OK, Cable Gamers, here's where things get interesting. Yesterday Howard Kurtz published a piece in The Washington Post, "MSNBC, Leaning Left And Getting Flak From Both Sides," which painted a picture of the cable newser as being so pro-Barack Obama that both conservatives, on one side, and liberal supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton, on the other side, are angry.
Kurtz quoted John McCain adviser Steve Schmidt said of MSNBC, "It's an organ of the Democratic National Committee. It's a partisan advocacy organization that exists for the purpose of attacking John McCain."
And then Kurtz quoted Terry McAuliffe, chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign, as saying that MSNBC star Chris Matthews (who appears ever more frequently on NBC) has been "in the tank" for Obama "from Day One" and is practically "the Obama campaign chair."
One observation, of course, is that you have to be pretty over to the left to be seen as both anti-Republican and anti-Clinton. As an aside, it's a myth, of course, that Hillary is some sort of moderate; her lifetime vote-score from the American Conservative Union is 9, reckoned on a 1 to 100 scale; McCain's rating, for purposes of comparison, is 83. And oh by the way, Obama's ACU rating is 8. In other words, Hillary and Obama have virtually identical voting records, and yet MSNBC still chose to favor Obama.
And not just Matthews. Keith Olbermann, as we all know, has been devoted the full hour of his show to Obama-olatry for months now--except, of course, when he is defaming George W. Bush. And Dan Abrams and all the rest seem to be happy joining on on the O-Train. How come? Maybe because MSNBC knows that Obama is much further to the left than his ACU rating would indicate.
But there was one little line in the Kurtz piece that caught people's eye: referring to the spillover from MSNBC onto NBC, Kurtz observed, "Some top NBC journalists say privately they are troubled by the overlapping identities." Kurtz is a pretty good reporter--he wouldn't have printed that if he hadn't heard it, more than once, while reporting this story.
So now the plot thickens: Yesterday, Jossip.com, a well-plugged in NYC site, Is David Gregory Orchestrating Hit Jobs on Other MSNBC Talent? Well that's kind of an interesting question, wouldn't you say?
Here's the case from Jossip:
There’s a rumor going around MSNBC that Howard Kurtz’s unfriendly article about the network, “MSNBC, Leaning Left And Getting Flak From Both Sides,” was a David Gregory-orchestrated hit job against his colleagues.
Kurtz’s piece, which followed up earlier items about the (invisible?) controversy brewing now that NBC News and MSNBC are both housed at 30 Rock and sharing resources, slammed the network for the convergence of hard news reporting and opinion.
We’re hearing that when the article hit yesterday, Keith Olbermann and his camp began raging over Kurtz’s printed criticism about Olbermann manning the anchor chair during primary coverage, a time when, one might suggest, a newsman without obvious bias should be running the show.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Olbermann has directed his anger Gregory’s way.
But what really sent Olbermann over the edge was this line: “Some top NBC journalists say privately they are troubled by the overlapping identities.”
All eyes have been on Gregory as one of those “top NBC journalists” who spoke with Kurtz. And to those who think so, one of the next lines, a pro-Gregory plug, wasn’t a surprise: “Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory, both well-regarded NBC correspondents, now anchor hour-long programs on the cable outlet. Gregory replaced Tucker Carlson, leaving former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough as the channel’s only conservative host.”
And if Olbermann needed more evidence that Gregory helped steer Kurtz’s item, it came here:
“But news and opinion often seem to merge on primary nights. MSNBC’s coverage is anchored by Matthews, a onetime Democratic operative, and Olbermann, the Countdown host who recently finished one anti-Bush commentary by instructing the president to ’shut the hell up.’”
One source tells us that top MSNBC management is convinced Gregory “must have been involved” with Kurtz’s reporting.
Are all those plot-turns thick enough for you? And the fun of it is, it's all playing out in real time, right before our eyes!
I love this Game. I will doing my own digging to see if I can figure out what's really going on at MSNBC/NBC. But of course, as faithful TCG readers know, my own angle, for a long time, has been that Wall Street pressure is going to force parent company General Electric, mis-led by incompetent CEO Jeff Immelt for seven years now--is going to spin NBC off after the 2008 election. Which of course, would leave top talent free to join the Obama Administration and leave the remainder at MSNBC free to merge with Air America or Mother Jones.
But in the meantime, I was amused to see some of the comments on the Jossip site, including this one:
I’d take Gregory over Olbermann any day. Just be patient David: Keith will have his well-deserved nervous breakdown any day now and who knows-you might get a primetime show out of it.
That was from someone named "Bmused." A great e-handle, for life, and for Cable Gaming!
