To his great credit, Dan Abrams responded to my post of yesterday (the original is in the comments section for the previous post, below).
I will reprint Abrams' comment in its entirety here:
Its thanksgiving so ill keep this brief. I am no longer an anchor or correspondent at NBC or MSNBC. So there is no confusion (as you suggest) when I go to work at Abrams Research. I have, however, become an outside legal analyst for NBC just like every other outside legal or political contributor or analyst who has his or her own law firm, consulting firm or works for a private business. You are not suggesting that there should be a different standard for me right?
As for the media you cite, The Observer piece was quite fair and I would encourage your readers to evaluate if they think it supports the proposition you suggest. Jessica Pressler from New York Magazine was forced by her editors to retract much of her latest attack on me and to Gawker's credit, they published a response from me that clairifies my position.
This is not a close call. I am no longer a "newsman" as you suggest. Rather I am an outside analyst.
i would hope that you would make the appropriate corrections. I wish you all a wonderful day with your families.
Dan Abrams
CEO
Abrams Research
The Cable Gamer never wants to attack anyone unfairly. And upon reflection, TCG considers the Abrams case to be a close call, ethically speaking: If Abrams is truly just an outside analyst, then he does, indeed, have a point--he has a right to pursue his career any way he sees fit. If he is just another talking head, making a living doing something else, then fine. Full stop.
But on the other hand, to the extent that Abrams failed to make that distinction clear when he was launching Abrams research--over the past number of weeks, or maybe months?--then TCG thinks that he played a cute little game. Perhaps he benefited from his NBC/MSNBC perch in order to collect clients and contacts for his new venture. I think it's safe to say that there wasn't as full disclosure here as there could have been.
In any case, the real issue, so far as TCG is concerned, is not Abrams, but rather MSNBC/NBC. TCG thinks it's an outrage, for example, that MSNBC has let Keith Olbermann drive the whole network way to the left. And TCG thinks it's an outrage that MSNBC is part of a company, GE, which got a $139 billion loan guarantee through another subsidiary, GE Capital. Which is to say, MSNBC seems to be part of a political operation that made a bet on Barack Obama and now stands to win, bigtime, in the Washington power game in the Obama Era.
And TCG also thinks it's outrageous that Chris Matthews has been using his MSNBC perch to advance his Pennsylvania political career.
And now Abrams seems--not just to me, but to a lot of others--to have been using his MSNBC/NBC perch to advance his private business agenda. Maybe TCG got that wrong, although Abrams' response does not entirely persuade me that I did.
As I noted in my post this afternoon, I deliberately waited before reacting to the news of Abrams Research, just to let the story "breathe." But this was the context in which I viewed the Abrams story. There was already plenty of smoke to justify my "fire" hypothesis.
But if Abrams wants to put these accusations to rest, he can fully disclose all the conversations he had with anyone--in or out of NBC/MSNBC--over the past few months, as he was formulating the business plan for Abrams Research. He is welcome to do that right here on TCG. And if he is not willing to fully disclose everything, well, I would hope that MSNBC/NBC will.
And if none of them fully disclose, well, I will maintain my suspicions.
And of course, my larger suspicions about MSNBC will continue.
