Is MSNBC a Political Liability to NBC?
Via TVDecoder
Is MSNBC a Political Liability to NBC?
By Brian Stelter
Monday’s letter from the White House aide Ed Gillespie to the NBC News president Steve Capus was a high-profile complaint about NBC News and MSNBC — but it was far from the first.
Critics are increasingly citing MSNBC for what they say is left-leaning partisan political coverage and commentary. More and more, NBC shares staff, office space and an identity with MSNBC, exposing the news division to complaints about opinionated cable hosts like Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.
Mr. Gillespie’s letter — although focusing on an interview conducted by an NBC correspondent on Sunday — purposefully tied the news on NBC and the opinion on MSNBC together. The letter requested reassurance that Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews, who are vocal critics of the Bush administration, “don’t hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division.”
In a series of “special comments” on MSNBC, Mr. Olbermann has repeatedly condemned the Bush administration. Last week, in a 12-minute commentary about the president’s professed decision to give up golf in a time of war, Mr. Olbermann implored Mr. Bush to “shut the hell up.”
MSNBC is NBC’s cable news offshoot, and a longtime runner-up behind Fox News Channel and CNN. Although it has seen its ratings rise as hosts like Mr. Olbermann have shown a more explicit point of view, the down side is that the news division has clearly grown more vulnerable to complaints about partisanship.
>Read the rest at TVDecoder.
>Earlier: White House accuses NBC of misrepresenting Bush remarks on Iran
“Is MSNBC a Political Liability to ABC?”
Yes.
Comment by Missy — May 20, 2008 @ 5:57 pm