It's Brian Lehrer, and this is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Wednesday, June 10th.

I don't know if you heard this yet, but Cops is canceled, the television show, that is.

The Paramount Network confirmed yesterday that

it had removed the reality show from its schedule as protest nationwide called for police

reform, and there are no plans for its return. This has been going on for decades, 33 seasons.

My next guest says, good, that's a start, but now it's time to

stop airing all cop shows. She says, for too long, television shows that star police have been

whitewashing police shootings and valorizing an action hero style of policing rather than the

harder, slower work of community building.

Alyssa Rosenberg is an opinion writer covering culture at the Washington Post,

and one of her latest pieces is called Shut Down All Police, Movies, and TV shows now.

Alyssa, thank you for joining us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Thanks for having me. I want to be clear, though, that column doesn't actually call for canceling

all cop shows permanently. What it suggests is during this moment when television production

is largely shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that this is a moment when a lot of

these entertainment companies that have made

sort of wide, broad statements about their support for Black Lives Matter

against police brutality and racism might take a moment to see if the shows that they're airing

actually match the values that they say they want to support both individually and professionally.

I don't think that, you know, we should cancel 60% of television programming immediately,

but I think that cop shows have always been a point of tension between the entertainment

...