Morris said he approaches his media appearances as an opportunity to lecture in a very big classroom. “I always view it as a chance to reach more people; to help them understand why this or that is an important issue for them,” he said. He also appreciates the opportunity his celebrity creates for his students. At least a dozen of them annually do interviews along with him. And, the estimated 150 students from assorted majors who conduct the university’s public opinion polls get to see their work publicly shared, not only locally, but across the country, from NBC’s Today Show to Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, the prestigious polling aggregation website. “It means a lot to our students to realize that they were part of documenting what was going on at that time in history,” Morris said.
Morris said, but a life experience that he’d like to have: Being yelled at by Chris Matthews.
more than a couple hours to leave Mercyhurst, go home and change into a suit, and make the roughly two-hour trip.
Morris has his favorite political analysts on both the left and the right, and on the left, it’s Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball.
Barreling down I-79, he got himself mentally psyched and prepped.
“He yells at everybody, whether he agrees with them or not,” Morris said. “I’d like my turn.”
But his exuberance took an abrupt turn when his cell phone rang just south of Meadville. It was the Hardball producer telling him that a breaking news story had derailed their original plans for the evening broadcast. Morris’ services would no longer be needed. He could feel the car slowing down, as if keeping pace with his disappointment. “I think I traveled home at around 45 miles per hour,” he said. But, he hasn’t lost hope. Hardball has used MCAP’s poll results in the past. He fgures an invitation will come again … and he’ll be ready.
And it almost came.
A couple years back, Morris got a call from a Hardball producer to come on the show. He thought for sure someone was playing a trick on him. He turned to the university’s PR director to check it out, and she determined the request was authentic. Since Erie does not have a satellite uplink, Hardball had rented a studio in Pittsburgh for Morris to engage in what would be a live interview with Chris Matthews. He had little
What’s next? Well, it’s not exactly a career goal,
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