Posts filed under ‘MSNBC, NBC, CNBC / GE (General Electric)’
Cable “News” Obsesses About Cuts to White House Tours, Not so Much About Cuts to the Poor
Cable “news,” especially Fox, has gone nuts covering sequester-related cuts to tours of the White House, but not so regarding cuts to assistance programs for the poor. As a matter of fact, “liberal” CNN has been totally silent on the issue:
(Image via ThinkProgress.org)
As is always the case, the poor have no voice.
Nothing Else Going On in D.C. Punditland
This is the actual chyron on Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC right now: “1,341 Days to Go. Decision 2016.”
Let me outta here!
Ed Rendell’s Fake Persona as a Liberal Pundit on MSNBC
Ed Rendell, the former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania makes regular appearances on “Morning Joe.” They tout him as a liberal but he’s nothing more than a greedy old ba*tard who has sold his soul (if he ever had one). Still, we have a right to know that:
Ed Rendell today is a co-chair of Fix the Debt — nevertheless, in media appearances on [the MSNBC] network he is regularly introduced only as the former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania.
He is special counsel to the law firm Ballard Spahr, where he focuses on privatization in housing and infrastructure. Rendell is a senior adviser at Greenhill & Co., a multinational investment bank. Rendell is also on the advisory board of Verdeva, a technology development firm, and an operating partner at the venture capital firm Element Partners, a company that has recently invested in natural gas “fracking” in Pennsylvania and nearby states.
Ed Rendell has numerous conflicts of interest that belie his role as neutral or “liberal” commenter.
Sign the petition: MSNBC: Disclose Fix-the-Debt co-chair Ed Rendell’s Conflicts of Interest When Booking.
Let’s not let MSNBC lie about it’s supposed liberalism. Ed Rendell is a corporate hack. It should disclose that when he’s on. “Former Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania?” Yeah, technically true, but Ed Rendell’s been doing a whole lot of things since he was that.
MSNBC Hires Third Graders to Man Their Twitter Feed
So this is what passes as news on MSNBC’s Twitter feed tonight?
Really?
Kids banging away on an iPhone?
When oh when will we have a real news media?
Australia Braces for “Catastrophic” Heat Wave
Of course we don’t hear about this in the U.S. because it’s well, outside the U.S.:
Australia is bracing for days of “catastrophic” fire and heatwave conditions.
Fires are already burning in five states as a search continued for people missing after devastating wildfires in the island state of Tasmania.
[...]
Bushfires were ablaze in five of Australia’s six states, with 90 fires in the most populous state New South Wales, and in mountain forests around the national capital Canberra.
Severe fire conditions were forecast for tomorrow (local time), replicating those of 2009, when “Black Saturday” wildfires in Victoria state killed 173 people and caused $4.4 billion worth of damage.
A record heatwave, which began in Western Australia on 27 December and lasted eight days, was the fiercest in more than 80 years in that state and has spread east across the nation, making it the widest-ranging heatwave in more than a decade, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
The highest “catastrophic” bushfire temperature conditions are expected tomorrow, said fire officials, under which people are advised to flee if fire threatens, as the blaze is likely to be too fierce for fire crews to easily extinguish.
In the Australian capital Canberra, hit by a firestorm in 2003 that destroyed hundreds of homes, authorities said they were expecting the worst conditions in the decade since, with a fifth day of searing temperatures and strong winds.
Imagine being told “to flee if fire threatens” because strong winds make any potential fire “too fierce for fire crews to easily extinguish.”
I can relate. This was the view from my living room last June:
(Image via SayItAintSoAlready.com)
The wind wasn’t blowing when I took this photo but it did before the fire was put out. We were all thinking embers. What if flying embers started a fire closer in.
My thoughts are with the folks in Australia tonight because it’s tomorrow there now. Wind, fire and drought are an awful, terrifying mix.
Good luck Australia. And h/t to the U.S. media for their total failure at ah, delivering news. Not to mention mentioning that thing called CLIMATE CHANGE.
Why I Don’t Watch Cable “News” Anymore
This has been the “news” on cable “news” for what, a year, with time out for election interruptus?
(Image via TexasLeftist on Twitter.)
Is there anything else going on in the world?
Apparently not.
Chris Matthews: The “Statesman”
Oy:
MSNBC host Chris Matthews is a “statesman,” according to the network’s president, Phil Griffin. In arecent Associated Press story, Griffin praises the always impassioned anchor for being a “model figure” for the network.
Griffin expressed confidence in Matthews’ style and where he is now.
“He’s as good as he’s ever been,” Griffin told the AP. “He’s at a place in his life where he’s really comfortable in his own skin. He’s a statesman. He has so much knowledge and I think he understands it better. He’s always been great, but I really think he’s been at the peak of his game.”
Chris Matthews in 2007:
Chris Matthews in 2008:
Statesman.
UPDATE: NBC’s Richard Engel Safe After Being Released by Kidnappers
Yesterday we learned that Richard Engel, NBC’s Chief Foreign Correspondent, was missing in Syria and hadn’t been heard from since Thursday.
Good news! He and his crew were kidnapped but they were released this morning:
(Image via MediaBistro.com)
NBC News said Tuesday morning that veteran foreign correspondent Richard Engel, two of his colleagues and their security guard were free after five days of captivity at the hands of unidentified assailants in Syria.
NBC said in a statement that Engel, who went missing along with his crew on Thursday, was “freed from captors in Syria after a firefight at a checkpoint on Monday, five days after they were taken prisoner.” The network did not identify the others who had been abducted with Engel.
[...]
Engel, NBC’s chief foreign correspondent, has extensive history reporting on and living in the Middle East. He was reporting on the war from inside Syria when he was captured. His work has won him numerous awards, including five News & Documentary Emmys.
According to NBC, Engel speaks and reads fluent Arabic and can comfortably transition between several Arabic dialects spoken across the Arab world.
Bravo. Good news for a change.
Here’s more: NBC News team detail the traumatic experiences of their five days captive in Syria.
Prayers for NBC’s Richard Engel
I’ve always had a lot of respect for Richard Engel, NBC News’ Chief Foreign Correspondent.
(Image via MediaBistro.com)
He is one of but a few U.S.-based reporters with the guts and street smarts to feel confident venturing into countries where there is terrifying conflict and to send out actual, well, reports. So my fingers are crossed, with this news out this morning:
NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel has gone missing in Syria, according to Turkish news reports. The reports also say that Aziz Akyavaş, a Turkish journalist working with Engel, is unaccounted for. NBC News has been successfully keeping Engel’s status subject to a news blackout—one to which Gawker agreed until now—for at least the past 24 hours.
Turkish newspaper Hurriyet is reporting that Engel and Akyavaş were last known to be in Syria and haven’t been in contact with NBC News since Thursday morning. The news has been reported widely in the Turkish press over the past 24 hours, including by Turkish news channel NTV, which presents itself as an international partner of MSNBC. It’s also been widely distributed on Twitter.
But NBC News has been asking every reporter who inquires about the report to participate in a news blackout.
Does not sound good. So again, fingers crossed for both Engel and his colleague, Aziz Akyavas.
TV News Cares More About Ryan’s Fitness Routine Than Arctic Ice Melt
When, oh when, will we have a better media?
Since June, the major TV news outlets have devoted seven full segments to Paul Ryan’s physical fitness and P90X workout routine, and only one to Arctic sea ice loss. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have each covered Paul Ryan’s workout routine as much or more than Arctic sea ice loss.
(Via.)
One – one — mention of Arctic sea ice loss amongst six “news” outlets in four months. F-o-u-r months.
Stunning.
If Only David Gregory Would Ask Mitt This Question
Mitt (and Ann, to humanize him I guess) Romney are going to be on Meet the Press tomorrow. In my wildest dreams, this would be David Gregory’s first question:
News in the USA
Lyrics:
Dirty Laundry by Don Henley:
I make my living off the Evening News
Just give me something-something I can use
People love it when you lose,
They love dirty laundryWell, I coulda been an actor, but I wound up here
I just have to look good, I don’t have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear
Give us dirty laundryKick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em all aroundWe got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who
Comes on at five
She can tell you ’bout the plane crash with a gleam
In her eye
It’s interesting when people die-
Give us dirty laundry
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/don+henley/dirty+laundry_20042033.html ]
Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
Running bet
Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundryYou don’t really need to find out what’s going on
You don’t really want to know just how far it’s gone
Just leave well enough love
Eat your dirty laundryKick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re downKick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re stiff
Kick ‘em all aroundDirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybody’s pie
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundryWe can do “The Innuendo”
We can dance and sing
When it’s said and done we haven’t told you a thing
We all know that Crap is King
Give us dirty laundry!
Video via.
Lyrics via.
MSNBC’s Twitter Feed Just a Tad Slow
Don’t tell me MSNBC just sent out this tweet:
Check out the date and time at the bottom. What? 20, 21 hours late?
Update: Twitter Reinstates Journalist Critical of NBC
Yesterday I posted about how Twitter had suspended the account of Guy Adams, a reporter from the London Independent, because he was sending tweets critical of NBC and its coverage of the Olympics. (Twitter said it suspended Adams because he included the corporate email address of Gary Zenkel, the President of NBC Olympics. Got that? Zenkel’s corporate email address.
The kicker in the story was that Twitter has a pretty darn cozy relationship with NBC when it comes to the Olympics:
Twitter’s Olympics hub, part of a partnership between the San Francisco company and Comcast Corp.’s CMCSA +0.05% NBCUniversal that will be announced as early as Monday, is one of the first times Twitter will serve as an official narrator for a live event. NBC will tout the website with on-air promotions and links to athlete interviews or video clips.
So it looked like Twitter was censoring Adams on behalf of not only NBC, but itself. I.e., the corporatocracy gone wild.
Anyway, long story short, Adams’ account has been reinstated:
I hope it was reinstated because Twitter and NBC got a boatload of sh*t over this. Pretty outrageous.
Twitter Suspends Journalist’s Twitter Account Over Criticism of NBC’s Olympic Coverage
Yeah, Twitter’s logo is that cute little blue bird
but that cute little blue bird is now fully ensconced in the cya culture of the global corporatocracy:
Guy Adams is The Independent‘s Los Angeles bureau chief. During the Olympics so far, he has carved out a nice spot on the how-much-NBC’s-coverage-sucks beat. Now his Twitter account has been suspended—supposedly because NBC had it cut off after he complained.
[...]
What exactly did Adams have to say? Plenty. Here’s a look at some of his tweets, all of which are now hidden, but have been preserved on Topsy:
A Twitter support staffer informed him that it was the last Tweet that did Adams in—for “posting an individual’s private information.” The address he posted was Zenkel’s corporate address, which can easily be figured out by Googling how NBC makes its addresses.
Now here’s the kicker:
But Twitter is more than a neutral content carrier during these Olympics. The blue bird and the Peacock are teaming up to present the games:
Twitter’s Olympics hub, part of a partnership between the San Francisco company and Comcast Corp.’s CMCSA +0.05% NBCUniversal that will be announced as early as Monday, is one of the first times Twitter will serve as an official narrator for a live event. NBC will tout the website with on-air promotions and links to athlete interviews or video clips.
So, sweet little relationship going on here, huh? Twitter shuts down the account of someone with valid complaints, imho, because that person is criticizing one of its corporate partners.
Chilling. Big brother in action, big time.
NBC News Doesn’t Think I Can Handle the News
I’ve been following the slam on NBC’s horrible Olympic coverage since Friday’s opening. A tweet I saw yesterday went something like, this: “I got an email from CNN about so-and-so winning such-and-such but NBC IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE but they haven’t said anything about it.” (Screaming in the original.)
Not only is NBC wedded with a ball and chain to its script, it’s wedded to shielding the U.S. audience, which it apparently thinks is pretty darn delicate, from things it thinks its audience can’t handle. Like this, which insults the shi*t out of me:
NBC: We skipped terror tribute because it wasn’t “tailored for the U.S. audience”
So when it came time in the opening ceremony for something that has been widely interpreted as a tribute to the 52 victims of terrorist attacks in London in 2005, it’s not shocking NBC didn’t see lingering on that as helping its overall marketing effort. When asked why NBC didn’t show the memorial, NBC spokesman Greg Hughes on Saturday said only that “our programming is tailored for the U.S. audience. It’s a tribute to (opening ceremony producer) Danny Boyle that it required so little editing.”
The rest of the world saw the live, unedited version of the opening ceremony but paternalistic NBC didn’t think we here in the U.S. could handle it.
Hey NBC, don’t treat me like a child and don’t divide the people of the world into haves and have nots and those who are worthy or unworthy of tributes. Your job is to report the news, as in facts. Period.
So next time, show the whole ceremony without censoring what you think might upset me. I want reality. Not something “tailored for the U.S. audience.” That’s not for you as a “news” organization to decide.
NBC’s Chuck Todd is Still Awful — This is News?
Chuck Todd, NBC’s “Chief White House Correspondent,” thinks we care about this sh-t:
(Image via Wikipedia)
Protests continue in Los Cabos, Mexico, during the G20 summit of world leaders, though learning of these demonstrations—especially if one lives within the United States—is quite a difficult task for consumers of the establishment media.
On Monday, activists unfurled a giant “one trillion dollar” bill to represent the money given in fossil fuel subsidies every year, and the group Avaaz.org says it collected more than 750,000 signatures for a petition calling for a shift to renewable energy.
But rather than discussing environmental policies or austerity measures, NBC’s Chuck Todd obsessed endlessly over the body language between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Obama.
“Body language experts are going to have a field day interpreting this Obama-Putin joint statement,” Todd tweeted Monday.
However, unwilling to leave that analysis to the experts, Todd took his own thoughts to the airwaves the following day to participate in a segment on MSNBC devoted entirely to the body language between the two leaders.
Todd isn’t just NBC’s “Chief White House Correspondent, he’s NBC News’ “political director” for God’s sake. I guess that means political news kinda gets filtered through him yet this is what he thinks is most relevant at the G20 Summit? Body language? Really?
Holy cow. As my late colleague at the Newshounds, Nancy Anton used to love to say, we are so screwed.
1%ers Talk Down to the 99% on Morning Joe
This morning I watched a few minutes of “Morning Joe” on MSNBC. The European financial crisis was the topic du jour. Joe’s guests were Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Bush administration official, and Dan Senor, a Fox News contributor and most famously the former chief spokesperson for the Coalition Provisional Authority under L. Paul Bremer, the guy who made the harebrained decision to fire the Iraqi army. (Throw Scarborough into the mix and you’ve got three right wingers. So much for MSNBC being liberal. It sure isn’t liberal in the morning.)
Anyway, again, they were talking about the European financial crisis and specifically the elections in Greece this coming Sunday. Haass expressed concern that the “radical left” might win there because the “radical left” doesn’t believe in austerity i.e., making the people suffer because of the banks’ mistakes. Instead, he hoped the “responsible party” would win because they favor bailing out the banks and putting the screws to the people.
What I witnessed was a perfect example of the 1% talking down, in let them eat cake fashion, to the rest of us. Bailing out their banking friends is the “responsible” thing to do whereas holding the banks responsible and leaving the people alone is “radical.”
It was nauseating to say the least.
They Don’t Call Him Tweetie For Nothing
Chris Matthews’ nickname on the Internets in Tweetie. I don’t know where it got started but it fits (apologies to birds everywhere). This would be Matthews at a conference in Boston on Tuesday, tweeting away:
(Image via Wikipedia.)
Hardball host Chris Matthews argued that because of the rise of opinion-based news networks, the non-critical aspect of the media is gone, going as far to say that the reporting that verified the U.S. administration’s claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2002 would not happen today because of cable news.
“I would like to think there would be a reckoning we didn’t have then because of modern media,” Matthews said. “Twenty-four/seven is good because it’s not only breadth, it’s depth. Without cable, it is just network [television] thinking, embedded thinking, which is dangerous in a democracy.”
[...]
Matthews disagreed that viewers can’t tell the difference, or that viewers of Fox News aren’t in on the irony of its tagline “Fair and Balanced.”
“I think it’s very clear,” he said. “People are thinking all the time when they’re watching the news. The idea that we shouldn’t be argumentative on cable — we need to be in-depth. We’re supposed to question, we’re supposed to criticize, that’s what journalists do.”
Yo, Chris, hello. What are you talking about? Last I looked we had cable, i.e., “modern media,” in the run-up to the Iraq war.
If It’s Sunday It’s White, Republican Men
From Think Progress and FAIR:
An exhaustive new study by media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting shows that the Sunday morning talk shows have been dominated over the last eight months by white, Republican men.
Between June 2011 and February of this year, 70 percent of all one-on-one interviewees on the four biggest political talk shows — NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation and Fox News Sunday — were Republicans. The numbers were even more lopsided in favor of men and white guests:
In the last years of the Bush administration I read an article — don’t remember where or the name of the author — that talked about interviews with several news honchos about the prevalence of Republican men on the Sunday morning talk shows. The honchos unanimously said Republicans were on more often than Democrats because a Republican was in the White House.
Guess we know now that was a big fat lie.
NBC Goes After Green Dollars on Earth Day
It’s so cute, isn’t it, that NBC/MSNBC greens its logo right about now what with Earth Day coming up on Sunday?
Dig a little deeper and the “news” isn’t so green: Climate Coverage Plummets 80% On Broadcast Networks From 2009 To 2011. As a matter of fact, it isn’t green at all:
Nice try NBC/MSNBC. I think I know what kind of green you’re aiming for.
Al Sharpton Is Wrong to Support Travyon Martin — Hell Yeah!
Per the headline above, I’m there as long as that standard is applied to e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e:
Photo via Gawker.com
Photo via Dipity.com
12 White Men
Ah yes, the liberal media (my Tweet of the Day):
Outrageous. I’m so glad I don’t watch them.
I’m sure Up w/Chris Hayes will have both women and minorities as will Melissa Harris-Perry. Watch them!
CNN is On Its Death Bed
Wow, CNN’s Q1 ratings numbers reflect what a crappy network it is:
CNN bore the brunt of the downward trend the news networks experienced this month and for much of the first quarter, when compared to the busy first few months of 2011. For the month of March, CNN was down -50% in total viewers and down -60% in A25-54 viewers (Total Day). [That's incredible.] The net was down -21% in Total Viewers and down -26% in A25-54 viewers (Primetime) compared to March 2011.
The “most trusted name in news” blew it.
While still No.1, Fox is down too, particularly in younger viewers (the coveted “demo”):
For the month, Fox News is down -17% in Total Viewers and down -27% in younger viewers for Total Day viewing vs. March 2011. The loss in Primetime is not as great: -9% in Total Viewers and -26% in younger viewers.
Bottom line? Fox’s viewers are old, angry white people who are slowly dying off.
MSNBC on the other hand, reclaimed second place.
Harold Ford Has Got to Go From MSNBC
40 minutes ago, MSNBC “political analyst” Harold Ford
Harold Ford, Jr., via Wikipedia
predicted Mitt Romney would win Tennessee. Ford should know, right, because he represented Memphis in the House of Representatives for ten years. I mean really, he’s supposed to have a handle on what’s going on there.
But he doesn’t: Rick Santorum wins Tennessee GOP primary.
Insofar as Ford is a “vice chairman and $enior policy advi$or” at Merrill Lynch, one can only assume he was blindly (and wrongly) rooting for his millionaire corporate buddy Mitt Romney.
Pat Buchanan Plays the Victim After Being Let Go by MSNBC
Pat Buchanan is out at MSNBC.
73-year-old Pat was a hit during the Nixon administration (1969-1974).
This is Pat then:
Pat Buchanan, 1969 via Wikipedia
This is Pat in the most recent picture I can find of him, circa 2008:
Pat Buchanan, 2008 via Wikipedia
Pat, you’ve had a great run. Give thanks and bow out gracefully. But does he do that? Nooooooo. He’s a professional Republican so he plays the victim:
My days as a political analyst at MSNBC have come to an end.
After 10 enjoyable years, I am departing, after an incessant clamor from the left that to permit me continued access to the microphones of MSNBC would be an outrage against decency, and dangerous.
Oh puhleez. Your voice was everywhere. Some of us never get heard. Go gracefully into the night. Your time has come and gone. Be thankful for what you had for God’s sake.
Mitt (Dog on Roof) Romney Wins Maine Caucuses
A whopping 39% of Mainers — that would be a total of 2,190 people — voted for Mitt
Illustration by Colleeen Clap for the "Chris Matthews Show"
Romney in today’s Republican caucuses there.
Ron Paul came in second at 36% with 1,996 votes.
Rick Santorum was third at 18% with 989 votes, and
Newt and Callista Gingrich came in fourth at 6% with a pitiful 349 votes.
Relevant factoid: Maine’s population? 1,328,188.
So, 5,524 Republicans voted in Maine today and the cables have been hanging on it all week? Really?
#ItsAllAboutRatingsTheMoney
GE Lies — Super Bowl Ad Claims They’re “Revitalizing Manufacturing”
GE lied big time in an ad it ran tonight during the Super Bowl – on NBC, which is owned by GE — and gosh golly, NBC, an alleged “news” organization, let it go without noting the inaccuracies:
You gotta love the “liberal media.”
Did MSNBC Just Get Punked?
Did MSNBC just get punked?
Take a look at the images on this man’s T-shirt:
Okaaay.
MSNBC Screws Up: Obama Approval Rating at 8%
Check out the chyron (on MSNBC this morning):
(Via.)
Holy cow. Yeah, saving money means making money but it might be time to hire and pay people who actually know how to use the boards.
