General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMSNBC WTF
In an effort to improve ratings MSNBC is throwing itself down the toilet by replacing Ed Schultz with Chuck Todd.
The good news is that MSNBC's decision-makers aren't medical practitioners.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,847 posts)Their decisions don't irritate me so much as they amaze and confuse me. It's like a chimp throwing darts at the wall.
tularetom
(23,664 posts)davekriss
(4,644 posts)Are we surprised that, after a conservative company buys MSNBC from NBC, that the executives at MSNBC are trying to walk the line between moving broadcasts to the right and maintaining reasonable financial performance?
This is why consolidation of major media has been so dangerously toxic for the 99%. Voices at variance from the needs of the 1% are increasingly not heard.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,847 posts)Nevernose
(13,081 posts)They'll never be able to out-faux Faux News, nor will they be able to get the brainwashed to give up their source of brainwashing.
If they really wanted to try something different from the other channels, maybe they should try "news," both reporting it and investigating it. And when it comes to politics, they could try education instead of opinion. Those things would mean someone in a corporate hierarchy had guts, though, and by definition no one with courage lasts long in corporate leadership.
kentuck
(111,111 posts)Hardly the stature of NBC Evening News but close.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,847 posts)Lurks Often
(5,455 posts)They are interested in ratings, which leads to them getting more money for commercials.
If they can't get the ratings they want from the Left/Progressive demographic, they'll find the ratings somewhere else. MSNBC (and any other media outlet) would turn itself into the White Supremacist Channel if they thought it would bring in a lot more viewers, ratings and money.
davekriss
(4,644 posts)The parent company chooses executives that do not stray far from their values and beliefs, the executives hire producers and editors that don't stray, the producers and editors hire on-air personnel that espouse comfortable positions and viewpoints.
It's systematic, not conspiratorial, but with less competition the boardrooms have less tolerance for alternative voices. Where is the audience going to go? The owning class (the 0.1%) do not want to hear the media they own expressing ideas that are contrary to their interests, so increasingly they don't.
PufPuf23
(8,858 posts)purchasing a propaganda and brainwashing service more than product commercials.
There is no way that MSM media will hire journalists and personalities that would maximize viewership because corporate neoliberal will not pay for competitive thought.
MSM is at the point that the viewership will need to be re-brainwashed to accept broadcasts that are factual and in the best interests or the viewer.
ericson00
(2,707 posts)todd is just an anti-Clinton blowhard.
themaguffin
(3,833 posts)themaguffin
(3,833 posts)Should mostly be news focused, not opinion focused.
Erose999
(5,624 posts)aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)Take one of your least-liked pundits and put him in front of the viewers more.
Dumbasses.
?v=1
Rex
(65,616 posts)Best thing I ever did was give up cable TV.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Ends up, cable itself was the void in my life.
Rex
(65,616 posts)I look back at all the years that I vegetated in front of the TV yelling at CNN to do stuff like drop Glenn Beck! What a waste of time for me, I would have been better off hammering nails into the sidewalk.
Warpy
(111,467 posts)There is very little besides the old movies that I'm particularly interested in and they've been showing the type of movie that seems to have been picked by a younger Boomer male reliving his childhood. Ugh. Now the other channels are starting to show old "reality" TV shows. Cable is no longer worth it for people with brains. We might as well tune out and listen to good music.
Of course, I dumped broadcast news in 2004 and can't watch cable, I tried when I was in the hospital in April and bored out of my gourd. I just can't do it, all that breathy hysteria over the slightest little thing and I'm not talking about Pox News.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)so they are my replacement for it. The down side. once they go into a story, like everybody else, they go on it for days, as a dog with a cool bone... so other news suffers.
Rex
(65,616 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)but when writing I just have any of these blathering in the background
Over the course of the day I will check both Reuters and AP a few times
Like I check the CHP Traffic for fires.
Rex
(65,616 posts)we watch News Hour. Even though I am on the outs with NPR, I will listen to it in the car.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)a few Mexican papers, we are on the borders after all. Also BBC and Der Spiegel, especially for European issues.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)news has not been about actual reporting for a while That said, if they actually go there and start doing hard news, it is because CNN gave up on that one a while. There is an opening.
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)The only time I hear about it now is on DU. I wish everyone would break that bad, useless habit and stop adding to their ratings.
TheNutcracker
(2,104 posts)If you don't get this....they are all owned by the corporations. CUT YOUR CORD.
you won't miss the cable!
Get a ROKU!!!!!
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)That Olbermann rumor is making the rounds. Variety has that, too:
http://variety.com/2015/tv/columns/keith-olbermann-msnbc-leaves-espn-1201536388/
Of course, when you think about it that way, its hard to imagine a more logical home for Olbermann than (gulp) MSNBC, which has never fully recovered from losing him. Granted, such a reunion would certainly establish the host and his former network as a sort-of TV version of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Yet while those two might not have been a match made in heaven, for all the histrionics and fireworks, when all was said and done, they just sort of belonged together.
Put another way, a bit of wisdom from the late agent and producer Pat Faulstich comes to mind one that pointed out we often dont appreciate a job until after weve left it. In Hollywood, he once said, The best job youll ever have is the one that precedes the one you always wanted.