 1995. Answering an open call, Nauert
earned a spot on "Youngbloods," a political talk show featuring
dueling panels of twenty-something conservatives and liberals on
National Empowerment TV, a local conservative cable network.
"I thought she was well rounded and could speak to a variety of
issues passionately," says Brian Jones, NET's then-general
manager and now communications director of the Republican
National Convention. "She wasn't so strident that she turned
people away. A lot of people on TV are just yellers and
screamers. She's able to hold a conversation."
And not exactly hard on the eyes? "Oh, yeah," laughs Jones, "but
you brought that up, not me."
Nauert spent a year on "Youngbloods." By day, she was working as
the Washington communications and legislative director for her
family's company, Pioneer Financial Services, a job she held
until the firm was sold in 1997 for $ 450 million.
In the meantime, she tried other avenues into TV. But except for
a brief stint as a business news reporter for a U.S. Chamber of
Commerce program in 1996, Nauert's TV career had gone flat. By
early 1998, she was doing consulting work for trade associations
and corporations, still waiting for her big break.
Then it happened.
Monica.
The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal created full employment for pundits
of all stripes, but in particular it gave wide visibility to a
subset of young, female conservatives--Ann Coulter, Laura
Ingraham, Barbara Olson, Kellyanne Fitzpatrick. And Heather
Nauert. With cable networks filling the air with talk about sex
and sexual harassment, the "pundettes," as they came to be known,
filled a market need: a telegenic group of women who were
predictably anti-Clinton. And in their own way, they were
breakthrough figures.
"There's been a general prejudice in TV for a long time about
women pundits," observes Bonnie Erbe, host of "To the Contrary."
"Women have been seen as smart enough to cover the news, but
there have been very few women . . . considered smart enough to
formulate opinions about the news. . . . That's not fair and it's
not right."
The networks had a strong marketing rationale for putting
attractive young pundits in the hot seat, too. News audiences
tend to be older--usually 50 and up--and predominantly male. With
so much competition among the all-news stations, the challenge is
to lure younger viewers, a group highly prized by advertisers.
"When I first saw her, I thought Heather was our demographic,
that she could bring in younger people," says Bill Shine,
executive producer of Fox News's prime-time programs. "When you
have [a pundit] who is young, and knows what they're talking
about, they exude more energy. Older women and men tend to . . .
sit back and relax. If you've got a debate show, you want that
energy."
During the scandal, Nauert urged President Clinton to "tell the
truth." She criticized the prosecution of Linda Tripp in
Maryland. She defended Kenneth Starr's investigation.
In other words, a cautious, predictable line from a "GOP
Strategist." But that's Nauert. Her TV utterances tend to be
sober, conventional--and, by the mudslinging standards of talk
TV, a little bland.
Asked by Fox News host Bill O'Reilly last month to make the case
for George W. Bush's presidency, for example, Nauert offered
this: "The general philosophy that Governor Bush has is that
America is great because of its people, because of America's
innovation, because of our generosity, because of our . . .
entrepreneurial spirit. Al Gore believes that America is great
simply because of the government. . . . I think what's important
is that we need a vision. A leader needs a vision. A leader needs
to be able to appoint very qualified people to his or her
Cabinet."
"Who?" pressed O'Reilly.
Nauert stumbled, "There's one gal. I forget her name. She's an
African American gal, and she's involved . . ."
O'Reilly: "Condoleeza Rice."
Nauert: "Exactly, and she does foreign policy. She is sharp. . .
. And so I think with people like that and through having had the
experience and knowing people through his father's administration
that he can help bring some of those people into his core group."
In any case, Nauert made enough of a positive impression early in
the Lewinsky affair that other producers noticed. TV begat more
TV. Fox News offered her a contract. The following week, "Inside
Edition" came calling, dangling a job as a Washington consultant
and commentator. Then William Morris agent Jim Griffin spotted
her and persuaded her to become his client.
"It was strange," Nauert says now. "Here I was, this kid from the
Midwest. I was thrilled, overwhelmed and really surprised."
Griffin advised her to take the Fox gig. Fox liked her enough
that it tried her out as a reporter on the Fox broadcast network
last year. Despite limited experience as a journalist, Nauert
produced two reports for "Fox Files," the now-defunct prime-time
magazine. The first was on wasteful government programs; the
other was about "dumb" federal and state laws. To investigate a
statute requiring employers to give U.S. citizens hiring
priority, Nauert pretended to be a stripper answering a newspaper
ad for "exotic foreign dancers."
For now, Nauert knows she needs to fill out her resume for "the
next step" in her career. "Coming to TV the way I did, I missed
some things," she says. "I want to do it the right way. I need a
stronger foundation to stay in the business and build a career
out of it." She's planning on keeping her Fox job, but this fall
she's moving to New York and enrolling in Columbia University's
graduate journalism school (she's also getting married).
In the meantime, she can dream. Her ideal TV job, she says, would
be "something combining politics and smart stuff. Something more
fun. Something that could show you're human, too. Reporters are
so serious that I have a hard time connecting with them."
Something maybe like, say, hosting the "Today" show?
Nauert is coy, but her smile suggests that would be just . . .
beautiful.
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~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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