ICN is hearing that the fallout from the David Shuster suspension is rocking 30 Rock. Some staffers believe Shuster was thrown to the wolves for two reasons. One, to appease the Clinton campaign and “save” the debate to be aired on MSNBC between Clinton and Obama. Two, because they can; because Shuster is a small fry, a low man on the totem pole, and expendable. The argument would be it wouldn’t have happened to someone higher up, more important, like Olbermann or Matthews.

There may be something to both points. But at the same time I believe that’s totally irrelevent to the matter at hand. When you get right down to it, what Shuster said merited punishment of some sort. Suspension may have been severe but not something that shouldn’t have been on the table. The fact is Shuster has been dancing on the edge for years now in his reporting and commentary. When you live on the edge like that for that long, eventually you’re going to go too far. Just ask Don Imus. Imus, by the way, would be a rebuttal to the point that Shuster only got a time out because he’s small fry. They fired Imus and MSNBC’s morning ratings cratered and still haven’t recovered to where they were before he got fired.

This incident does however raise an issue that concerns MSNBC of late. And when I say of late, I mean over half a year.
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MSNBC is losing its most skilled dayside news anchor and interviewer and NBC is gaining one heck of a correspondent. That should be the end of this story but I suppose I could go on…
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During the months of November and December, in the head to head matchup between dayside Monday to Friday 9-5pm newscasts, HLN beat MSNBC; the first time this has happened in over a year. Here are the numbers…

November 9am-5pm Live+SD ratings

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I’ve been on the fence about writing this entry but like a thorn in my side, it’s not going to leave me alone until I deal with it. Watching the Iowa Caucuses and the run-up to the New Hampshire primary and all the Super Week coverage MSNBC has been doing this past week, I’ve come to the conclusion that, at least in daytime, MSNBC’s coverage, so far, has slipped a bit since 2004.

I can’t really pin it down to any one thing but a lot of little things. Taken seperately they don’t mean much but their sum total gives me reason for concern. Where to start? Well how about the wall to wall Joe and Mika tag team? Excepting today, they’ve been on the air for six hours at a time every day since Iowa. It’s too much. In the past, I’ve seen MSNBC pair the two after Morning Joe has been finished and it just doesn’t click for me. What works for them on Morning Joe, the wittisisms, sarcasm, eye rolls, and smirking, works against the duo when doing it in a hard news environment. Maybe if they had Willie Geist there to take the focus off it would make things easier to digest. But as it is, it’s overkill. How many times did they replay the Clinton interview today? Three times? Four? More? I lost count. That kind of blatant repitition suggests to me that either they’re a) milking it, or b) short of ideas on what else to fill the airtime.
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When Don Imus got dropped from MSNBC, the timeslot meandered for quite a while during which MSNBC tried to figure out what to do with the slot and what would work. It became pretty clear early on that Joe Scarborough would be fronting the program with Mika Brzezinski handling the news updates but the program rotated through a series of “sidekicks” in the third chair and the format seemed unfocussed. The timing couldn’t have been worse for the network becuase Imus had been building steam to the point that I would argue it contributed to the host changes on CNN’s American Morning. But minus Imus, the timeslot cratered and stopped being a threat to CNN. I was beginning to start thinking about taking odds on how much longer Morning Joe would last.

But then MSNBC moved to 30 Rock and Morning Joe changed. Dramatically. Clearly MSNBC had been waiting for the move to implement these changes but unless you’d been watching the show, and the ratings showed that not a lot of people were, you might not have noticed.
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TVNewser posts a set of CUME numbers and then says they’re not used for sales purposes. Well if they’re not used for sales purposes why are they being posted? Ratings are there for sales purposes, not as a talking point or programming tool.

But then later on he has someone saying they’re not just a talking point. How so? In what way? We aren’t told.

Following up on this afternoon’s entry on today’s MSNBC news, this TVNewser Phil Griffin interview caught my eye, specifically this part…

Griffin calls High-Bassalik “an all-star” who was “sought-after by FOX, CNN and CBS.”

I haven’t tried yet to ascertain how High-Bassalik was “sought after” by FNC or CNN, but the “all-star” quip left me befuddled. Nothing against High-Bassalik, who certainly must be qualified for the position she is taking, but she is joining MSNBC in a position as Managing Editor where Phil Griffin will have more control over day to day operations and the team under High-Bassalik, specifically Susan Sullivan, Vice President of News Daytime Programming, and Davidson Goldin, Editorial Director, will continue. That structure doesn’t suggest a lot of operating room for High-Bassalik. And, to me at least, it doesn’t sound like the type of position an “All-Star” would tend to go for.

There’s going to be a lot of buzz about what today’s news means and what it doesn’t mean. Some will say, aha Abrams has been demoted…he couldn’t do the job…it’s a no confidence vote. I don’t see it that way. You could see that things were going to turn out this way just as a matter of circumstance. The signs were all there.

First of all, MSNBC doesn’t need a GM in 30 Rock. Note that new hire Shannon High-Bassalik’s title is not GM. It needed one in Secaucus because that was a different location. But with NBC News and MSNBC under one roof, a GM, while not quite to the level of gratuitous, certainly isn’t mandatory. Second, if you had noticed the media articles the past couple of months, particularly since Abrams started his nightly show, the number of quotes you read from Phil Griffin pertaining to MSNBC increased significantly (and noticeably). Third, Abrams can’t run MSNBC and have a show and still function effectively. Fourth, MSNBC needs a show to run at 9. Scarborough is committed to Morning Joe. Abrams already had a show running. To kill it at this point and start over with someone else is not productive.

While all this seems like a lot of news, on the face of it not much changes for MSNBC in the near term. The same vision and the same direction which existed during Abrams’ GM term and was reflected on what one would see when they tuned in to MSNBC will still exist when Griffin assumes a more hands on role.

The $64,000 question, and the one that is probably the most important but paridoxically the least thought about, is what does the hiring of Shannon High-Bassalik say about the longtime NBC News staffers who could have done the same job but were passed over for outsider High-Bassalik? This is the second time in a row now that NBC News has gone the unconventional route and not promoted from within its own staff ranks. The first time was going outside and bringing Abrams in as GM. Just how many people at NBC are reading today’s news and wondering if this was a no-confidence vote…? It seems like it to me.

Sort of odd seeing AC 360 air its second hour as a repeat last night. With news of the hurricane approaching, updates on the miner story, Michael Vick’s plea bargain, and CNN’s “God’s Warriors” premiering tonight, you’d think that would be enough to keep CNN live for the full two hours. Or at the very least switch over to CNNI to cover the hurricane approaching. But apparently it wasn’t. And this is on the heels of Cooper having the highest rated program in the Demo last week with all the breaking news coverage. You’d think that they’d want to build on that. Going to tape the second hour doesn’t achieve that.

There’s quite a bit of buzz going on in some corners of the internet over last night’s segment on the Senator Vitter saga on Countdown with substitute host Alison Stewart. I did not see the segment myself but this is what I have been able to piece together. Stewart was interviewing Radar’s Jeff Bercovici on the subject of Vitter and his wife’s choice of outfit selection for the statement Senator Vitter made on Monday.

While the segment played out, a series of lower thirds with rolled by saying things like “Don’t Mess with the Mrs.”, “Vitters’ Sweet Symphony”, “Fashion ho-pas?”, and “Dressed to Kill”. The entire segment concerned Mrs. Vitter’s fashion choice.

STEWART: When you first saw Mrs. Vitter standing by her man, what was your reaction?

BERCOVICI: I think you have to call it disbelief. The idea that somebody would wear that kind of outfit to any sort of crisis control press conference is hard to believe enough in itself. But to go to a conference where your are addressing your husband‘s infidelity with prostitutes and you yourself are looking like—apologies for this—but she‘s looking a little like a prostitute.

STEWART: She looks saucy, we‘ll say.

BERCOVICI: I think it brings up associations that you don‘t want to bring up in that situation.

STEWART: And he is really not in the position right now to say, honey, could you slip into a cardigan and some pearls?

BERCOVICI: Exactly.

This segment has caused a bit of an uproar on the internet for two reasons. One, some objected to the subject. Daily Kos’ Osterizer thought the whole segment was out of bounds…
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The AFL-CIO Now Blog’s Mike Hall blogs that Keith Olbermann will moderate the August 7th Presidential candidates forum on MSNBC…

Olbermann, whose journalism credentials include several Emmys and an Edward R. Murrow Award for his coverage of the events and aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks, says he is “honored” for the

…opportunity to question the leading Democratic presidential candidates about the key issues of this race. This is a critical time in our nation’s history and I look forward to helping our viewers better understand where each of the candidates stand on the issues.

Gibson and O’Reilly are going to have a field day with this. And rightly so. Why is MSNBC allowing Olbermann to moderate a presidential forum it’s airing? Would CNN put Lou Dobbs in to moderate a forum? Would FNC put Bill O’Reilly in? I think the answer to both is no.

A year and a half ago MSNBC could have probably worked Olbermann in to moderate a debate without drawing too much fire. But not now. Not after Olbermann has firmly placed himself on the left side of the political spectrum with numerous Special Commnets/attacks at the Republican administration, and one aimed at the Democratic Congress for not having a spine to stand up to Bush on the Iraq War, I don’t see how anyone can watch Olbermann moderate a debate without thinking of his biases. MSNBC is taking a big risk here.

TVNewser has an emailer making a ridiculous declaration…

8pm has always been CNN’s hour for former network stars. Connie Chung, Paula Zahn and now Campbell Brown. The reason Fox News and MSNBC have found success here is that they don’t keep changing that hour around. Consistency wins.

This is patently absurd on two levels. First of all, Paula Zahn has had that timeslot for nearly as long as Countdown with Keith Olbermann has been on the air and yet MSNBC is getting praise for not changing that hour around but CNN isn’t being consistent?

Second of all, the reason Connie Chung’s program and Zahn’s program haven’t drawn well has little to do with the fact that they are “former network stars”, it has more to do with the way they’ve been marketed and the formats of their respective programs. Simply having a name isn’t enough. You have to have a hook. Chung never did on CNN. Zahn’s show has started looking at race, but this is after over two years of being rather rudderless in having a theme or hook.

Plus 8pm may be the wrong time for the type of show like Zahn’s, especially considering the programming her show faces on the other channels (which strikes a blow at the concept of “counter-programming”). If Roger Ailes can realize that Bill O’Reilly doesn’t work in certain timeslots but will work right at 8pm, it’s possible that Zahn has been on in the wrong time all these years.

But to blow this all off on being a “former network star” is just illogical…

John Gibson rakes Dan Abrams over the coals over Don Imus. Video here.

Backstory: Yesterday Abrams was on Scarborough Country and chastized Gibson for being in a glass house as far as racist remarks go. However as Johnny Dollar writes, it was a red herring because Gibson never said what Abrams and Media Matters claimed what he said.

Two wrongs don’t make a right: So Gibson would be right to be non-plussed with Abrams mischaracterizing his comments and in my opinion would have every reason in the world to return Abrams fire because Abrams was wrong. But what does Gibson do? He leads off his piece with some mis-direction of his own by claiming that MSNBC is blaming FNC for the Imus mess. Transcript here.

Last night on MSNBC the general manager of that operation, Dan Abrams, was guest hosting one of their shows and was dealing with the Imus dustup. Amazingly, Abrams blamed FOX for his Imus problem.

Abrams said nothing of the kind. Abrams said FNC’s criticisms should be discounted because according to Abrams they have ulterior motives and this is just the latest in a series of attacks by FNC talent on the NBC network. TVNewser has video here.

What I think: As with most things that are disputed, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The majority of FNC’s coverage of the Imus mess that I’ve seen was down the middle. But Gibson with his “MSNBC is blaming FNC” non-sequitur, Brian Kilmeade saying incorrectly that Imus is promoted nonstop on MSNBC (I haven’t seen an Imus promo on MSNBC in years…the majority of MSNBC’s on air promotional resources are spent on its primetime offerings and its political coverage), and Bill O’Reilly with his over the top “NBC peddles hate every single day” comments (video of both here) give in my opinion some justification to Abrams’ dismissals of FNC’s criticisms.

What isn’t in dispute in my opinion is that Imus should have been dropped from MSNBC a long time ago. How many times has he caused trouble for the network? How many times has he attacked its talent and network hierarchy? People point to what happened to Michael Savage and how quickly he got dropped and wonder why MSNBC sticks with Imus. It’s a legitimate question in my book.

ICN got emails from MSNBC viewers asking what was up with the Countdown 10pm repeat last night? As I got these emails after 10pm, I didn’t see this repeat myself. The obvious question they had was, “Is this permanent?”. The answer is, I don’t know. NBC/MSNBC has invested a lot of time, effort, and money expanding its long form programming department, which is bearing fruit with Richard Engel’s “War Zone Diary” and Robert Bazell’s “Wounds of War”. To now undercut that by airing a Countdown re-run two hours after the original doesn’t make a lot of sense.

That said, Countdown is MSNBC’s ratings’ leader. And the notion of airing your highest rated program in primetime twice to jack up your channel’s overall ratings would not be unprecedented (see: HLN; Grace, Nancy). This may be an experiment to see what Olbermann does to the ratings both at 10pm and for primetime overall.

Note too that “Wounds of War” has been pushed back to an 11pm airtime this week and not the usual 10pm airing which premieres on MSNBC usually get. That’s a statement of some significance. The question is how significant?

MSNBC did something rare today. It had on a guest who had appeared on the Today Show. Having a guest on isn’t unusual. In fact it happens almost every day. What made it unusual was that the guest went from the Today set at 30 Rock to MSNBC’s studios in Secaucus. That rarely happens. What usually happens is after the Today interview is over, the guest is taken to another studio where a satellite interview is taped and then replayed later.

Today’s interview with the little crying girl from American Idol was taped earlier as well but it was in the studio. The difference between a split screen satellite interview and an in person interview is definately noticeable. ICN has heard numerous times from insiders who have complained about this issue where a Today interviewee isn’t brought over to Secaucus. Certainly logistics and cost play must come into play here because MSNBC would have to shuttle over the interviewee and coordinate set time to pull the interview off, even if it is taped. But when it’s done I think it makes a noticeable difference.

The reason I bring all this up is to highlight one of the benefits that should come MSNBC’s way when it moves to 30 Rock later this year. The issues about shuttling and coordination will be significantly reduced, if not eliminated entirely. Instead of having to drive the interviewee over, now all that has to happen is walk the interviewee over to the new MSNBC studios. I would be expecting to see more in studio interviews more often when MSNBC makes the move.

ICN doesn’t mean to channel CJR Daily, but MSNBC has started doing something odd with some of its interview segments during its daytime news coverage. Yesterday, one topic was a study on diet soda. Today another subject was cigarrette smoking in the movies and on TV. In both instances the subject was dealt with twice during a given hour, and in the case of the diet soda story, over multiple hours. What made this so notable was the fact that the same people were interviewed twice or more live with the same exact intro and the same exact opening question.

The issue for me is not that the subjects being discussed aren’t of value or aren’t important because they are. The issue is how a story is told. Having the same guests on in the same hour to re-hash the same subject with one or more of the same questions reeks of…well…sameness. There’s not a lot one can do new or differently with an interview when you have on the same guests and ask the same questions given the limited time constraints one faces. They’ve already gotten their points across in the first interview. At that point, why have a second interview? Where’s the benefit to the viewer in conveying the same subject the same way with the same people?

I suppose the argument could be made that a second interview benefits those who missed the first interview. In that case it would suggest that MSNBC is moving back to a wheel format again. I would hope that isn’t the case because I find the wheel format in general to be far too constricting. But that’s a subject for another day…

UPDATE: I don’t think I did a very good job conveying the main theme I was trying to get across so I re-wrote this entry.

UPDATE 2: I went back and re-read the entry and found that my redundancy story was also taking MSNBC to task over story selection. That was a mistake on my part, because all the networks emphasize some stories over others at times and I’m not going to single MSNBC out for that sort of criticism while ignoring similar examples on other networks. So I purged those parts of the write-up from the entry. I would also point out that my issue with this is not that a particular subject is talked about numerous times a day. That’s a given in cable news. The issue is that a particular subject is talked about several times with the same people. Bring on another viewpoint from a different person. That would at least break up the sense of sameness I got.

DailyKos has the fax that was sent to FNC announcing that the Nevada State Democratic Party was dropping out of the August debate. The Fax blames it on Roger Ailes’ jokes from last night’s RTNDF Gala. Seems pretty thin to me to cancel a debate not because of something that occurred on FNC’s air, but because of something that was said at an Awards banquet…and by someone who wouldn’t even be directly participating in the debate itself. Add it all up and it looks to me like one giant cop out where the state party was looking for a way to get out and used this as the excuse.

March 9, 2007

Marty Ryan
Executive Producer
Fox News Political Programs
xxx-xxx-xxxx (fax)
400 N Capitol Street NW, Suite 550
Washington DC 20001

DELIVERED VIA FAX AND EMAIL

Dear Marty,

A month ago, the Nevada Democratic Party entered into a good faith agreement with FOX News to co-sponsor a presidential debate in August. This was done because the Nevada Democratic Party is reaching out to new voters and we strongly believe that a Democrat will not win Nevada unless we find new ways to talk to new people.

To say the least, this was not a popular decision. But it is one that the Democratic Party stood by. However, comments made last night by FOX News President Roger Ailes in reference to one of our presidential candidates went too far. We cannot, as good Democrats, put our party in a position to defend such comments.

In light of his comments, we have concluded that it is not possible to hold a Presidential debate that will focus on our candidates and are therefore canceling our August debate. We take no pleasure in this, but it is the only course of action.

Sincerely,

Tom Collins
Chairman, Nevada State Democratic Party

Harry Reid
U.S. Senator (D-NV)

Today on The Big Story, John Gibson devoted a segment to the EP change at NBC Nightly News and ABC beating it in the ratings. Gibson had on to “analyze” the whole thing someone from….wait for it…the MRC. Why not NewsMax? or TownHall? Would have been the same result. The MRC pundit Rich Noyes jumped through his hoops on how MSNBC being so far to the left caused it to “contaminte the mothership” at NBC. His evidence was that because correspondents at NBC are ” permanent fixtures at MSNBC during the daytime” and MSNBC’s analysts are over at NBC.

First of all who, outside of Norah O’Donnell, is an NBC correspondent who is a permanent fixture at MSNBC these days? Andrea Mitchell was for a short time but that’s apparently ended. But neither O’Donnell or Mitchell has been used as an an example of NBC’s leftward turn. Bill O’Reilly went to great lengths to exonerate Mitchell from that mess when she was on The Factor. Furthermore NBC talent appearing on MSNBC has been going on to one degree or another since its inception. And just now it’s contaminating the mothership? Doubtful.

Second of all, which MSNBC analysts have been appearing on NBC that would count as contamination of NBC to contribute to its “leftward turn”. Dan Abrams? Joe Scarborough? Chris Matthews, maybe. But Matthews has been on NBC for years and years. Remember, Olbermann has not appeared regularly, if at all, on NBC as of this point.

William Arkin came up of course. On this point Noyes, his ideological bent and motives nonwithstanding, scored a bullseye because Arkin is still with NBC apparently when by rights he should have been dropped like the hot potato he now has become.
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The 1/2 Hour News Hour premiered tonight on FNC. Some of the jokes fell flat (especially the canned ACLU segments) and there were times I thought the show tried too hard, particularly the Ed Begley segments, but overall it wasn’t bad for a pilot I guess. But that’s not what I’m going to be writing about; how funny the show was or wasn’t. The thrust of this entry is about whether the show should be on FNC at all. I say no and here’s why…

The 1/2 Hour News Hour is a comedy program on a cable news network. Talk about brand dilution. FNC is supposed to be about “Real Journalism: Fair and Balanced”, not “Real Comedy”. If CNN were to put on a liberal comedy program, more to the left than either The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, the outcry on the Red blogs would be huge and the mainstream media would question CNN’s thinking. MSNBC has been pummelled over the years for an over-reliance on canned programming with critics taking pot shots at “Crimetime in Primetime” and other sensational canned programming that has aired, and not without some justification in my opinion. Shots have been taken at MSNBC from both CNN and FNC over this. It got so bad that Steve Capus had to deny the network was headed to all taped programming or all crime programming when NBCU 2.0 was addressed at a Town Hall meeting. I fail to see why FNC should be any different if it goes off in a non-news tangent like this. I don’t consider “Red Eye” in the same vein because it’s more free form than structured comedy like 1/2 Hour is. 1/2 Hour has comedy writers, canned skits, and a laugh track (which was used very heavy handedly in my opinion tonight). Plus Red Eye is buried late at night where it’s disconnected from FNC’s regular primetime programming. 1/2 Hour is sandwiched in between first run primetime episodes of Hannity’s America and The Lineup.

It doesn’t matter to me what 1/2 Hour’s idealogy is or even whether it’s funny or not. I object to it on general principle. News networks shouldn’t be doing straight comedy programs. Period. That’s where I stand. What’s your opinion?

UPDATE: As has been pointed out in the comments, CNN International airs a half hour weekend update of The Daily Show so FNC wasn’t the first channel to do this. And nobody made a peep about CNNI doing it (though CNNI doesn’t have much of an audience in the US due to carriage issues). I don’t get CNNI so I didn’t even know it was on there; in primetime no less. Had I known though it wouldn’t have changed my position any. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Tonight on Countdown, Keith Olbermann gave Bill O’Reilly “Worst Person in the World” for putting former NBC Analyst Ken Allard on to talk about William Arkin. Video of the interview is here. Olbermann called O’Reilly a “swine”, apparently for putting Allard on the air. Allard left NBC News after 10 years, partly because he had a stroke.

This gets pretty complicated. Allard wrote a colum in the San Antonio Express News on the Arkin incident a couple of days ago. In the Express News Allard made some comments about NBC News which according to O’Reilly were cut out. It’s not clear to me where the cut was. The online column does contain some criticism about NBC News, so perhaps the edit was to the print edition (Allard suggested it was to save space, which you don’t need to do in an online column but might need to do in a print column). Here is Allard’s criticism from the online column…

But it is becoming increasingly apparent that Arkin won’t be fired despite having gone well beyond those bounds — and not for the first time. In 2003, for example, he tried to blacklist a decorated Green Beret general as a “Christian jihadist.” In 2005, he published an astonishing primer on deciphering American military code names and covert operations.

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Bill O’Reilly’s “week of Arkin” continues. Monday it was NBC News. Tuesday it was The Washington Post NBC News. Wednesday Bill had Dennis Miller on to talk about Arkin and other things. I’ll give Bill major chutzpah points though. Most people would put the story in the context of where it originated. But not Bill. He’s not calling it the Washington Post story or the William Arkin/Washington Post….he’s calling it the “NBC News/Washington Post mercenary story” with NBC News out in front. I suppose if Keith Olbermann worked at The Post, O’Reilly would be in a real pickle; he wouldn’t be able to decide which organization to put in front.

At least Miller couldn’t go the distance O’Reilly has on this…

MILLER: Well, first off, I should say I never trust a pacifist who skis atomic skis. But I would also say that I don’t think this goes up the chain to Immelt and Jeff Zucker. When I worked over there, trust me, I couldn’t get them on the phone.

O’REILLY: Oh, but we can. And we — we asked them for a statement. They all know it. Immelt knows it, Zucker knows it, Wright knows it. And their statement came back, “Well, he wrote it on a Washington Post web site.” Not “we condemn it.” Not “we don’t like it.” Nothing like that. That’s what cooked him.

Johnny Dollar has the audio from today’s Radio Factor with Bill O’Reilly going off the deep end with his obsession over NBC News in an attempt to get back at Keith Olbermann. What was being hinted at Saturday turned out to be true on Monday; O’Reilly used Arkin’s comments in the Washington Post as proof that NBC has gone left because he’s a paid military analyst at the network, even though he wasn’t expressing those opinions there. Guilt by association. To try and make the case more ironclad, or more ridiculous depending on where you come down on this (I come down on the latter obviously), O’Reilly used NBC’s statement on the story against it by insinuating that nothing but an evisceration of Arkin for comments he didn’t make on the network would be appropriate and therefore this is the smoking gun that proves NBC has gone to the left. Insane. “A Watershed moment in American Journalism”? Hardly. O’Reilly has failed to show any connection between Arkin’s comments and NBC News. NBC did not provide Arkin a forum to make the comments. NBC News did not pay Arkin to make those comments. NBC News did not instruct the Washington Post to print Arkin’s comments. There is no connection.

Well, at least I know what this week’s Question of the Weekend will be now…

Tonight on Countdown, Keith Olbermann will be doing another segment on the Insight Magazine story. Over on FNC, Bill O’Reilly will be doing something on the Maria Bartiromo/Citigroup scandal.

UPDATE: Can’t watch both so I’m watched O’Reilly first (I’ll catch Countdown on the repeat). O’Reilly started out the top of the segment by trying to tie Bartiromo to “problems” at NBC News and NBC Entertainment…

As we reported NBC News has taken a sharp turn to the left. Under executives Jeff Zucker and Robert Wright with elements at NBC News (Translation: Keith Olbermann who doesn’t work at NBC News- Spud) now actually using propaganda from far left websites as primary source material. Unbelievable. In this week’s New York Magazine former General Electric CEO Jack Welch implies that if he were still in charge, he’d fire Zucker.

(section describing the Bartiromo scandal removed to save time)

NBC News denies any wrong doing (what’s NBC News have to do with CNBC? - Spud). But there is no denying trouble at NBC News headquarters in New York city. ABC News may overtake NBC’s newscast and CNBC and MSNBC have major ratings problems.

At that point I stopped watching. This was just too much. If O’Reilly wants to do a segment on Bartiromo, fine. I think CNBC needs to come clean and give an honest accounting of why this isn’t a conflict of interest for Bartiromo or the network. This “try to ignore the story and hope it blows over” approach isn’t serving either the network or its viewers well. You can quibble about the speed with which FNC addressed the Insight story issue, with each subsequent on the record comment going into greater detail about what happened and why it shouldn’t have happened, but at least FNC was trying to address the issue. CNBC is denying that a problem, or even the appearance of a problem, took place. At the very least it’s bad PR because it gives the appearance of impropriety.

But for O’Reilly to try and lump Bartiromo in with other comptletely unrelated issues, issues which are insulated from each other because of the respective divisions and organizations they take place in…which have no overlapping jurisdictions or responsibilities, is just ridiculous. This is O’Reilly in full “get NBC at all costs” mode throwing everything at the wall and trying to make it stick.

UPDATE 2: Even though it was announced via an MSNBC media release (not to be confused with a press release via the NBC Media Village), Countdown didn’t do the Insight article segment.

From the moment I first heard Lou Dobbs say it on Tuesday’s Lou Dobbs Tonight I knew I had to write about it. Here is Lou Dobbs’ unbelievably tone deaf opinion piece on Presidential funerals and Museums…

I want to extend my condolences to Mrs. Ford and the entire Ford family.

And I want to offer now a few of my thoughts on the funeral of President Ford, a good and honorable man who served this nation well in uniform and in government service.

And I hope what I have to say here isn’t taken the wrong way, but I’m sure there are some who will insist on doing so.

It seems to me the pomp and circumstance that is becoming a national tradition in bidding farewell to our former presidents is reaching unseemly proportions. Unseemly for any American, it seems to me, and more in keeping with European royal prerogative and pretense that the founders of this great nation renounced more than 200 years ago.

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I had thought that ICN would have a quiet evening once all the 2006 ratings data flood was over with. But then I happened to listen to Bill O’Reilly’s Talking Points Memo tonight and there went the quiet evening. The subject was “Blaming America for Saddam’s execution” and one of the targets was “NBC News”. But was it really NBC News? Let’s examine…

The attack on NBC News started with this graphic…

Elements at NBC News led the way, calling the execution a PR disaster for the U.S.

Followed by this graphic…

An NBC commentator says President Bush is putting troops in harm’s way for money. That’s insane.

Elements at NBC News? An NBC commentator? Pretty vague. Fits a familiar pattern though, doesn’t it? Here we go again. Perhaps the putting troops in harm’s way for money comment refers to this part of Keith Olbermann’s special comment from last night…

And the war’s second accomplishment — your second accomplishment, sir — is to have taken money out of the pockets of every American, even out of the pockets of the dead soldiers on the battlefield, and their families, and to have given that money to the war profiteers.

Because if you sell the Army a thousand Humvees, you can’t sell them any more until the first thousand have been destroyed.

But is it really? Only O’Reilly knows and true to form for the feud he’s being deliberately vague. When O’Reilly wants to blast someone he doesn’t mess around when he knows the person’s identity…he names them. We’ve seen it over and over and over again. But not in this case. In this case it’s “Elements at NBC News” and an “NBC Commentator” even though NBC doesn’t have commentators on its nightly news broadcast. I wonder why? Well, actually I don’t. I know why. And so does anyone who’s been watching this feud for the past year.
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I think year end articles are overdone…it’s like sort of obligatory that you have to do one to wrap up the year whether it’s really warranted or not. Nontheless I decided to do one. But, what would I write about?

Well I could have written about CNN’s changes through the year. American Morning lost an hour, CNN said so long to Daryn Kagan and Carol Lin, cut back on its weekend news a bit, renamed Live From to CNN Newsroom (welcoming Don Lemon and TJ Holmes to the newscast), debuting the hi tech newsroom in New York City, bringing Zain Verjee over from CNN International first to The Situation Room and then later installing her at the State Department.

And I could have written about the changes at HLN. Glenn Beck’s show premiered and has started creeping up in the ratings, the anchor lineup during the day was changed not once, not twice, but three times which saw Kathleen Kennedy and Thomas Roberts get essentially demoted, Stephen Frasier moved to CNN International, and Sophia Choi let go (much to my consternation) while Robin & Company added an hour and Christi Paul moved from weekend tape to live news at 10 am.
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Let’s not overreact. In the end of October, Imus in the Morning had a run of wins over American Morning; enough wins to get my attention and look at whether this was a real threat to CNN or just an abberation. The data was not clearly definative but certainly didn’t point to an imminent threat to CNN. As it turned out American Morning rebounded (though recently it has started slipping a bit again with Imus beating the show yesterday in both P2+ and P25-54) and suddenly what once looked like a wave at the time has become a ripple in hindsight. Imus may be closing the gap but he’s not yet beating the competition enough to change the monthly results in terms of finishing position.

While there is no doubt that MSNBC’s prime time ratings have gone up, due in no small part to Keith Olbermann’s Countdown leading the way (and Scarborough Country benefiting as a result), there is no way to tell how big a deal this really is at this point. So why worry?

The only real chink in CNN’s prime time armor, as far as MSNBC is concerned at least, is Paula Zahn Now which Olbermann is now beating frequently. The same can’t be said for anything else MSNBC puts up against CNN. Scarborough Country isn’t a threat to Larry King Live. And while the Doc Block can occasionally best 360 in one of its two hours, usually the second hour, it can’t do it regularly enough to be a real threat the way Olbermann is to Zahn.

I’m not trying to discount MSNBC’s accomplishments here but there are just too many intangibles to justify arguing that CNN should be worried at this point, despite MSNBC’s recent momentum. And one week’s worth of not so hot ratings is certainly not striking fear into the hearts of CNN Center and Time Warner Center. That’s just too melodramatic. However if things stay like this for a whole month and MSNBC comes in 2nd in the Demo for December, then CNN will have no choice but to worry. And worry a lot.

Editor and Publisher’s Anna Crane writes about the decision by NBC News to call the unrest in Iraq a Civil War. (via Romenesko)

In a bombshell, however, Matt Lauer on the Today show this morning revealed that NBC had studied and perhaps debated the issue anew, and then decided that it will now use “civil war” freely. “For months the White House rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war,” he said. “For the most part news organizations like NBC hesitated to characterize it as such. After careful consideration, NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted and what is going on in Iraq can now be characterized as civil war.”

MSNBC, for its part, has been playing up this story all day long. MSNBC is treating it like the NBC decision to call it a Civil War is itself a story, which I suppose to a certain extent is true, sort of the way Walter Cronkite’s declaration on Vietnam was a watershed moment in that conflict. But the way it’s coming across is leaving me with a disquieting feeling that I’m witnessing something that is part PR, part marketing, and part news, when ideally it should be all about the news.

There may be no good way for MSNBC or NBC to go about covering this particular story without coming across as somewhat self-centered/inward looking in how it describes what led it to this decision and its significance. But, I’m not sure that what I’ve seen so far was the best alternative available.

I’ve gotten a couple of emails today asking me why I haven’t posted or noted this story? The simple reason is that there’s no story here. There’s nothing to this. Just like there was nothing to it a couple of weeks ago when ICN first posted about this news and ICN’s readers, which can be a very vocal and snarky bunch with their comments on occasion, shrugged their collective shoulders and ignored the angle The Post played up.

What this story is really about is how the story got planted in The Post for maximum snark. The Post is an expert at this. Is CNN’s audience old? Sure. All cable news skews old. But there’s no story in that. Nor is there anything out of the ordinary in the AARP being one of three groups to umbrella sponsor chunks of CNN’s election coverage. But you can dress up even the deadest dog and make it look like something if you pile on enough snark and bile. And that’s what The Post did. A classic hit piece…

The L.A. Times’ Matea Gold writes about how the networks will be handing exit polls.

“It’s kind of drip, drip, drip,” said Paul Friedman, vice president of CBS News. “If we made another bad mistake, it would kind of add to the toll taken on our credibility.”

After weathering fierce criticism for their botched calls of the 2000 presidential election, network executives said their prime directive now is to be right above all else.

“There’s a tremendous amount of pressure,” said Marty Ryan, executive producer of political programs for Fox News. “We love being first in race calls, but our mandate … is to be correct.”

The networks have pledged not to project winners based on the exit polls until after the polls are scheduled to close. Until then, the networks will use the exit poll data they get at 5 p.m. solely to discuss the demographics of the electorate — in other words, who turned out to vote and what factors influenced their decisions, but not who they cast ballots for.

Excuse me, but I was a Poli Sci major in college and I can tell you viewers aren’t stupid. This is a network dodge. If the networks tell who turned out to vote and what factors influenced their decisions they don’t have to give the official exit poll data because the viewers can figure out what that data means based on the demographics. I’m staunchly against any exit poll/voting data being released under any circumstances until after the polls close. In the case of national Presidential elections that means until the polls close on the west coast. I’ve done exit poll work in ‘88 and ‘90 and I’ve been on the other side of the coin and seen exit poll data on TV before I got to vote in the 88 and I can tell you from personal experience it does make a difference, particularly in national elections.

The problem is the networks want to make the most of their numerous hours on the air election night and they’ll have a hard time doing that if they have to sit on all their data until the polls close. But the right to vote is one of the most important freedoms we have in this country and to have that right impinged or influenced in any way by network news releasing any data that can show a trend in the outcome should be squashed and squashed hard. In a straight fight the Freedom of the Press is trumped by the right to vote. That’s my take on the issue. What’s yours?

I’ve been watching some of the negative reaction to the announcement that Keith Olbermann would be a big part of MSNBC’s election night coverage. And the arguments against it seem to be the same thing…that FNC wouldn’t put O’Reilly on to anchor the results. Both Johnny Dollar and Extreme Mortman argued as much.

MSNBC is in something of a pickle. Olbermann is MSNBC’s ratings magnet…its biggest star. They would be stupid not to have him involved. But he’s crossed over from anchor/analyst into the role of activist/hack in recent months similar to the way Lou Dobbs has with his pet issues on CNN. Both bring un-needed baggage with them into their election night coverage. Both will be featured prominently on their respective networks but it isn’t clear exactly in what capacity. But if it’s in an anchoring role it will taint their networks’ coverage in some people’s eyes. But for others just their mere presence will be enough to taint the coverage. I think that’s a bit harsh. But there is something to be said about clearly defined roles of responsibility in covering news and it seems like those lines are getting more and more blurred, particularly on cable.

I suppose it was inevitable that it would show up somewhere in the MSM. It figures it would be Page Six since they wrote that over the top story on Olbermann’s mail threat a few weeks ago. I’d hoped that it would stay out of the MSM because this is really a private matter and the “scorned” party in this case has an agenda that goes way above and beyond the “jilted lover” angle and comes way too close to “Fatal Attraction” territory with its single minded obsession if you ask me. But it broke, so ICN is covering it…albeit in so much as to note that it broke. If you want more detailed information, find another blog…

Tuesday, I noted that Keith Olbermann crossed a line when he called FNC’s Chris Wallace a “monkey”. Apparently this is a line that Olbermann wants to stay on the other side of as evidenced by his characterizations of FNC head Roger Ailes’ weight both Wednesday and Thursday. As someone who has had his own up and down weight battles and has friendships with people who have weight problems, I wince whenever the subject of someone’s weight is brought up for ridicule.

That Olbermann hates FNC, and for that matter anything connected to Rupert Murdoch, is not really in dispute. But there are ways to crticize and there are ways not to criticize and school yard name calling isn’t one of them in my opinion. Olbermann isn’t going to convince the undecideds out in TV land of the validity of his arguments, however valid they may be, by going this route. Insults detract from whatever substance the arguments have and puts the focus of the attack squarely on the insult. And name calling and personal insults have a short life span as a weapon. At some point the viewer will become desensitized to them.

As these insults pile up, Olbermann risks becoming the very thing he apparently despises most about FNC (judging by his previous comments); a loudmouth talking head who takes the low road with the cheap shot instead of making substantive points. Is that really what he wants to be?

(Note: the “loudmouth talking head who takes the low road with the cheap shot” characterization is based on Olbermann’s numerous pieces on some of FNC’s talent and not based on any personal opinions I may or may not have. So don’t be sending me comments saying that I said FNC is made up of loudmouth talking heads who take the low road with the cheap shot. Because I didn’t say that. I would say that I pefer it if nobody went that route but I acknowledge that talking head TV is very opinionated and there is an audience segment out there who tunes in to see the talking heads give their opinions. I just wish they could do it in a less “volatile” manner.)

I’ve received emails from readers regarding the CNN/FNC gap info provided by CNN today so I thought I should comment on that. The Q3 2004 period was in the middle of the heated 2004 Presidential election when viewer interest was high and the ratings spiked. The Q3 2005 period was during the devastating 2005 hurricane season and the Natalee Holloway saga (which gave FNC a big bump particularly for On The Record). So it’s understandable that both Quarters would show a drop for FNC. As noted here, all the networks were down sharply in Q3 2006 vs Q3 2005 except CNBC which wasn’t doing wall to wall hurricane coverage.

If one looks at Q2 and Q3 2006, the gaps leveled between CNN and FNC because there was no major breaking news events like other quarters. My takeaway from this is that the gap fluctuates wildly depending on whether there’s a heavy news story that dominates the news for extended periods.

Tonight on Countdown, Keith Olbermann called FNC’s Chris Wallace “a monkey posing as a newscaster” for his question that got Bill Clinton all riled up. This is beyond patently ridiculous. It’s offensive. Wallace asked a perfectly legitimate question. It doesn’t matter that nobody else bothered to ask the question. That’s their problem to answer for. Clinton was hardly sandbagged. He agreed in advance that part of the interview would be about any subject and part would be about the Clinton Global Initiative.

This isn’t about whether I think Clinton has a point about whether conservatives have been trying to lay 9/11 on his administration (I do to a certain extent). This isn’t about whether I think Bush had other priorities than Al Qaeda when his administration took office (I think there’s evidence to suggest as much). This is about professional respect and common courtesy towards a fellow journalist who has shown no outward signs of bias in his conduct. Just because Clinton didn’t like the question and used it to launch an over the top tirade doesn’t mean the question wasn’t a legitimate question. Even Clinton agreed the question was legitimate. He just didn’t like the fact it was coming from someone from FNC.

Ever since Olbermann’s first, and I would argue necessary and proper, finger wagging commentary at Donald Rumsfeld, his successive criticisms on the Bush administration in recent weeks have gotten shriller and shriller. It appears to me like it’s almost as if he feels he has to top himself with each new commentary. Be more outlandish…more daring…more critical. At some point he was bound to go too far. And tonight he did just that. Olbermann should apologize to Wallace.

And, no I don’t think Olbermann used the term “monkey” in any other manner than as a trained monkey…as in a FNC “lackey”, as ridiculous as it would still be considering Wallace’s demonstrated lack of bias in how he conducts his interviews. Anyone who argues otherwise is out on a very long limb in my opinion…