Re: OT: Electorial Triage
- From: Eregon <Eregon@Saphira.ørg>
- Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:03:47 GMT
Lone Haranguer <linuszrv@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:6ikr1rFr1vtdU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/09/07/matthews-olberman
n-removed-election-coverage-anchors
For those who didn't read it, that blurb is based upon this article in
the NY Times which shows that, despite their public statements, NBC and
MSNBC -ARE- strongly biased but just don't want to admit it:
September 8, 2008
MSNBC Takes Incendiary Hosts From Anchor Seat
By BRIAN STELTER
MSNBC tried a bold experiment this year by putting two politically
incendiary hosts, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, in the anchor chair
to lead the cable news channel?s coverage of the election.
That experiment appears to be over.
After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity
between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the
weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory
would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr.
Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.
The change ? which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle ?
is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel?s perceived
shift to the political left.
?The most disappointing shift is to see the partisan attitude move from
prime time into what?s supposed to be straight news programming,? said
Davidson Goldin, formerly the editorial director of MSNBC and a co-
founder of the reputation management firm DolceGoldin.
Executives at the channel?s parent company, NBC Universal, had high hopes
for MSNBC?s coverage of the political conventions. Instead, the coverage
frequently descended into on-air squabbles between the anchors,
embarrassing some workers at NBC?s news division, and quite possibly
alienating viewers. Although MSNBC nearly doubled its total audience
compared with the 2004 conventions, its competitive position did not
improve, as it remained in last place among the broadcast and cable news
networks. In prime time, the channel averaged 2.2 million viewers during
the Democratic convention and 1.7 million viewers during the Republican
convention.
The success of the Fox News Channel in the past decade along with the
growth of political blogs have convinced many media companies that
provocative commentary attracts viewers and lures Web browsers more than
straight news delivered dispassionately.
?In a rapidly changing media environment, this is the great philosophical
debate,? Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, said in a telephone
interview Saturday. Fighting the ratings game, he added, ?the bottom line
is that we?re experiencing incredible success.?
But as the past two weeks have shown, that success has a downside. When
the vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin lamented media bias during her
speech, attendees of the Republican convention loudly chanted ?NBC.?
In interviews, 10 current and former staff members said that long-
simmering tensions between MSNBC and NBC reached a boiling point during
the conventions. ?MSNBC is behaving like a heroin addict,? one senior
staff member observed. ?They?re living from fix to fix and swearing
they?ll go into rehab the next week.?
The employee, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because the
network does not permit its people to speak to the media without
authorization. (The New York Times and NBC News have a content-sharing
arrangement exclusively for political coverage.)
Mr. Olbermann, a 49-year-old former sportscaster, has become the face of
the more aggressive MSNBC, and the lightning rod for much of the
criticism. His program ?Countdown,? now a liberal institution, was
created by Mr. Olbermann in 2003 but it found its voice in his gnawing
dissent regarding the Bush administration, often in the form of ?special
comment? segments.
As Mr. Olbermann raised his voice, his ratings rose as well, and he now
reaches more than one million viewers a night, a higher television rating
than any other show in the troubled 12-year history of the network. As a
result, his identity largely defines MSNBC. ?They have banked the
entirety of the network on Keith Olbermann,? one employee said.
In January, Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews, the host of ?Hardball,? began
co-anchoring primary night coverage, drawing an audience that enjoyed the
pair?s ?SportsCenter?-style show. While some critics argued that the
assignment was akin to having the Fox News commentator Bill O?Reilly
anchor on election night ? something that has never happened ? MSNBC
insisted that Mr. Olbermann knew the difference between news and
commentary.
But in the past two weeks, that line has been blurred. On the final night
of the Republican convention, after MSNBC televised the party?s video
?tribute to the victims of 9/11,? including graphic footage of the World
Trade Center attacks, Mr. Olbermann abruptly took off his journalistic
hat.
?I?m sorry, it?s necessary to say this,? he began. After saying that the
video had exploited the memories of the dead, he directly apologized to
viewers who were offended. Then, sounding like a network executive, he
said it was ?probably not appropriate to be shown.?
In an interview on Sunday, Mr. Olbermann said that moment ? and the
perception that he is ?not utterly neutral? ? restarted months-old
conversations about his role on political nights.
?I found it ironic and instructive that I could have easily said exactly
what I did say, exactly when I did say it, if I had been wearing a
different hat, and nobody would have taken any issue,? he said.
?Countdown? will still be shown before the three fall debates and a
second edition will be shown sometime afterwards, following the program
anchored by Mr. Gregory.
The change casts new doubt on what some staff members believe is an
effective programming strategy: prime-time talk of a liberal sort. A
like-minded talk show will now follow ?Countdown? at 9 p.m.: ?The Rachel
Maddow Show,? hosted by the liberal radio host, begins Monday.
Mr. Griffin, MSNBC?s president, denies that it has an ideology. ?I think
ideology means we think one way, and we don?t,? he said. Rather than
label MSNBC?s prime time as left-leaning, he says it has passion and
point of view.
But MSNBC is the cable arm of NBC News, the dispassionate news division
of NBC Universal. MSNBC, ?Today? and ?NBC Nightly News? share some staff
members, workspace and content. And some critics are claiming they also
share a political affiliation.
The McCain campaign has filed letters of complaint to the news division
about its coverage and openly tied MSNBC to it. Tension between the
network and the campaign hit an apex the day Mr. McCain announced Gov.
Sarah Palin as his running mate. MSNBC had reported Friday morning that
Ms. Palin?s plane was enroute to the announcement and she was likely the
pick. But McCain campaign officials warned the network off, with one
official going so far as to say that all of the candidates on the short
list were on their way ? which MSNBC then reported.
?The fact that it was reported in real time was very embarrassing,? said
a senior MSNBC official. ?We were told, ?No, it?s not Sarah Palin and you
don?t know who it is.? ?
Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams, the past and present anchors of ?NBC
Nightly News,? have told friends and colleagues that they are finding it
tougher and tougher to defend the cable arm of the news division, even
while they anchored daytime hours of convention coverage on MSNBC and
contributed commentary each evening.
Mr. Williams did not respond to a request for comment and Mr. Brokaw
declined to comment. At a panel discussion in Denver, Mr. Brokaw
acknowledged that Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews had ?gone too far? at
times, but emphasized they were ?not the only voices? on MSNBC, according
to The Washington Post.
Al Hunt, the executive Washington bureau chief of Bloomberg News, said
that the entire news division was being singled out by Republicans
because of the work of partisans like Mr. Olbermann. ?To go and tar the
whole news network and Brokaw and Mitchell is grossly unfair,? he said,
referring to the NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell.
Some tensions have spilled out on-screen. On the first night in Denver,
as the fellow MSNBC host Joe Scarborough talked about the resurgence of
the McCain campaign, Mr. Olbermann dismissed it by saying: ?Jesus, Joe,
why don?t you get a shovel??
The following night, Mr. Olbermann and his co-anchor for convention
coverage, Mr. Matthews, had their own squabble after Mr. Olbermann
observed that Mr. Matthews had talked too long.
Some staff members said the tension led to the network?s decision to keep
Mr. Olbermann in New York for the Republican convention, after he ran the
desk in Denver during the Democratic convention. MSNBC said that he
stayed in New York to anchor coverage of Hurricane Gustav. But some
workers say there were other reasons ? namely, that Mr. Olbermann was
concerned about his safety in St. Paul, given the loud crowds at MSNBC?s
set in Denver.
NBC Universal executives are also known to be concerned about the
perception that MSNBC?s partisan tilt in prime time is bleeding into the
rest of the programming day. On a recent Friday afternoon, a graphic
labeled ?Breaking News? asked: ?How many houses does Palin add to the
Republican ticket?? Mr. Griffin called the graphic ?an embarrassment.?
According to three staff members, Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC
Universal, and Steve Capus, president of NBC News, considered flying to
the Republican convention in Minnesota last week to address the lingering
tensions.
Up to now, the company?s public support for MSNBC?s strategy has been
enthusiastic. At an anniversary party for Mr. Olbermann in April, Mr.
Zucker called ?Countdown? ?one of the signature brands of the entire
company.?
Just last year, Mr. Olbermann signed a four-year, $4-million-a-year
contract with MSNBC. NBC is close to supplementing that contract with Mr.
Olbermann, extending his deal through 2013 ? and ensuring that he will be
on MSNBC through the next election.
Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting for this article.
--
I used to be an anarchist but had to give it up: _far_ too many rules.
.
- References:
- Re: OT: Electorial Triage
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- Re: OT: Electorial Triage
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- Re: OT: Electorial Triage
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- Re: OT: Electorial Triage
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