Ben Grossman, writing for Broadcasting & Cable, has an interesting idea: Spin MSNBC away from NBC News, making it instead a stand-alone network within NBC-Universal, such as the entertainment channels Bravo and USA.
Unless he is a grandmaster of irony, Grossman seems ideologically sympathetic to MSNBC: He praises the channel for having "forged a fantastic programming groove." [sic!]
But in praising MSNBC for moving way to the left with the likes of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, Grossman concedes that MSNBC is now threatening to damage the NBC News brand. So make 'em completely separate, he advises, so that Olbermann & Co. would be free to do whatever they wished on their air, free from such old-school nags as Tom Brokaw and Andrea Mitchell.
Yup. Olby and Rachel and all the rest could do whatever they wished: They just couldn't call it straight news.
