From the Politico, “MSNBC Prez Defends Convention Team” by Michael Calderone Things are getting ugly at MSNBC:
This reminds me of a time when I was doing a story for this magazine on Larry Summers’ troubled tenure at Harvard and the left-wing professors who were trying to run him out of the Yard. After the story ran, I spoke with one of the liberal professors that I had interviewed and he expressed surprise that my story had a bias and wasn’t strictly neutral. I expressed surprise over his surprise. I make no bones about my biases, and any sentient reader of this magazine quickly notices a decided rightward tilt. So I’d be among the last to complain about another news service showing bias. Indeed, I appreciate MSNBC’s willingness to wear its biases on its virtual sleeve, and find that dynamic far preferable to the shopworn biases that creep into someone like Wolf Blitzer’s coverage all while he maintains a phony pose of neutrality. MSNBC remains an interesting case for other reasons. Until recently, it and its mother ship were respected news agencies. Now that they’re morphing into purveyors of opinion and propaganda, the respect is vanishing. Just as I read the left wing blogs, I watch MSNBC. Keith Olbermann is the main man there, and right wingers who deny his talent sound as out of touch as left wingers who deny Rush Limbaugh’s talent. What’s more, Olbermann is hardly the only partisan on cable news. Sean Hannity brings a distinct viewpoint to his show, as does Glenn Beck. Not that anyone watches Beck, but it’s still worth noting. But there’s something different about the Olbermann show. Unlike Hannity and Bill O’Reilly who will have guests from all over the political spectrum, Olbermann’s Countdown is an elaborately constructed echo-chamber. Virtually every guest agrees with the host’s sentiments. Rachel Maddow, one of Olbermann’s most frequent guests who is about to get her own MSNBC vehicle, is an engaging television presence but she and Olbermann concur on all matters. So Olbermann “interviewing” Maddow is a pointless exercise. A monologue (or “special comment”) would do just as well. Olbermann’s show has become the television equivalent of a left wing blog where group-think dominates and dissenting views are most assuredly not welcome. It’s ironic – when people who don’t watch Fox criticize Fox, they have an idea in their head of something that looks a lot like Keith Olbermann’s show. But on Fox, unlike the changing MSNBC, all views are welcome. If MSNBC continues in its current direction, it will lose all respect as a news organization. But that may be good business. Offering opinions is cheaper and more popular than gathering news. The issue going forward will be how long it takes before the act grows stale. Speaking just for myself, seeing people agree with each other for hours on end doesn’t make for particularly compelling television. Right now, Olbermann occupies a sweet spot where he reflects the distilled anger of the American left. But that anger will lessen with George Bush’s departure and perhaps vanish if Barack Obama wins. It’s also tough to figure why Olbermann is unwilling to get it on with people with whom he has ideological differences. He’s a glib guy, sharp and quick on his feet. And I’m certain there are a lot of conservatives out there who wouldn’t mind appearing on his show to express the other side of things.
