Richard Bacon Talks Nat Geo Explorer and Trump: 'He Doesn't Represent the Version of America I See'

The mood was positively funereal at Michael's today. I dare say it was very unsettling making my way up Fifth Avenue only to be met with a squadron of heavily armed police officers lining the corner at 55th Street. With nary a media maven in sight, I settled in at my regular perch (Table 27) and waited for my date, BBC television presenter Richard Bacon to arrive. We were meeting to talk about his gig as host of the newly retooled version of the long-running National Geographic Explorer series, which has morphed into something of a 60 Minutes for millennials, as an interesting hybrid of talk show and documentary series that's taped in front of a live studio audience. [caption id="attachment_390075" align="alignright" width="350"] Richard Bacon and Diane Clehane[/caption] About 15 minutes after the appointed hour ("Sorry, the traffic is terrible!"), Richard was all smiles as he extended his hand when he bounded over to the table and immediately ordered some tea and honey to soothe his raspy voice. "I hosted 30 friends at the SoHo House to watch the election," he explained as he sipped the soothing brew. "We were screaming at the screen all night." Then he added, "I'm having dinner with my friend Piers Morgan tonight. I hope I'll have a voice by then." Having landed in New York just eight weeks ago with his wife and two small children, Richard is still trying to make sense of Manhattan's social mores. Born in Britain, he spent the last year and a half living in Los Angeles ("The people are so easy there. The kids loved it.") and confessed that he is a bit shell-shocked by New Yorkers' outspokenness. "People here can go from one to 10 pretty easily, can't they?" he said after we'd both ordered the Dover sole and settled in for our chat. "I learned that recently from my real estate agent when I was a day late with a check. He texted me, 'Get me my f---ing money." Welcome to New York. He was interested in talking about one New Yorker in particular, President-elect Donald Trump, and the aftershocks in the wake of last night's stunning upset in the presidential race. "What do we do now? He doesn't represent the version of America I see and not the one I bought into," he said. "When I dropped my son off at school this morning, I saw this little boy whose family speaks mostly Arabic and I thought, 'How do these people feel?" And then, "I spent some time living with some Syrian refugees for the show. What happens to them now?" Richard compared the shock so many people have expressed ("I was getting texts all night") over Trump's victory to the reaction many people had over Brexit. "Just like we're seeing here, a lot of people were in tears and were left feeling pretty unsettled," he said. His take away on the election results: "America is so diverse, it's like several countries in one -- like Europe." But, he added, "I can't criticize people who voted for Trump because I don't know them." He explained that disenfranchised voters who have lost their jobs and think Trump may hold the solution shouldn't be chastised for their decision. "The problem is there is so much information out there it is so easy to be misled," he said. "But job loss is more about technology than about them being shipped out to other countries. When Trump promises to return jobs to the United States, he can't shut down technological innovators and that's the real driver. People may have had a good reason behind voting for him, like losing their job, but they're making a decision [to support him] based on inaccurate information." The new version of Explorer, which premieres next Monday night, is more relevant than ever in light of last night's election, said Richard. "In many ways Trump is a rejection of evidence and facts. Our show is all about facts." Each episode will feature the short documentary films reported by correspondents in the field including Bryan Christy (National Geographic Explorer, Explorer: Warlords of Ivory), Ryan Duffy (Vice, AOL/Huffington Post), Francesca Fiorentini (AJ+, Al Jazeera Media Network), Tania Rashid (Viceland, Al Jazeera’s 101 East), Tim Samuels (BBC Television) and Baratunde Thurston (The Daily Show With Trevor Noah). The segments will be discussed by Richard with a rotating roster of panelists. But, he told me, it won't be political. (I'm assuming all bets are off for the episode where filmmaker Michael Moore is part of the panel discussion.) "I have no interest in debating politics or in changing people's minds, but with Trump there is an isolationist [approach] and a rejection of facts. We explore big topics like race and surveillance. Stories like this is the age of Trump are less likely to get an airing." The creative team charged with tackling timely topics on a global scale include executive producer Lou Wallach, formerly of The Colbert Report and The Talking Dead and showrunners Nick McKinney and Meghan O’Hara, industry veterans who have produced several feature documentaries and were also the co-creators of The IFC Media Project. Every episode will feature Richard's one-on-one with newsmakers like Lara Logan, who will shed light on the real story of being a war correspondent in an upcoming episode. "The role of a war correspondent has changed. They are not just telling the story, but the act of reporting can change the war." Richard, who has had plenty of television experience in the U.K. in live television on programs like The Big Breakfast, sounded most excited about the aspect of involving the audience in the broadcast and injecting a bit of humor into the proceedings. "We taped a show the other day and I went into the audience to talk to them and found it brought a lot of energy to the show. I want to find more ways to involve them," he said, adding that he'll also do a monologue he's calling 'The Numbers' on every show. Before we said our goodbyes, the conversation circled back to Trump and Richard summed up his feelings about the last 24 hours. "It's the same America today that it was yesterday. It's diverse and complex and there are plenty of tolerant people," he said. "I woke up this morning and thought, 'Should we call it and day and go back? We've got Brexit [in Britain] so I'm trapped," he joked (I think). "We're not going anywhere and we're going to roll up our sleeves and go to work. If you want to escape Trump-ism and wallow in facts and information, you can run to the comfort of our show." Here's the rundown on today's crowd: 1. Steve Ross 2. Author Barbara Taylor Bradford 3. James Cohen 4. Jack Kliger 5. Herb Siegel 6. Andrew Stein 7. Glenn Horowitz 8. New York Social Diary's David Patrick Columbia 11. Artist Kim McCarty, wife of proprietor Michael McCarty 12. Morris Reid 14. Peter Hunsinger 15. Louis Forster 17. Marc Rey 20. Leesa Rowland 21. Robert Kramer 27. Richard Bacon and yours truly Diane Clehane is a FishbowlNY contributor. Follow her on Twitter @DianeClehane. Send comments and corrections on this column to LUNCH at MEDIABISTRO dot COM.

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Richard Bacon Talks Nat Geo Explorer and Trump: 'He Doesn't Represent the Version of America I See'

The roster of media mavens, moguls and boldface names spotted today at Michael's.

Diane Clehane

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Diane Clehane