Time to Pull the Plug on MSNBC?

[Denny Crane]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/11/22/time_to_pull_the_plug_on_msnbc_120753.html

It’s a question the suits at MSNBC might ask themselves today. A cable network informed with progressive sensibilities devoted to unearthing hard truths about this society is something people might watch. They did watch it in the 1950s and 1960s. It was NBC’s “The Huntley-Brinkley Report,” anchored by two newsmen with great gravitas, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.

In those days, NBC hired regional reporters with talent, people such as Frank McGee, John Chancellor, and Tom Brokaw, who would go on to become anchors themselves. The network distinguished itself covering the civil rights movement.

Their politics surely skewed liberal, but they told their stories with shoe-leather reporting that required physical courage when they went to the Deep South and good humor when going into the hornets’ nest of Republican politics.

Chancellor, covering the 1964 GOP convention in San Francisco, once set up camp in an aisle in the convention hall. Sen. Barry Goldwater’s supporters, not keen on NBC anyway, told him to make way for the delegates. When he didn’t move fast enough, he was ejected from the hall by security guards.

“I've been promised bail, ladies and gentlemen, by my office,” he said on-air. His sign-off that night was, “This is John Chancellor, somewhere in custody.”

I can see Chuck Todd -- or Rachel Maddow or Alex Wagner -- saying something similar. And that’s a news show I’d watch.

 

[Nikolokolus]

Almost all cable news is a sham in one way or another. Either they're run by partisan hacks, or they're guilty of manufacturing "news" to fill dead air and generate ratings and they usually race to the bottom to get there. CNN, Fox, MSNBC - charlatans and pretenders all.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Almost all cable news is a sham in one way or another. Either they're run by partisan hacks, or they're guilty of manufacturing "news" to fill dead air and generate ratings and they usually race to the bottom to get there. CNN, Fox, MSNBC - charlatans and pretenders all.

I more or less agree with this. There is really very little non partisan media anymore. And most have become entertainers first, agenda talking heads second and then maybe responsible journalists.

 

[crowTrobot]

time to pull the plug of FNC now that Bill Shultz is no longer on Redeye. Sad day.

 

[Denny Crane]

I thought the article is a good read. There are basically 3 salient points made:

1) Overly partisanship, over the top rhetoric results
2) 85% opinion, 15% news
3) Blemish on the good history that NBC has behind it as a news organization

 

[MarAzul]

I quit watching MSNBC not too long after they hired that Maddow chick. err, I might be wrong about the gender. They seemed to take a big turn left about that time, the G force left was too much. You needed no map to see where they were headed hiring a PHD from the Wilson school.
"Wilson was the first president to criticize the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2051567/posts
http://conservativecolloquium.wordp...n-americas-worst-and-first-fascist-president/

I agree with Huntley Brinkley and gang.

 

[3RA1N1AC]

Anyone watched al-jazeera america yet? Crap?

 

[Denny Crane]

Anyone watched al-jazeera america yet? Crap?

I think it's very good, actually.

 

[3RA1N1AC]

Everyone should just watch that then

 

[STOMP]

Television is to news what bumper stickers are to philosophy.

STOMP

 

[Further]

Liberals tend to read and search out sources, so a cable news channel has some huge hurdles to get a large liberal viewership. It's a very difficult target market.

 

[julius]

Liberals tend to read and search out sources, so a cable news channel has some huge hurdles to get a large liberal viewership. It's a very difficult target market.

I think this is very true. I don't pay attention to MSNBC much anymore, because it is no longer news, but opinions. While that works for Fox (not ALL of their shows are opinion, but most of them are), it just doesn't work for MSNBC or as Further said, a liberal audience.

Not saying liberals are "better", just different audiences.

 

[TradeNurkicNow]

i'd think that anyone who watches a lot of cable news, no matter the channel, is fucking retarded

but i might be wrong.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

i'd think that anyone who watches a lot of cable news, no matter the channel, is fucking retarded

but i might be wrong.

I pretty much agree. Agenda driven snippets and sound bites.

PBS and Meet the Press are pretty good.

 

[maxiep]

What MSNBC suffers from is any shade of disagreement. Like FOX or not, but they'll at least have some lackey weakly giving the other side of the debate. At MSNBC, they state a thesis, all agree and then just shake their heads in derision at anyone with a different point of view not even worthy to appear on their network.

 

[MickZagger]

What MSNBC suffers from is any shade of disagreement. Like FOX or not, but they'll at least have some lackey weakly giving the other side of the debate. At MSNBC, they state a thesis, all agree and then just shake their heads in derision at anyone with a different point of view not even worthy to appear on their network.

You must not watch morning Joe very often

 

[Denny Crane]

You must not watch morning Joe very often

Joe Scarborough going 1 on 10 and mopping the floor with the lefties.

 

[julius]

MSNBC and Fox both suffer from the same fallacy.

They act like they present the other side, but it's a weak counter balance, and usually someone who is actually a phony liberal or conservative.

 

[speeds]

MSNBC and Fox both suffer from the same fallacy.

They act like they present the other side, but it's a weak counter balance, and usually someone who is actually a phony liberal or conservative.

That and there isn't always a mirror argument. They promote false equivalence. There is such a thing as right and wrong.

 

[julius]

That and there isn't always a mirror argument. They promote false equivalence. There is such a thing as right and wrong.

Bingo. And they both hyperbole about things (although I think Fox hyperboles a little worse, AND their audience, usually older white people, scare easier).

Not saying MSNBC doesn't, but it's not on an equal level.

 

[Denny Crane]

That and there isn't always a mirror argument. They promote false equivalence. There is such a thing as right and wrong.

There is. How does MSNBC get it wrong all the time? Do tell

 

[julius]

There is. How does MSNBC get it wrong all the time? Do tell

being on the other side, politically is not wrong. Being factually wrong, (which fox "commentators" often are), is wrong.

 

[Denny Crane]

being on the other side, politically is not wrong. Being factually wrong, (which fox "commentators" often are), is wrong.

I think you're seeing it through a warped lens.

They're morally wrong. The policies they push hurt people.

 

[jlprk]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/11/22/time_to_pull_the_plug_on_msnbc_120753.html

It’s a question the suits at MSNBC might ask themselves today. A cable network informed with progressive sensibilities devoted to unearthing hard truths about this society is something people might watch. They did watch it in the 1950s and 1960s. It was NBC’s “The Huntley-Brinkley Report,” anchored by two newsmen with great gravitas, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.

In those days, NBC hired regional reporters with talent, people such as Frank McGee, John Chancellor, and Tom Brokaw, who would go on to become anchors themselves. The network distinguished itself covering the civil rights movement.

Their politics surely skewed liberal, but they told their stories with shoe-leather reporting that required physical courage when they went to the Deep South and good humor when going into the hornets’ nest of Republican politics.

Chancellor, covering the 1964 GOP convention in San Francisco, once set up camp in an aisle in the convention hall. Sen. Barry Goldwater’s supporters, not keen on NBC anyway, told him to make way for the delegates. When he didn’t move fast enough, he was ejected from the hall by security guards.

“I've been promised bail, ladies and gentlemen, by my office,” he said on-air. His sign-off that night was, “This is John Chancellor, somewhere in custody.”

I can see Chuck Todd -- or Rachel Maddow or Alex Wagner -- saying something similar. And that’s a news show I’d watch.

Good example of facts being all wrong. RealClearPolitics, just another conservative site pretending to be moderate, says Brinkley was liberal. He was the conservative member, Huntley the liberal, of the duo. It was arranged that way. I watched Brinkley smiling as he announced that Reagan was winning in 1980.

Nonpartisan Chancellor announced quizzically that of all the world events, for some reason John Lennon's murder was getting attention. McGee was well-known as a conservative. Brokaw worships the WW2 generation and was the Pentagon's spokesman in belittling the Shuttle, putting pressure on NASA to launch in cold conditions, killing a crew.

I thought the right considered CBS the liberal network? Now it was NBC? Looks like everyone's against you.

 

[julius]

I think you're seeing it through a warped lens.

They're morally wrong. The policies they push hurt people.

morally wrong? they were against the war in Iraq, are you saying it was morally correct?

 

[MarAzul]

Bingo. And they both hyperbole about things (although I think Fox hyperboles a little worse, AND their audience, usually older white people, scare easier).

Not saying MSNBC doesn't, but it's not on an equal level.

Ha! Damn I would like to meet a man that could actual say that with a straight face and scare me a little.

 

[Denny Crane]

Good example of facts being all wrong. RealClearPolitics, just another conservative site pretending to be moderate, says Brinkley was liberal. He was the conservative member, Huntley the liberal, of the duo. It was arranged that way. I watched Brinkley smiling as he announced that Reagan was winning in 1980.

Nonpartisan Chancellor announced quizzically that of all the world events, for some reason John Lennon's murder was getting attention. McGee was well-known as a conservative. Brokaw worships the WW2 generation and was the Pentagon's spokesman in belittling the Shuttle, putting pressure on NASA to launch in cold conditions, killing a crew.

I thought the right considered CBS the liberal network? Now it was NBC? Looks like everyone's against you.

I think you have trouble with the facts. The article says Huntley and Brinkley had gravitas, not that either one was conservative or not.

 

[TradeNurkicNow]

morally wrong? they were against the war in Iraq, are you saying it was morally correct?

you've talked to Denny before right? I think you know the answer to that

 

[Denny Crane]

morally wrong? they were against the war in Iraq, are you saying it was morally correct?

They were?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/...-Chris-Matthews-forgets-his-show-began-in-99#

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/20...ooking-the-role-of-media-in-selling-iraq-war/

Between August 20, 2002, and the start of the Iraq War on March 19, 2003, Gen. Barry McCaffrey appeared on NBC, CNBC or MSNBC to offer comments on Iraq more than 140 times. He was on MSNBC at least 75 times. McCaffrey was one of 75 military analysts that the New York Times exposed as participants in a Pentagon propaganda campaign. As described in the exposé, “The campaign, begun in 2002 but suspended after the article’s publication, sought to transform the analysts into “surrogates” and “message force multipliers” for the Bush administration, records show. The analysts, many with military industry ties, were wooed in private briefings, showered with talking points and escorted on tours of Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.”

The conversation on cable news programs stigmatized opposition. MSNBC host Chris Matthews used his program, “Hardball,” to highlight European opposition to going to war in Iraq. He was constantly asking guests to explain their anti-Americanism. On February 6, 2003, one day after Powell did his presentation at the UN, he asked Sen. John Edwards about the French:

MATTHEWS: How would you encourage the countries of France, I don’t mean the governments because Chirac could be doing anything. We don’t know what his motives are. Why do the polls show in Spain, in all the countries, even the ones who’ve signed the letter supporting the president’s position, why all over Europe and most of the world they think we’re the one causing this fight. That the Iraqi — we’re the more dangerous country. How did that happen? Is that Bush’s fault, the perception that we’re Goliath and Iraq is David, and we’re the bad guys? Whose fault is that or is it the policy’s fault?

Matthews, as New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman reported, wanted MSNBC host Phil Donahue to be fired. “Executives expressed increasing unease about his vocal opposition to the looming war in Iraq.” Matthews was upset that “significant resources” were being put into Donahue’s show. “With the war looming, MSNBC president Erik Sorenson and Phil Griffin decided to take him off the air “to make way for 24/7 war coverage.”

 

[jlprk]

They were?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/...-Chris-Matthews-forgets-his-show-began-in-99#

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/20...ooking-the-role-of-media-in-selling-iraq-war/

Between August 20, 2002, and the start of the Iraq War on March 19, 2003, Gen. Barry McCaffrey appeared on NBC, CNBC or MSNBC to offer comments on Iraq more than 140 times. He was on MSNBC at least 75 times. McCaffrey was one of 75 military analysts that the New York Times exposed as participants in a Pentagon propaganda campaign. As described in the exposé, “The campaign, begun in 2002 but suspended after the article’s publication, sought to transform the analysts into “surrogates” and “message force multipliers” for the Bush administration, records show. The analysts, many with military industry ties, were wooed in private briefings, showered with talking points and escorted on tours of Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.”

The conversation on cable news programs stigmatized opposition. MSNBC host Chris Matthews used his program, “Hardball,” to highlight European opposition to going to war in Iraq. He was constantly asking guests to explain their anti-Americanism. On February 6, 2003, one day after Powell did his presentation at the UN, he asked Sen. John Edwards about the French:

MATTHEWS: How would you encourage the countries of France, I don’t mean the governments because Chirac could be doing anything. We don’t know what his motives are. Why do the polls show in Spain, in all the countries, even the ones who’ve signed the letter supporting the president’s position, why all over Europe and most of the world they think we’re the one causing this fight. That the Iraqi — we’re the more dangerous country. How did that happen? Is that Bush’s fault, the perception that we’re Goliath and Iraq is David, and we’re the bad guys? Whose fault is that or is it the policy’s fault?

Matthews, as New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman reported, wanted MSNBC host Phil Donahue to be fired. “Executives expressed increasing unease about his vocal opposition to the looming war in Iraq.” Matthews was upset that “significant resources” were being put into Donahue’s show. “With the war looming, MSNBC president Erik Sorenson and Phil Griffin decided to take him off the air “to make way for 24/7 war coverage.”

When MSNBC began, the head guy (whatever his name was) blustered that Fox wasn't conservative enough and that his network would fill in the gap to Fox's right. They had Chris Matthews, a fake Democrat who had criticized Bill Clinton every day of his presidency (as had Bill Mahr, by the way). They signed Donahue but quickly fired him for opposing the Iraq War, as did the majority of Americans (and the vast majority outside the fascist South).

It's like the Republican Party, which was the liberal party in Lincoln's time. You can find events early in MSNBC's history which oppose the network as we know it now. So what.