Countdown... to Crash and Burn

More on the MSNBC farce. Best bits:

Meanwhile, in the past few hours we've spoke to a number of 30 Rock staffers in Denver, New York, and Washington — some of whom thought it more productive to speak to us than attend to the on-going live DNC coverage — and the common wisdom is: 1) Nobody can believe how much Keith Olbermann is getting away with, even if he does draw ratings;

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3) MSNBC head Phil Griffin is alienating staffers by publicly defending Olbermann while privately bashing him, and it's left many wondering when that will leak (oops);

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5) You don't want to run into Chris Matthews anytime soon, especially en route to the bathroom, because he has zero pleasant things to say right now;

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7) None of this is helping ratings, with MSNBC scoring the lowest numbers against Fox News and CNN in convention coverage.

And one last thing: Nobody, including all of MSNBC, believes Phil Griffin when he says "MSNBC does not have an ideology … We hire smart people who are passionate about their love of politics and love of news." Says one veteran off-camera staffer: "Bullshit … It's a total farce."

On that: Is MSNBC fair and objective the way countless other media types have assured us their own networks are fair and objective? Phil Griffin of course uses the same words to insist his network is unbiased.

Are we to believe he's the only MSM type who's willing to lie about this?

NBC has a partial way out here. They have another cable network, CNBC. They could admit MSNBC is biased to the left, but state they're simply trying to offer the audience opinion "journalism" of all types, and recast CNBC's primetime lineup as an expressly right-leaning opinion channel to "balance" MSNBC.

Hell it might even work. CNBC, so recast, could turn out to be a ratings performer.

But they won't do that, because 1) they're too used to lying about their bias and getting away with it, and 2) they're just unwilling to "help the bad guys" (i.e. conservatives) by pushing their message.

Thanks to CJ.

Even Jon Stewart's Goofing on MSNBC: Backstage at the Muppet Show.

What a joke.

Thanks to AQ.

posted by Ace at 02:21 PM

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