Bill Clinton: MSNBC "Has Become Our Version Of Fox"

Bill Clinton: MSNBC 'Has Become Our Version Of Fox'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/bill-clinton-msnbc-fox_n_1214143.html



Bill Clinton had some sharp words for MSNBC in a just-released interview with Esquire.

The former president was speaking to the magazine about "things we can agree on" in a polarized time, and he cited the network as one of the culprits when his interviewer asked, "why does the politics seem so much more caustic now than even [when you were president]?"

Clinton said he thought that "the diffusion of the media has complicated things." He then used MSNBC as an example of this.

"I was just watching MSNBC, and they had a woman that used to work for me and a couple of other people on there, and they were talking about the Republican primary," he said. "And I was laughing. I said, 'Boy, it really has become our version of Fox.'"

Clinton chalked this up to what he called "the economics" of cable news, which he said made it possible for companies to target a niche audience and still make a profit.

His comparison is sure to rankle people on MSNBC, who consistently reject the notion that they are the Democratic-leaning version of Fox News. Recently, the network's most prominent voice, Rachel Maddow, discussed this idea with Slate.

"I think the thing that is under-appreciated about MSNBC is that we...all get to do our own thing," she said. "...There may be liberals on TV at MSNBC, but the network is not operating with a political objective, whereas Fox is operating with a political objective to elect Republican candidates."

Read about Clinton's comments on the Republican primary here, and the full interview at Esquire.

 

Bashir, Sharpton Attack Respondents In Latest Poll For Saying Obama Made Political Move On Gay Marriage

Watch the segment below via MSNBC:

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On Monday, Alex Wagner invited fellow MSNBC hosts Martin Bashir and Al Sharpton on her midday program to discuss the political impact of Obama’s support for gay marriage as registered in a new CBS/New York Times poll: the verdict in the poll was that the news is not good for team Obama. In fact, the news was so bad that Bashir took to arguing with the respondents have “accused” Obama of making a political calculation. Those voters, Sharpton said, should be “smarter” than to think Obama won political points with his pivot. Their resentment is, well, misguided.

Wagner asked “Rev.” Sharpton if he thought it was a problem for Obama that the findings in a new CBS/New York Times poll that showed 67 percent of voters viewed the President’s embrace of gay marriage rights as a political maneuver while only 24 percent said they believed he was moved to support same-sex marriage out of principle.

Sharpton said that Obama would have to address that issue, but also said that the voters were dead wrong that it could have been a political calculation because Obama has not benefited politically from the announcement.

“As you go down the rest of the poll, there was not that much of a political advantage here, and if anything he got some flack in his own base,” said Sharpton. “So, I think that those who have been made to believe or believe on their own he did it for political reasons would then have to look at the results and say you have to be smarter than that to know that he was not going to gain politically because he didn’t.”

Where to begin? First, Sharpton has confused political opponents of President Obama with registered voters. That 67 percent of registered voters probably includes significant overlap among Obama supporters and opponents.

Second, is it not at least excusable for a voter to think that Obama made a political calculation when he embraced gay marriage seeing as how he contradicted himself on the matter several times over the course of his career? Indeed, Obama only embraced gay marriage after his Vice President publically contradicted him and the White House was hounded by the press for almost 72 consecutive hours to clarify the President’s official position.

Finally, once Obama “came out,” as it were, he proceeded to use it as the singular pillar of his reelection fundraising efforts – holding several high-profile fundraising events with openly-gay celebrities and suggesting that his likely opponent, Mitt Romney, is “backward” on same-sex marriage rights in fundraising emails because he holds an opposing rhetorical – not policy – position on the issue. One, by the way, that Obama had held not one week ago.

And Sharpton asserts that Obama did not benefit politically from his announcement when he knows quite well that he did. Obama raised yet-undisclosed millions from the various fundraisers – the campaign even announced that they had raised $1 million within 90 minutes of announcing his pivot on gay marriage rights. If that’s not political advantage, what is?

Bashir compounded the asininity when he said that the respondents in this poll were “accusing” Obama of making a political move and it was actually Romney that was the chief beneficiary of Obama’s announcement on gay marriage. Not because Obama had forfeited some enthusiasm among his base of conservative African American supporters – but because it allows Romney to finally secure some of the evangelical vote that had been wary of Romney… Because it’s January, in case you were unaware.

Bashir went on to compare President Obama to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to which Rev. Sharpton agreed. Because, we all remember that famous speech that Dr. King delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1936: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character… And I continue to believe that this is an issue that is gonna be worked out at the local level, because historically, this has not been a federal issue.”

Meanwhile, back at present-day MSNBC, Wagner played a clip of a black pastor who told CNN that he planned to stay home on Election Day as a result of Obama’s expressing support for same-sex marriage rights. Sharpton said that several Democratic governors, like Maryland’s Martin O’Malley and New York’s Andrew Cuomo, who have backed policy legalizing gay marriage, and asked if that pastor would stay home for them as well?

Ostensibly, the answer is yes. The top of the ticket drives turnout in presidential years, and the down-ballot races always suffer when turnout is low. “We’re going to risk the Supreme Court, we’re going to risk health care, we’re going to risk the economy because any governor or president or anybody that on one issue I disagree with, I’m going to stay home,” said Sharpton. The answer is yes, yes and yes, Rev. Sharpton. That’s the thing about single-issue voters.

In all likelihood, the debate over gay marriage will be a distant memory by November. By then, Obama will have extracted all the necessary good will and donations that stem from his announcement. Furthermore, the national conversation will have progressed enough so that his support among conservative African American voters will have rebounded. But you would not know that from the exaggeration that passed for analysis on this segment. Passion on the issue is no substitute for measured analysis.

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Al Sharpton, MSNBC and journalistic standards

http://www.salon.com/2011/07/27/sharpton_10/


On Sunday, Cenk Uygur was interviewed by CNN’s Howard Kurtz about Uygur’s departure from MSNBC, and Ugyur claimed that Al Sharpton — widely reported to be his replacement — vowed in a 60 Minutes interview never to criticize President Obama under any circumstances. When I first heard Ugyur make this claim, I assumed it was hyperbole — until I watched the video and read the transcript of the Sharpton interview. The 60 Minutes segment was aired on May 19, 2011, and chronicles what it calls Sharpton’s “metamorphosis: today he’s down right tame. So much so, that he has made his way into the establishment.” It includes this:

Sharpton told us that having a black president is a challenge: if he finds fault with Mr. Obama, he’d be aiding those who want to destroy him. So he has decided not to criticize the president about anything — even about black unemployment, which is twice the national rate.

The segment also described Sharpton as “now a trusted White House adviser” and recounts that “given his loyalty and his change from confrontational to accommodating, the administration is rewarding him with access and assignments.”

How can a media outlet such as MSNBC that purports to be presenting political journalism possibly employ someone as a journalist — even an opinion journalist — who publicly and categorically pledges never to criticize the President of the United States under any circumstances? That would be like hiring a physician who vows never to treat any diseases, or employing an auto mechanic who pledges never to fix any cars, or retaining a pollster who swears never to make any findings about public opinion. Holding people in political power accountable is the prime function — the defining feature — of a journalist, including a pundit; if you expressly and publicly vow never to do that, how can you possibly be credibly presented as being one? And how can the political analysis of someone who takes this pledge possibly be trusted as sincerely held, let alone accurate? Note that this vow was not from three years ago; it was from two months ago.

There is a wide spectrum of political opinion within progressive circles with regard to how much criticism President Obama warrants — some believe he merits much and others believe he merits very little — and it’s perfectly appropriate for MSNBC to feature hosts and commentators representing all those views (and, indeed, it does do that). But publicly swearing never to criticize the President no matter what is in an entirely different universe. Of course, never criticizing the President was the overarching credo of Fox News during the Bush years, but that’s one of the features that made it so pernicious; besides, not even Fox took a public pledge never to do so.

It’s true that MSNBC has many hosts who frequently and aggressively criticize the President, but one does have to wonder what message it sends when the most critical of them is removed despite solid ratings and replaced with someone who has taken this vow, someone who is “rewarded” for his “loyalty” by the White House with “access.” I’ve long considered Sharpton to be a constructive political voice, especially the important views he forced into the 2004 Democratic presidential primary. And it’s perfectly fine for a political activist to decide that the best way to advance an agenda is through unbroken fealty to the White House. But that is a bizarre attribute indeed for a featured nighttime host of a political program on an ostensibly journalistic outlet.

 

It doesn't matter. His supporters wouldn't give a ****.

 

Howard Kurtz: Tamron Hall Was Wrong To Cut Tim Carney's Mic During On Air Clash (VIDEO)

Posted: 05/14/2012 8:39 am Updated: 05/14/2012 9:03 am

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CNN host and Newsweek/The Daily Beast columnist Howard Kurtz laid into MSNBC anchor Tamron Hall for cutting off a guest's mic on her Friday show.

Hall asked guest Tim Carney to weigh in on the report of GOP candidate Mitt Romney's bullying incidents in prep school. Before answering the question, Carney charged that Hall and her colleagues in the media were hyping up the story. That set Hall off. After smacking him down for a minute, she cut off his mic. "You're not gonna come on and insult me," she said to Carney.



After replaying the clip, Kurtz defended Carney, saying that all he did was "challenge her coverage of the report on Mitt Romney." Kurtz added, "It was Tamron Hall who was being insulting by silencing him."

Kurtz believed that it was "perfectly acceptable" for Carney to state that in his opinion, the story was being hyped up by the media. "Does Hall only want guests that agree with her handling of every story?" Kurtz wondered.