Sagging 'Survivor' Plays the Race Card

Apparently Syler never got that memo about Chen being the current wife of CBS CEO Leslie Moonves (who's white, since CBS likes to keep score).

Either that, or Syler's dumb as hair.

Naturally, the interview with white guy Jeff Probst was conducted by white guy Harry Smith, because you wouldn't want a conversation about the cynical dividing of reality-series contestants by race in an effort to spike sagging ratings to be conducted by a member of, you know, an ethnic minority.

Smith began by saying he was "stunned and quite frankly dismayed" at the news. "I don't know from where I sit that this sounds like a good idea for a reality show," he said, adding that around the coffee pot, "Early Show" staff "groaned" and expressed "feelings of 'this has gone too far' " when given the news.

Probst said the original idea was just to jam the cast full of minority contestants this go round, but then they learned about "ethnic pride."

"It wasn't until we got to casting and started noticing this theme of ethnic pride . . . that we started thinking, wow, if culture is still playing such a big part in these people's lives, that's our idea, let's divide them based on ethnicity."

But because the CBS News program was so chock-full of other important news stories -- the demise of blackboards in the classroom, to mention just one -- there simply wasn't time for the two white men to debate whether, say, people of Spanish extraction will really root for someone of Mexican heritage because in this country they're both called "Hispanic," or whether people of Chinese and Japanese backgrounds actually share the "ethnic pride" of one big happy Asian American family.

Smith did have time to ask Probst, "Is this just some sort of stunt just to draw attention?"

Probst denied categorically that it was a stunt. Then he told Smith to blame those who have been critical of the whiteness of past editions of "Survivor" -- one of the whitest reality shows on television -- for the decision to do a battle of the races this fall. Nice touch.

"We set out and said, 'Let's turn this criticism into "creative" for the show,' " Probst said, adding, "I think it fits in perfectly with what 'Survivor' does, which is . . . a social experiment, and this is adding another layer to that experiment."

One minute and 32 seconds.