Romper Room the boys at play
Update confirmation: http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/07/ms-nbc-dropping-olbermann-matthews/
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/08/tv-newser-is-matthews-a-fall-guy-for-olbermann/
Buy bye to K Doberman and Chris Tingle as election anchors.
Taylor Marsh bemoans the loss of Olberman “just when Democrats need [him] most” but assign the blame to Keith’s unfair bias against… Hillary?
What is Taylor Marsh thinking??? Journalistic Boundaries http://themoderatevoice.com/media/journalism/22510/olberman%E2%80%99s-exit-raises-questions-of-journalistic-boundaries/
September 8, 2008 MSNBC Takes Incendiary Hosts From Anchor Seat By BRIAN STELTER
MSNBC tried a bold experiment this year by putting two politically incendiary hosts, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, in the anchor chair to lead the cable news channel’s coverage of the election. That experiment appears to be over. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage. The change is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel’s perceived shift to the political left.
The success of the Fox News Channel in the past decade along with the growth of political blogs have convinced many media companies that provocative commentary attracts viewers and lures Web browsers more than straight news delivered dispassionately. “In a rapidly changing media environment, this is the great philosophical debate,” Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, said in a telephone interview Saturday. Fighting the ratings game, he added, “the bottom line is that we’re experiencing incredible success.” But as the past two weeks have shown, that success has a downside. When the vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin lamented media bias during her speech, attendees of the Republican convention loudly chanted “NBC.”
In January, Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews, the host of “Hardball,” began co-anchoring primary night coverage, drawing an audience that enjoyed the pair’s “SportsCenter”-style show. While some critics argued that the assignment was akin to having the Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly anchor on election night, MSNBC insisted that Mr. Olbermann knew the difference between news and commentary.
The McCain campaign has filed letters of complaint to the news division about its coverage and openly tied MSNBC to it. Tension between the network and the campaign hit an apex the day Mr. McCain announced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. MSNBC had reported Friday morning that Ms. Palin’s plane was enroute to the announcement and she was likely the pick. But McCain campaign officials warned the network off, with one official going so far as to say that all of the candidates on the short list were on their way — which MSNBC then reported. “The fact that it was reported in real time was very embarrassing,” said a senior MSNBC official. “We were told, ‘No, it’s not Sarah Palin and you don’t know who it is.’ ”
And what about that Andrea Mitchell? She had been a bipartisan killer as well, something that she had not been known before the election. She used to be fair.
Al Hunt, the executive Washington bureau chief of Bloomberg News, said that the entire news division was being singled out by Republicans because of the work of partisans like Mr. Olbermann. “To go and tar the whole news network and Brokaw and Mitchell is grossly unfair,” he said, referring to the NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell.
Oh, oh this better get fixed or daddy was going to have to come do something about it:
According to three staff members, Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal, and Steve Capus, president of NBC News, considered flying to the Republican convention in Minnesota last week to address the lingering tensions.
To read the entire piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business/media/08msnbc.html
On losing readership: http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/after-losing-viewership-nbc-starts-to-reign-in-msnbc/
