Maddow can holler 'till she's blue in the face, but the fact remains: As much as the execs at GE would like to pretend otherwise, the MSNBC cable outlet is as partisan as they come. FOX News is a modern partisan news outfit that understands that the media environment today is an extension of the political battlefield, and Roger Ailes doesn't let meaningless rules and ridiculous pretensions get in the way of the problem at hand, which is to destroy the Democrat-Socialist partisan agenda. And while it's pretty sad watching Rachel Maddow preen about how ethical and upstanding MSNBC operatives are, anyone who watches the network knows that MSNBC wants nothing less than what FOX News wants, which is the obliteration of the ideological enemy. The problem for MSNBC, of course, is that FOX News has successfully compartmentalized it's real hard-news reporting from its opinion and commentary broadcasts. And it was no contest on election night, November 2nd: "Fox News 'Fair & Balanced' Offered Best Election Eve Coverage … Shocker, Even Better Than MSNBC." But Maddow's sugar daddy is Keith Olbermann, so she'll be making a stink until the commie cows come home --- one more reason why the network's ratings are in the tank: "Fox News Dominates Cable News Election Night Coverage."
Anyway, lots of lefty outrage across the 'sphere, but check this out from the brilliant minds at Comments From Left Field:
MSNBC is a serious news organization, not a gauche political op like Fox. This appears to be the message MSNBC brass are attempting to send, following criticism from both wingnut and Beltway pundits (“right-wing cackling and old media cluck-cluck-clucking,” as Maddow put it) about the network’s purportedly “biased” election night coverage this past Tuesday: We are not Fox Left. We still inhabit the same void of vainly deluded fauxjectivity like our Village brethren do.Okay. Right.
Actually, this guy's got a bit of the objectivity that's eluding those on the brain-blown left:
Color me unimpressed with the outpouring of outrage and garment-rending from liberal colleagues in the wake of MSNBC's suspension of shouting head Keith Olbermann.
Fine, fine, fine. Fox has no such enforced rules about political contributions from commentators and news presenters. This would never happen to a conservative. NBC's rules are antiquated in a participatory, opinionated age of "news." Stipulated. Noted. Filed.
But Olbermann certainly knew the rules and made no attempt to tell management he had broken them, when he surreptitiously made contributions to three Democratic Congressional candidates. In accepting millions from the corporation paying him to fulminate and snort nightly, he certainly agreed to the points in his contract above the signatures. And whatever the outraged left may claim about his actual status, it's clear that Olbermann considers himself a journalist - and a worthy successor to Edward R. Murrow, to boot. And he's one who regularly castigates right-wing media for abandoning the strictures of real journalism. Keith's stately silence on the matter thus far is, quite frankly, his most eloquent statement in quite some time.*
Would that it extended to the chirping chorus around the rest of MSNBC's soundstage - and quite frankly, in the progressive blogosphere, which seems to be pouring out more energy and gut-level anger into defending Olbermann than it did in defending the unappreciated accomplishments of the current Democratic administration and the now lame-duck Democratic Congress.
There are many liberals who root for MSNBC to grow into a counterweight to the Fox monstrosity, our side's version of fair and balanced and loud.
Count me out. It's bad strategy, it's bad karma - and it's bad television. The MSNBC squad is almost painful to watch these days. On election night, the roiling tension on the desk was a death star of hair-shirted self-flagellation, a black hole of anger and resentment that almost sucked the sunny Rachel Maddow into its vortex. O'Donnell vs. Matthews vs. Olbermann. Feel the love. Jagger and Richards are warmer at this point. As seat-squirmingly painful as any Larry David show, but without the yucks. And the freak show vitriol of the mid-term coverage was in direct opposition to the preening West Wing-style house ads that MSNBC has rolled out to push its "Lean Forward" line-up of lefties. God, is there anything that smacks of the white upper middle class patriarchy more than the ad featuring Lawrence O'Donnell leaving the MSNBC offices late at night, and the moment he touches the shoulder of the black security guy on his way out?
2 comments:
What is she upset about? It doesn't take more than 5 minutes of watching MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS, not to mention NPR radio to know that they have a liberal agenda and that you are seeing filtered news or news with a bent to show a favorable light on their communistic agenda. FOX at least is up front in their slant. But I really feel that FOX tries too hard to be balanced. They need to just let that aspect go.
I am sure that Keith's 5 viewers are heart broken over his absence.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m going to take a contrarian position here. I’ll admit up front, I have no love for Olbermann, but I want to be convinced this was a firing offense. He committed no crime, and I seriously doubt he was the only MSNBC employee to pony up some loot for lefty candidates. Nobody with an IQ above 30 thinks Olbermann is either impartial or a journalist, so it’s not like his credibility was tarnished. He has none. His on-air advocacy for candidates provided far more assistance than a couple of grand quietly donated to their coffers.
If MSNBC has a written “ethics” policy requiring approval for donations, and he violated it, and that policy is being universally enforced, then MSNBC is fine. If they want to fire him for having lousy ratings and being one of the most hated people in broadcast television, then as long as they’ll be honest about it, that’s fine too. But if MSNBC is using this as a convenient excuse to unload him, and they’re turning blind eyes to others doing the same, then I have a problem with it.
If we are people who favor impartial justice, even for people we despise, then this is the stand we must take. It’s what distinguishes us from the people on his side, who base their judgments on a person’s ideology.
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