What was he saying?
From an emailer…
At 6:58am yesterday on Morning Joe, they were showing the Conan O’Brien video at MSNBC - when Willie Geist said that he was “slumming it down here with the newsies.” Shuster, cuttingly said “Are we allowed to use words like slum?”
Gee… wonder what prompted that?
It’s all about context.
Comment by Aaron — February 9, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
Just curious … what ideology that I’m “not aware of” might you be thinking of? :)
Comment by Paul Levinson — February 9, 2008 @ 8:31 pm
I think you have to post this in the latest blog at the top Paul. That is the one referring to you.
Comment by Jim — February 9, 2008 @ 8:34 pm
This…
But I am also a student - and a professor - of the media, as well as someone who wants to see the Democratic party strong, and it is for those reasons that I think it’s time to say enough is enough already about the shoddy way MSNBC is treating Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Presidency.
You flat out take the position that you want the Democratic party to do well and from that standpoint MSNBC being “critical” of Clinton - though in reality it’s not MSNBC per se but a couple of people at MSNBC you have issues with - is a problem that needs to be addressed. I call that ideological because it colors your whole argument.
If you had been a total neutral, and not an “activist” as you prefaced the start of your piece, that would be different. But by staking your position at the start, it taints the whole piece for me. Criticism of the way the Hillary campaign is run is out of bounds. Criticism of Hillary is out of bounds. That’s my takeaway.
The best analogy I can come up with (and if you want to call it a straw man, go ahead) is when the far left Progressive wing calls the MSM conservative or says that Alan Colmes ain’t liberal enough. The Far Left’s own ideology colors their ability to guage where they are on the political spectrum. The same thing applies to the Far Right by the way (just so you don’t think I’m only applying this litmus test to the Left).
The Left’s approach regarding Matthews is well known. They’ve been after him for years. Matthews is a wonk and a loudmouth and he shoots from the hip…far too often for my tastes. And he can be crude and abrasive. I think he’s awful as a debate moderator. But he’s hardly a conservative. But you’d be hard pressed to get Media Matters to believe that.
And then there’s this in your piece…
But any news operation could be subject to the loose tongue of a reporter or commentator, and the problem at MSNBC regarding Hillary Clinton goes much deeper.
You can hear and see it just about every night on Chris Matthews’ Hardball. For some reason, he refers to a lot of things that Hillary Clinton has been doing in this campaign as being done not by Hillary Clinton but by “the Clintons”.
I don’t see anything “deeper” at all other than a far too pervasive problem where talent talks too often without thinking about what they’re saying. Referring to the two Clintons as a tag-team is a valid point, but one you apparently don’t care for. For as long as I can remember the two have worked closely together going back to when Bill put Hillary as point person on Health Care reform. It can be tough to tell what’s all Hillary and what’s all Bill. And as we’ve seen from the primaries, Bill has been sticking his nose in an awful lot, and not with the best results if you ask me. But is it him butting in or part of a plan that didn’t quite pan out? I can’t tell.
So yes, I do think your own ideology is shaping how you approach this story. As I said, you raise some pretty valid points. But as a neutral, I find I have to put my filter on when reading the story to eliminate your political stance from the story. The sweeping generalization of tagging all of MSNBC for this when, even if I buy your argument (which obviously I don’t completely), it only refers to two people (three if you count Olbermann but I don’t see how you can really make a case for Olbermann considering his political stance). Sweeping generalizations are red flag for me.
Comment by Spud — February 9, 2008 @ 9:19 pm
Maybe it would help if people at home had a score card for MSNBC talent. You know like,
Mika -liberal
Joe -conservative
Matthews -liberal
Olbermann -ubber liberal
Tucker - libertarian
Giest ????
Shuster - I know he is liberal but I don’t think I should know this. If he does straight news reporting anytime during the newscycle, he shouldn’t fill in for the Commentators.
Contessa ???
Well you get the gist of it.
Comment by Ree — February 10, 2008 @ 10:16 am
I wouldn’t call Joe a Conservative. Think about it like this, does Joe hold a candle to someone like Hannity? No. Not even a birthday candle.
Joe at best is a liberal Republican… but certainly not a Conservative.
Comment by ImNotBlue — February 10, 2008 @ 10:57 am
Major News outlets, today (regardless of what station affiliate or which “parental corporate entity that owns them) do not report the “news”.
They start with a news report, and then usurp the viewers capacity to analyze and filter through the facts themselves.
What we are now being “fed” as “news” is simply news carefully analyzed for us, and filtered by the corporate sponsors as to where they want “their” agendas promoted.
What Americans are given, as “the news” on television has become, quite simply, no different that what you read as an editorial page of any newspaper…and each newspapers’ editorial positions are a direct reflection of the corporate owners.
There are, simply…no differences.
How did this come to be?
People want to be entertained.
People have become lazy and have accepted having others’ “opinions” fed to them. That saves them the effort of paying attention, and gathering their own facts, and reaching their own conclusions.
Not all American people have become that complacent..and I see that people are hunting down the facts, and reaching their own conclusions. That is a good thing.
I believe more, and more people…especially younger people, are following this trend. They don’t accept it when someone tells them “this (or that) is inevitable”. They ask: WHY is it?
THAT is an awesome new awakening, as of late, and I commend them. It brings me great hope!
Comment by donaldinks — February 10, 2008 @ 12:22 pm