Welcome to Omgili,
Omgili ( Oh My God I Love It ;) is a search engine for discussions. With Omgili you can find answers and solutions, debates, discussions, personal experiences, opinions and more... To learn more about Omgili click here.
This is a complete preview of the discussion as it was indexed by Omgili crawlers. Use this preview if the original discussion is unavailable.
Click here to view the original discussion.
[http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.p...]
Click here to search for discussions with Omgili discussions search engine.
 |
Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann Removed
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 channels 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 channels perceived shift to the political left.
The most disappointing shift is to see the partisan attitude move from prime time into whats 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 channels parent company, NBC Universal, had high hopes for MSNBCs coverage of the political conventions.
Instead, the coverage frequently descended into on-air squabbles between the anchors, embarrassing some workers at NBCs 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 were 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.
Theyre living from fix to fix and swearing theyll go into rehab the next week.
The employee, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because the network does not permit it 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 pairs SportsCenter-style show.
While some critics argued that the assignment was akin to having the Fox News commentator Bill OReilly 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 partys 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.
Im sorry, its 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, MSNBCs president, denies that it has an ideology.
I think ideology means we think one way, and we dont, he said.
Rather than label MSNBCs 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.
Palins 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, its not Sarah Palin and you dont 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 dont 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 networks 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 MSNBCs set in Denver.
NBC Universal executives are also known to be concerned about the perception that MSNBCs 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 companys public support for MSNBCs 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.
|
|
|
Good. The guy is a hack and should have never been put in the role of "neutral" in the first place.
|
|
They're both highly biased.
MSNBC is the Obama network, just as FOX is the mccian network.
I didn't know anyone actually still believed otherwise?
|
|
|
I love how the article describes MSNBC's blatant political bias as "the channels perceived shift to the political left."
puh-leazzzz!
|
|
Good, even though i cant stand that douche rag david gregory.
You don;t see fox letting hannity and bill'o hosting debates
|
|
Once again 240 its obvious you just repeat whatever you hear on MSNBC or media-matters without the slightest bit of knowledge on what your talking about.
Every conservative host and contributer from Sean Hannity, to Bill O'Reilly to Newt Gingrich, Laura Ingram, Karl Rove and on and on absolutely cant stand John McCain.
During the republican convention the network went out of its way to criticize him especially conerning social issues, immigration and his anti torture stance for the war on terror.
Now, while the network probably supports McCain as a whole, the coverage of him is 100% neutral and does not by any strtech of the imagination favor him.
I tuned in this past Friday to O'Reilly interviewing Laura Ingram.
Both agreed McCains speech was boring, awful and almost unwatchable if not for the final 5 minutes where he highlighted his experience as a POW.
Both agreed Palin's speech was well done, but so did most news outlets (except MSNBC).
Throw in the fact that FOX has rabid Obama supporters such as Alan Colmes, Juan Williams and has numerous left wing commentators that appear on the various talk shows across the viewing day, and your assertion that FOX is pro McCain becomes absurd.
Has John McCain appeared on Olberman?
Has Obama appeared on O'Reilly?
Did O'Reilly interview Hillary?
Did Olberman interview Bush?
One huge difference between the two networks is that FOX seperates opinion coverage from news coverage.
I have absolutely zero problem with Olberman and Matthews being blatantly biased on their own shows.
I do have a problem when the line between reporting the news morphs into commenting on the news.
|
|
Quote: from: George Whorewell on September 08, 2008, 08:51:56 AMHas John McCain appeared on Olberman?
Has Obama appeared on O'Reilly?
Are you saying Mccain is WILLING to appear on Olbermann, but Keithy won't have him as a guest?
Dude, Olbermann would kill to get Mccain under a microscope with 30 minutes of gotcha questions.
|
|
But then again u have shitheads like brit humme and his fucking butt buddy cameron hosting debates.
So id say if mathews was aloud to it'd be fine with me
|
|
LOL right and you know Olberman invited him how?
Because you think so?
It took O'Reilly the better part of a year to get Obama on his show and he blows Olberman out of the water in terms of audience.
Do you really think McCain wouldnt do an interview with Olbermann?
If the race is based on the swing vote, he would be an idiot not to go on wouldnt you agree?
Did you watch the Obama interview with O'Reilly?
No gotcha stuff at all in the first two parts of the seven part segment and the only tough thing O"reilly asked concerned the surge in Iraq.
Dude, watch some of the things you comment on or at least do some quick fact checking before posting.
|
|
Quote: from: George Whorewell on September 08, 2008, 09:08:55 AMDid you watch the Obama interview with O'Reilly?
No gotcha stuff at all in the first two parts of the seven part segment and the only tough thing O"reilly asked concerned the surge in Iraq.
Do you think we'll see gotcha Qs in parts 3 thru 7?
|
|
Uh, no. The other segments have a specific designation concerning the topics that will be discussed.
The only one where Obama may have to squirm a little is the one concerning his background- ie Rev.
Wright and Ayers.
That being said, there is no GOTCHA to be had.
Everyone knows about that stuff already and it has been beaten to death for months.
If anything, this helps Obama by giving him a chance to clarify his relationship with both men and possibly distance himself from the negativity both have brought to his campaign before an audience he will need to attract in order to be elected.
|
|
The funny thing is guys like Hume are well respected.
What did u think he was made in some secret Fox factory, look at his history.
The candidates can ignore Obermannn because he has no real audience and is not respected.
They can't ignore O'reilly who crushes at his time slot.
Obama had to go on there and he knew he'd get asked tough questions.
Say what u want about Fox, but they smoke everybody else.
|
|
PRICELESS
Rush gets a contract for $400mil and they get canned...AWESOME!
Keith Olbermann may be the voice of MSNBC, but network executives have decided to yank the talkmeister off its political anchor desk after the cable channel finished dead last in the Nielsen rankings of all news coverage during the two weeks of political conventions.
The network announced Monday that Olbermann and Chris Matthews have both been booted as co-hosts on political night coverage in favor of David Gregory, whose White House press corps experience may make him better suited to deliver sober and less opinion-driven assessments of the news.
All summer, MSNBC executives have fought off complaints that Olbermann and Matthews, the networks top commentators, could serve in the role of impartial newsmen.
Those complaints reached a crescendo last week when Olbermann, reporting on the Republican National Convention from New York rather than St.
Paul, apologized to the audience after the channel aired a Sept.
11 video tribute crafted by the RNC.
We would be rightly eviscerated at all quarters, perhaps by the Republican Party itself, for exploiting the memories of the dead, and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again.
If you reacted to that videotape the way I did, I apologize, Olbermann said.
The networks weak ratings during the conventions may have given MSNBC executives the cover they needed to boot Olbermann and Matthews.
FOX News Channel topped all broadcast and cable networks with 9.2 million viewers on each of the last two nights of the convention.
MSNBC got barely more than a quarter of Foxs total 2.5 million viewers.
MSNBC also ranked last among the three cable channels during primetime coverage of the last two nights of the Democratic convention.
Olbermanns hard left views and his catfights with other MSNBC hosts have been the talk of gossip pages all summer.
Olbermann sarcastically dismissed Republican pundit Pat Buchanan on the air after Buchanan said the GOP had been enlivened by Sarah Palins vice presidential nomination.
Those reading Us Weekly with the picture of her and her youngest daughter with the word scandal written across it wont be so happy, Olbermann said.
He also expressed no regard for the GOPs push back against rumors about Palins personal life.
Well see if people feel sorry for unfounded rumors on the Internet, he said.
If thats the case, Senator Obamas probably standing up and cheering and waiting for people to feel sorry for him.
Olbermanns brash style may also have earned him enemies within his own organization.
He was caught on microphones mocking another MSNBC host, Joe Scarborough, when Scarborough was discussing positive developments in McCains campaign.
Jesus, Joe, why dont you get a shovel? he asked.
At another time, Matthews snapped at Olbermann on-air when it appeared Olbermann was criticizing him for talking too much.
Matthews told TVNewser last week that he and Olbermann get along fine.
Its not clear when Matthews was informed of the decision to bounce him from the anchor spot along with Olbermann.
Asked about the internal fighting at MSNBC, NBC anchor Brian Williams tried to smooth ruffled feathers during an appearance on Comedy Centrals The Daily Show last week.
Is there no control? asked host Jon Stewart.
Is it Lord of the Flies?
Williams replied that every family has a dynamic of its own.
But does MSNBC have to be the Lohans? Stewart said.
As a result of the internal turmoil, Gregory will now anchor MSNBCs coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates, as well as on election night, said network spokesman Jeremy Gaines.
Olbermann did score an interview with Barack Obama on his Countdown show.
That is set to air Monday and will go up against Bill OReillys interview with Obama on FOX News.
A portion of the OReilly interview with Obama aired last Thursday and earned OReilly his second highest rating ever, with more than 6.6 million viewers.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/08/msnbc-hosts-olbermann-matthews-booted-from-political-night-duties/
|
|
Keith Olbermann may be the voice of MSNBC, but network executives have decided to yank the talkmeister off its political anchor desk after the cable channel finished dead last in the Nielsen rankings of all news coverage during the two weeks of political conventions.
The network announced Monday that Olbermann and Chris Matthews have both been booted as co-hosts on political night coverage in favor of David Gregory, whose White House press corps experience may make him better suited to deliver sober and less opinion-driven assessments of the news.
All summer, MSNBC executives have fought off complaints that Olbermann and Matthews, the networks top commentators, could serve in the role of impartial newsmen.
Those complaints reached a crescendo last week when Olbermann, reporting on the Republican National Convention from New York rather than St.
Paul, apologized to the audience after the channel aired a Sept.
11 video tribute crafted by the RNC.
We would be rightly eviscerated at all quarters, perhaps by the Republican Party itself, for exploiting the memories of the dead, and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again.
If you reacted to that videotape the way I did, I apologize, Olbermann said.
The networks weak ratings during the conventions may have given MSNBC executives the cover they needed to boot Olbermann and Matthews.
FOX News Channel topped all broadcast and cable networks with 9.2 million viewers on each of the last two nights of the convention.
MSNBC got barely more than a quarter of Foxs total 2.5 million viewers.
MSNBC also ranked last among the three cable channels during primetime coverage of the last two nights of the Democratic convention.
Olbermanns hard left views and his catfights with other MSNBC hosts have been the talk of gossip pages all summer.
Olbermann sarcastically dismissed Republican pundit Pat Buchanan on the air after Buchanan said the GOP had been enlivened by Sarah Palins vice presidential nomination.
Those reading Us Weekly with the picture of her and her youngest daughter with the word scandal written across it wont be so happy, Olbermann said.
He also expressed no regard for the GOPs push back against rumors about Palins personal life.
Well see if people feel sorry for unfounded rumors on the Internet, he said.
If thats the case, Senator Obamas probably standing up and cheering and waiting for people to feel sorry for him.
Olbermanns brash style may also have earned him enemies within his own organization.
He was caught on microphones mocking another MSNBC host, Joe Scarborough, when Scarborough was discussing positive developments in McCains campaign.
Jesus, Joe, why dont you get a shovel? he asked.
At another time, Matthews snapped at Olbermann on-air when it appeared Olbermann was criticizing him for talking too much.
Matthews told TVNewser last week that he and Olbermann get along fine.
Its not clear when Matthews was informed of the decision to bounce him from the anchor spot along with Olbermann.
Asked about the internal fighting at MSNBC, NBC anchor Brian Williams tried to smooth ruffled feathers during an appearance on Comedy Centrals The Daily Show last week.
Is there no control? asked host Jon Stewart.
Is it Lord of the Flies?
Williams replied that every family has a dynamic of its own.
But does MSNBC have to be the Lohans? Stewart said.
As a result of the internal turmoil, Gregory will now anchor MSNBCs coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates, as well as on election night, said network spokesman Jeremy Gaines.
Olbermann did score an interview with Barack Obama on his Countdown show.
That is set to air Monday and will go up against Bill OReillys interview with Obama on FOX News.
A portion of the OReilly interview with Obama aired last Thursday and earned OReilly his second highest rating ever, with more than 6.6 million viewers.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/08/msnbc-hosts-olbermann-matthews-booted-from-political-night-duties/
|
|
|
Quote: from: The Coach on September 08, 2008, 10:15:16 AM[img]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e196/Intenseone/anchorsaway.jpg[/img
All summer, MSNBC executives have fought off complaints that Olbermann and Matthews, the networks top commentators, could serve in the role of impartial newsmen.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/08/msnbc-hosts-olbermann-matthews-booted-from-political-night-duties/
LOL, and this is being reported by Fox News, the great beacon of "Fair and Balanced" News.
|
|
|
Gratuitous bump
|
|
Quote: from: The Coach on September 08, 2008, 10:09:48 AMRush gets a contract for $400mil and they get canned...AWESOME!
I listen to Rush a lot lately.
He seems to feel that any vetting of Palin is unamerican - that you should let the repubs do it, and they'll release anything we need to know.
I'm not too sure about that...
|
|
Quote: from: polychronopolous on September 08, 2008, 10:19:28 AMLOL, and this is being reported by Fox News, the great beacon of "Fair and Balanced" News.
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 channels 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 channels perceived shift to the political left.
The most disappointing shift is to see the partisan attitude move from prime time into whats 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 channels parent company, NBC Universal, had high hopes for MSNBCs coverage of the political conventions.
Instead, the coverage frequently descended into on-air squabbles between the anchors, embarrassing some workers at NBCs 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 were 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.
Theyre living from fix to fix and swearing theyll go into rehab the next week.
The employee, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because the network does not permit it 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 pairs SportsCenter-style show.
While some critics argued that the assignment was akin to having the Fox News commentator Bill OReilly 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 partys 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.
Im sorry, its 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, MSNBCs president, denies that it has an ideology.
I think ideology means we think one way, and we dont, he said.
Rather than label MSNBCs 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.
Palins 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, its not Sarah Palin and you dont 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 dont 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 networks 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 MSNBCs set in Denver.
NBC Universal executives are also known to be concerned about the perception that MSNBCs 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 companys public support for MSNBCs 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.
HOPE THIS HELPS!!
|
|
|
I get my news from Edison Carter on Network 23.
|
|
So, the experiment failed...
Big deal, at least Olbermann has some sembalence of journalism.
O'reilly only gets ratings because he is the most entertaining horses ass on television.
|
|
|
Www.pollster.com says it all, Joe.
I know you hate the sobering numbers and all...
|
|
Quote: from: polychronopolous on September 08, 2008, 10:24:52 AMSo, the experiment failed...
Big deal, at least Olbermann has some sembalence of journalism.
O'reilly only gets ratings because he is the most entertaining horses ass on television.
RIGHT..If you listen to Bil for your "news"....you=brain dead sheep
|
|
People will decide if they like how things have been for the last 8 years.
If you like it, Vote McCain.
If you don't, vote Obama.
We know what the Dems do in the white house - see the 92-2000 economy.
We know what the repubs do in the white hosue - see the 02 to 2008 economy.
Which did you like better?
|
|
|
Quote: from: big_mal on September 08, 2008, 10:26:55 AMRIGHT..If you listen to Bil for your "news"....you=brain dead sheep
I don't.
|
|
|
Quote: from: big_mal on September 08, 2008, 10:26:55 AMRIGHT..If you listen to Bil for your "news"....you=brain dead sheep
I like that youtube clip where Howard Stern threatens to take O'reilly outside, and Bill's reply was "I'll sue you" or something along those lines...
Then he is always challenging people with questions like "Would you die for your country?"
What phony coward.
|
|
|
|