Economy > Entertainment

A Whitewash for Jerry Springer

A new documentary tries to justify one of the most depraved television shows of the medium’s history.

Richard Kirk | May 4, 2026

A recently released documentary worth watching focuses attention on producers responsible for putting together The Jerry Springer Show.  This episode of Hollywood Demons (“Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!”) serves as a primer for rationalizing moral depravity.  The show also contains numerous comments by Dr. Drew Pinsky that include several troubling observations.

Springer himself, who passed away in 2023, is only briefly in the position of an interviewee, during which time he minimizes the impact of his decades-long program as “a stupid television show.”  He also distances himself from responsibility by saying he wasn’t involved in the nuts and bolts of production.  Presumably the star had little say about content and was “just following orders.”  Of course, he was also cashing fat checks issued by the accounting department.  In another absurd rationalization, Springer, who earlier in his career was the Democrat mayor of Cincinnati and a regular news anchor, included himself among the “regular people” who were picking themselves (via ratings one supposes) as stars of the show as opposed to a couple of executives in New York and Hollywood.  In another clip, he employs a “free speech” diversion as a defense for hosting twenty-seven years of what TV Guide judged the worst television show of all time, thus conveniently confusing what one has a right to do with what is right to do.

The producers and other major players behind the scenes can be divided into two groups: those who seemed hardened to any moral sensibility and those who felt pangs of conscience that prompted their departure from the show.  Among the latter group was an associate tasked with luring guests into ambushes via complimentary airplane, limo, and hotel accommodations.  The young producer quit after a “sweet” Southern mom was crying in his arms following a program in which her son callously insulted her.  That case of mistreatment was mild compared to........

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