One step forward, two steps back
Tonight is the premiere of Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC. And yet the news of the day concerning the network is their decision to remove Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from anchor duties for the upcoming debates and election night. They will be replaced by David Gregory. This is a pretty stupid move, and I say that not only as a Olbermann fan (I loathe Matthews though) but as someone trying to be objective. Alex Pareene does a good job showing why this is idiotic, a sample:
# Ratings Are Up “MSNBC nearly doubled its total audience compared with the 2004 conventions,” Brian Stelter points out. Though they’re still in third place, building an audience does actually take time, and their demographic numbers are great.
# This Won’t Make Conservatives Shut Up. MSNBC is embarrassed that Republicans are holding up MSNBC as a prime example of liberal bias, and tying poor NBC News to the crazy rantings of its cable arm. Hah, yes, and David Gregory, the guy who became famous for abusing Bush spokespeople, will fix that! Remember how conservatives have spent 100 years decrying the liberal bias of CNN? The CNN that is now represented by the apolitically moronic Wolf Blitzer and the inoffensive cuddly unicorn Anderson Cooper? Both of whom are useless and boring at covering politics? This won’t shut up any critics, at all. Show some fucking backbone.
This bears repeating. Ratings are up. Conservatives won’t stop complaining until Limbaugh and Malkin are hosting. So this makes sense….how? I must say, this bit, in Stelter’s piece, really pissed me off:
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.
Its quite simple really. Brokaw and Williams need to shut up and stop complaining. I’m so sick of this idea that they are the living, breathing of personification of journalistic excellence. They are tools who are concerned with what their friends in the “elite media” say at their cocktail parties and country clubs. They swallow and regurgitate Republican talking points like its their job. Who cares what they think?
As one might expect, Glenn Greenwald brings the heat on this in really a most-read post:
The irrefutable fact is that nothing attracts ratings for MSNBC — and nothing has attracted ratings in the entire history of that channel — the way that Olbermann does. Yet here is MSNBC removing him from the anchor position, reducing his role in its political coverage, and clearly diminishing his stature (and implicitly criticizing his coverage). That is extraordinary for a media company to publicly embarrass, diminish and tarnish its own principal asset. It is plainly doing so for ideological, not ratings-based, reasons: namely, it fears doing anything to anger the White House, the McCain campaign and the Right in this country.
Worth reading if only for the smart comparison between the treatment of that hack Brit Hume and Olbermann.
MSNBC is not a liberal network. They are a centrist network with two hours of liberal programming in the evenings and three hours of conservative programming in the mornings. Unlike Fox, where Republicanism is an ideology, for MSNBC, liberalism is a business strategy. And not even the only one. In the mornings, conservatism is the business strategy. And on weekends, making sure NBC executives can continue to golf with high-level Republicans is the business strategy. And the liberalism won’t be allowed to threaten either one
Not to mention they have a former Republican congressman hosting for three hours in the morning.
So, MSNBC President Phil Griffin, be a fucking man for once and hold your ground against Zucker and NBC News President Steve Capus and even Original Blowhard Tom Brokaw (seriously, why did the act of “retiring” bestow respectability upon that hack?). If people wanted Brian Williams and David Gregory to cover everything quietly and politely they’d actually watch your evening news. Scarborough, Olbermann, Matthews, and Maddow are the best of cable this year, because of their unique ability to annoy the shit out of each other and also to generally know what the fuck they’re talking about, which is basically unheard of on television, let alone cable news.
If the powers that be at NBC and MSNBC think making this change is going to stop the charges of “liberal bias” then they are even stupider then I thought (and they seem pretty stupid already). As Glenn writes:
nothing changes the behavior of our media corporations more easily than vocal demands and complaints from the Right, which petrify media executives and cause them to snap into line.
Sad but true. In conclusion, a short summery Olbermann as host = higher ratings but conservatives complain = Olbermann no longer host. What liberal media?
Holla at me