MSNBC goes over to the dark side.

[Cain]

I'm fully aware of that.

That's why I qualified my sentence with "all journalists" and placed the emphasis on the all, instead of saying I agreed with his sacking.

Please, give me a little credit for not being a total moron.

[East Coast Hustle]

I personally think all reporters who are willing to shill, monetarily or otherwise for a political party should get fired...but that's why I'm not allowed to run a major news company.

I couldn't agree more, I just think it's shady that they shit on Olbermann about it after letting Scarborough get away with it forever.

[eighteen buddha strike]

I personally think all reporters who are willing to shill, monetarily or otherwise for a political party should get fired...but that's why I'm not allowed to run a major news company.

I couldn't agree more, I just think it's shady that they shit on Olbermann about it after letting Scarborough get away with it forever.

Journalistic integrity has been dead for years now, replaced with journalism as a mouthpiece, or journalism as entertainment.

[East Coast Hustle]

Absolutely. That's why when I want actual news, I tend to get it from the BBC or the Singapore Strait Times.

[Brotep]

Yes, this is thoroughly inconsistent with what is practiced, but not with what is claimed. I remember a post by Cain somewhere awhile back to the effect that the notion of truth in conservative news is pomo whereas that of liberal news is positivist.

I wonder if Olbermann didn't deliberately enact this in order to spark some outrage and add fuel to the fire on the Democratic side of things. If he was aware of and counting on the enforcement of the policy, his maneuver was well played.

[the last yatto]

000 you seen children of men doc? (Not talking about the movie)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7881563546997983623

[Thurnez Isa]

Strangely enough, I never really liked history documentaries.  I always prefer books, when it comes to that subject.

Some of them used to be really good years ago, before ppl realized they could entertain instead.

Haven't watched cable in such a long time I don't think I would even enjoy it if I had it. It's funny how that works. Only thing I watch on cable is football, and I usually prefer going to the school pub for that.

[Cain]

Strangely enough, I never really liked history documentaries.  I always prefer books, when it comes to that subject.

Some of them used to be really good years ago, before ppl realized they could entertain instead.

Haven't watched cable in such a long time I don't think I would even enjoy it if I had it. It's funny how that works. Only thing I watch on cable is football, and I usually prefer going to the school pub for that.

Well, I admit a grudging respect for Adam Curtis, naturally, and I hear Simon Schama is good, though I've never gotten around to watching him.

I'd also like to point out ITT that MSNBC was totally in the tank for the Iraq War, to the point it fired it's only dissenting presenter.  Yes, later on it hired Olbermann, Maddow etc but only once public opinion started to turn against the war anyway.

I believe there is an ancient haiku which explains this problem quite well:

News corps are pussies
Only attack when weakness is sensed
Lay off entrenched pols and policies

So it's not so much than MSNBC has gone over to the dark side, it has been there quite a while.  Olbermann and Maddow just made them look "fair and balanced" during the 2006-9 Democratic resurgence.  In fact, I'm going to add to my additional statement and say not only should reporters who cannot even hide their political affiliations well be sacked (or moved to "Op-Ed" shows, with constant warnings about factual hazards that may result from watching them), but any manager who hires someone to bring "political balance" to their coverage should also be fired.

It occurs to me that, with the downturn in accurate reporting and foreign reporting in particular in the past twenty years, anyone who could actually make money off of accurate reporting, as opposed to producing pleasing hagiography for their political masters and favoured ideologies, would be an especially powerful and dangerous figure in world politics.  I mean, even intelligence agencies suffer from problems of ideological contamination in their analysis and presentation of information.

[AFK]

I personally think all reporters who are willing to shill, monetarily or otherwise for a political party should get fired...but that's why I'm not allowed to run a major news company.

Olbermann's job is pretty much solely to shill for the Democrats though, so there's a bit of an inconsistency here.

Not really.  When Countdown started, it wasn't what it is today.  It was pretty much just a straight ahead news hour.  It started to shift after he introduced the "Worsts" segment and he slowly worked in more and more commentary and material that was very critical of the Bush administration, particularily the Iraq War.  So it really evolved to what it is today.  As it turned out the ratings grew along with the evolution.  If the ratings had gone the other way MSNBC would probably be a lot closer to Fox News today than it is. 

I can respect that NBC has standards compared to organizations like Fox News who $2400 donations to three candidates.  Unless those three were running piss poor campaigns, Olbermann's donations were drops in the bucket.  But if he does resign, they should replace him with Lawrence O'Donnel.  I wasn't too keen on him at first when he filled in for Olbermann but he seems to have come into his own.  Pretty tenacious when it comes to questioning. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I personally think all reporters who are willing to shill, monetarily or otherwise for a political party should get fired...but that's why I'm not allowed to run a major news company.

I couldn't agree more, I just think it's shady that they shit on Olbermann about it after letting Scarborough get away with it forever.

This.

[AFK]

Looks like the suspension is ending soon and he'll be back on Tuesday.

Looks like MSNBC blinked.

[Triple Zero]

000 you seen children of men doc? (Not talking about the movie)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7881563546997983623

Grabbing. Thanks Will let you know when I watched it (might be a couple of months though).