Showing posts with label krystal ball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label krystal ball. Show all posts

Friday, February 6, 2015

How MSNBC Has Failed The Viewers - and it's not just Morning Joe

photo 1421404662078.jpg

Previous Related Posts:
Joe Scarborough Attacks Unite Blue
Morning Joe Quarterbacking for Chris Christie
Krystal Ball Freaks Out Over Obamacare Website
MSNBC Ratings Fall as Hosts Go Emoprog
MSNBC Chooses Tea over Truth in Sacking of Martin Bashir
Chuck Todd Admits Truth Isn't Part of his Job Description
The Uppity Stranger ~ Chuck Todd's Book Slams President Obama
President and Malia Obama: Chuck Todd's Book is "Sad"
Chuck Todd Shills for Mitch McConnell
David Gregory Has Man-Crush on Paul Ryan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been watching MSNBC ever since it first appeared on my local cable TV. I was a huge fan of Keith Olbermann, and sad when he was asked to leave the channel. I won't go into all that here ~ read this article for some background. Keith is still a TV icon to the Left because he would stay on a story for weeks after it was dropped by other networks, and he never backed down in his attacks on rival Fox News, especially Bill O'Reilly. While obviously his personality was too strong for some, and maybe too strong for cable news, he wasn't just a mouthpiece for a bunch of talking points like say, cough, cough, Joe Scarborough, cough.

I will always miss Keith's commentaries, but I got over it and became a fervent MSNBC watcher again during President Obama's 2012 campaign. I loved their "Lean-Forward" message, and Rachel Maddow's speech to the Tea Party about all the things that weren't going to happen now that Mitt Romney had failed as a candidate.

But just after the election something changed. Time and again from 2013 till now, MSNBC has disappointed their main viewership, made up of Democrats and Liberals like myself who voted for Barack Obama. It's not just one thing, it's an accumulation of wrong-headed mistakes. If I had a dollar for every time someone on Twitter told me to turn off MSNBC and boycott them, I would have a chunk of change.

The bottom line is this: MSNBC has forgotten who their demographic is. In their quest to steal from Fox and CNN, they think they have to become a right-center network. But in doing so, they are offending the very people who have stuck with them since before Keith Olbermann got the boot.

A little background on the long decline of MSNBC:

From PoliticusUSA
MSNBC’s decline can be traced back to one decision. At the time, when he let Keith Olbermann walk out the door, MSNBC boss Phil Griffin believed that his network’s brand was strong enough to replace the former 8 PM host. Griffin was wrong.

After Lawrence O’Donnell had failed, Griffin put Ed Schultz in the 8 PM slot. Griffin shuffled Schultz off to the weekends because he believed that MSNBC could attract more young viewers by developing several clones of Rachel Maddow’s successful 9 PM show. Phil Griffin decided to go wonky with Chris Hayes at 8, which led to many former MSNBC viewers leaving and not coming back.

Hayes has been a disaster at 8 PM, and viewer demand for Schultz was so strong that the blue collar populist was put back on to the weekday lineup at 5 PM.

MSNBC was floundering, and Griffin made things worse by caving to Sarah Palin and the right by defacto firing Martin Bashir for some blunt comments that he made about the former half term Alaska governor.

Bashir never has the audience that Olbermann did, but his removal from 4 PM sent a message to MSNBC’s viewers. Lean Forward was just a marketing slogan. When push came to shove, MSNBC easily caved to right-wing pressure.


Martin Bashir was fired after reading a historical document about slavery on the air in response to Sarah Palin, who had tossed slavery into her word salad about GOP oppression caused by President Obama. Bashir was disgusted with Her Royal Stupidity misinterpreting history, and he made a choice to speak some serious truth so she would understand the demeaning tortures that real slaves in the South had to endure.

While it's true that some details of the history lesson were distasteful (so-to-speak), the far-right on Twitter spread the untrue story that Bashir had told Palin to "eat sh*t" on the air. The Tea Party kept the pressure on until the President of MSNBC, Phil Griffin,fired Martin Bashir.

Phil Griffin has a long history of pandering to the Right:







Griffin is known for having "pets" at MSNBC, and they know who they are. Take Joe Scarborough, please. He did an interview last year, after the firing of Bashir, explaining his relationship with Griffin:

Via Mediaite
Appearing on Steve Malzberg‘s NewsMaxTV show Wednesday, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough spoke out about the controversy surrounding his colleague Martin Bashir...
. . . Malzberg asked Scarborough why MSNBC hadn’t suspended Bashir or publicly reprimanded him. Obviously hesitant to comment on internal matters, the Morning Joe host suggested that, much like how Fox chief Roger Ailes doesn’t allow his hosts to attack each other, MSNBC’ers are unable to do the same.
However, he did say:
Every time something horrific is said like that, I go in and I talk to Phil Griffin, who I’m good friends with. And I say, Phil, this is unacceptable. Either they apologize for it or I’m going to bring it up myself.

Personally, I can't stand "Morning Joe" and I usually only see clips of it on Twitter. But apparently it started out to be MSNBC's one right-leaning show to "balance" the rest of the network. Maybe that would work if the namesake of the show had an ounce of humility and a willingness to learn from others. Unfortunately, Joe Scarborough is a loud-mouth bully who dominates not just sidekick Mika, but anyone else who shows up in the morning.

Last year, Scarborough verbally attacked the large and growing Democratic and Liberal-leaning Twitter group Unite Blue, of which I am a member. He called our members "freaky fringe haters" or something like that, never thinking for a minute he was shooting himself and MSNBC in the foot. Somehow he thought it was a good idea to attack the very demographic that was keeping his job available to him, since Dems and Liberals watch most of the other shows.

That display of arrogance should have been enough to get him fired like Martin Bashir, but we soon found out that "pets" get to stay, and the feelings of a huge group of Democrats don't mean very much to Phil Griffin, compared to someone important like the Tea Party's Sarah Palin.

But Lean Forward, right? LOL.

BINGO!







For a long time many have called for Joe Scarborough to be fired to save the rest of the network, but instead, Griffin tried him out on the night shift last week, in place of Maddow and Chris Hayes. It's unbelievable.





This recent article warning of impending doom at the network makes no mention of Joe Scarborough, choosing to blame mainly Chris Hayes, and warning that Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid may be on their way out. Looks like he wants to "save the pets" while kicking off the strays.

From The Wrap
January ratings revealed double-digit declines compared with January, 2014 in all ratings measurements. During the day, MSNBC was down 20 percent in viewers and 37 percent in the advertising-coveted 25-54 demo. In primetime, it fell 23 percent in viewers and 39 percent in demo.

From Politico
In October, MSNBC President Phil Griffin said the network was "experimenting" with new ways to regain momentum, spawning widespread speculation that he planned to make significant changes to the lineup. Ronan Farrow's show, which debuted last year and has received dismal ratings ever since, is one program that is widely believed to be up for removal. On Tuesday, it brought in just 11,000 viewers in the demo.
An MSNBC spokesperson declined to comment on the Tuesday ratings.


But Morning Joe isn't the only problem at MSNBC. Even the mainstays of the network seem to lean some other direction besides Left.

Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, for all the good they do night after night, often go a little nuts and out of step with ordinary liberals out here in the heartland, to the point that real Democrats just turn them off. This has become more of a cumulative effect since the 2012 elections. Yes, they have a right to their opinions, but if you want to know why the ratings are so low, look back over the past two years at topics that may seem unimportant in the scheme of things, but which made viewers angry enough to boycott MSNBC.

I love Rachel Maddow and I really enjoy her show. She is witty, entertaining, funny, and at her best, her show has the spirit of Keith Olbermann.

But unfortunately she sees herself as a "War Historian," and whenever President Obama seems to be on the verge of doing something with American firepower or diplomacy anywhere in the world, Maddow goes berserk. I remember the first time I went "click" on her show. She was saying that President Obama had every right to intercede in Syria, but that he needed to ask permission from Congress or he might get us trapped into another war in the Middle East. It still makes me go "huh?" She sounded just like the nuts on Fox who didn't want that uppity President to do anything like any other President who has ever lived.

And what's worse, Maddow seemed to have no sense of irony that the Congress she was suggesting he ask for "permission" is the same wingnut Congress she reported on every night as a bunch of warmongers obsessed with guns and Benghazi. He was supposed to ask them? She even invoked the Constitution, which is right up there with Sarah Palin!

Some people forgot to watch her show after that. Oh, and they were really mad at her. Some of them still are. Some viewers just aren't coming back.










There are some problems with Chris Hayes too. His chirpy, giddy and cerebral persona were more appropriate for his Saturday morning show "Up," but Griffon thought he could save their prime-time lineup and attract the younger demographic. It was soon apparent that it didn't work out that way. I think he means well and much of his reporting is excellent, such as his work during the Ferguson marches.

What I didn't expect was that he would become the sudden champion of an out-and-out traitor to the United States, Edward Snowden, the Russian "patriot" defector.

Viewers didn't leave the show because Hayes criticized the NSA. Viewers just got fed up with MSNBC's elevation of Snowden's partner/mentor/witness/whatever Glenn Greenwald as some kind of hero journalist and paragon of virtue who wants to save the world. The real Greenwald is a raging Anti-Government Libertarian and Near-Anarchist who calls the President an "Imperial Emperor" (just like the rightwing nutjobs) and thinks anyone with allegiance to any country is a "statist." After a few weeks of Greenwald worship, Chris Hayes figured out that most Democrats don't like him, but by then Hayes was like a little boy whose balloon got deflated all of a sudden by criticism on Twitter and the falling ratings.











DUH!






Griffon can blame Ronan Farrow, Joy Reid, or anyone else he likes for low daytime ratings. But he should look at his pets, for instance the ever-exasperated Andrea Mitchell and the ever-smarmy Chuck Todd. Day after day since the last election they have been going into hysterics over President Obama's "Optics" - "Why is he playing golf" or "Why is he going out for dinner?" "Why is he drinking coffee?" "Why doesn't he care?" "Why is he on vacation?" - stuff no one ever said about George W. Bush or any other President in history.










Krystal Ball from "The Cycle" is another problem. She is so far-left, she is nearly to the right of Rand Paul sometimes. She's not that horrible sometimes, but other times, she is. I don't hate her, but I don't watch her anymore either.

Ball went on a crazy tirade about the Obamacare website back when it was having problems, helped along by some whining by then MSNBC fixture, Ezra Klein - who wanted background music while waiting on the phone. Of course now that the same website is enrolling millions of new people into health insurance,and yes, Krystal Ball does seem to take pride in that - NOW. But back at the beginning, Ball certainly helped the Far-Far Right by slamming ACA Obamacare because it wasn't working automatically.

Considering that just this week, two years after Ball and Klein attacked the Obamacare website, my own state of Tennessee just turned down Medicaid expansion again due to Obamacare haters in the GOP, it was never a good thing that Krystal Ball decided to attack ACA from the left. Maybe MSNBC has chosen to forget this wrong-headedness, but it's harder to forget here in a red state.






She also praised Libertarian Nutcase Rand Paul as "courageous, and begged Hillary Clinton not to run for President. . Last year, she said President Obama's State of the Union "depressed her." What. The. Hell? Is it any wonder that viewers sometimes wonder whose side she is on?













Last year, Chuck Todd wrote a book about President Obama called "The Stranger," which the President and his daughter mocked just before Christmas as "a sad book." Todd is famous for stating that he had no obligation to report "the truth" about Obamacare to the GOP - that tells you all you need to know about his life as a "journalist." He replaced the lame David Gregory, another Phil Griffin favorite, on NBC's Meet the Press, and I'm sure the ratings have plummeted even more. Todd also turns up frequently on MSNBC shows such as Morning Joe and Hardball to discuss "Lame Duck" or "Weak" President Obama. What Democrat wants to hear that stuff day after day? Not this one!



My point here is that there are many problems with MSNBC, and they are so deep it may not be fixable with Phil Griffon at the top. Unfortunately he seems to be tone deaf to the viewers, and incapable of firing his pets. They can turn the network into another version of Fox News and probably lure some wingnut viewers if that's what they want, but it would be a shame to see the network of Keith Olbermann go completely down the toilet.













Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday, October 25, 2013

Liberal Media Freak-Out Over ACA Website - with Krystal Ball and #EzraKleinMusic

photo KrystalClear4.png












Cycle Host Krystal Ball on MSNBC - My Transcript
If you've been watching our show, you know that I'm pretty angry about the failures of the effort to begin the health-care program. Washington Post's Matt Miller even told me to 'chill out.' I'm sorry, I can't. I won't chill out. See, here's the problem.
Republicans, of course, have been lying to Americans about the Affordable Care Act, telling them it’s a train wreck, saying this president is a bystander to his own presidency, arguing that the federal government is incompetent and can’t work.
Now they’ve got all kinds of evidence to back up their malicious and destructive claims.
So that's one piece of why, sorry Matt, I can't chill.
But what I'm really angry about here is the fact that for millions, the success of this law is literally a matter of life or death. As outraged as we are when Republicans try to sabotage it, we should be outraged when our own side makes its success materially less likely.
Yes, before you send your tweets, I know that the website is not the entirety of the Affordable Care Act.
But to say it's just a website is just a huge understatement.
This is the first direct experience that millions of Americans will have with Obamacare. This is the critical entry point to President [Barack] Obama’s signature achievement; an achievement that we’ve marched for, and rallied for, and fought Supreme Court cases and elections over.

photo KrystalClear3.png

I just do not understand how something so mission-critical could have turned out so poorly.
Now look, I'm not trying to engage in hyperbole here. The Affordable Care Act can still work beautifully but we've sure taken a giant risk. An unnecessary risk with such a dismal failure of a roll-out, and there's really no excuse. After all, we are the Party who are supposed to know how to do good government. And to all those states like Texas that we wanted to convince to go forward with the Medicaid Expansion piece, well, good-luck with that now!
Frankly, I'm a little disappointed in my left-leaning friends for not being more honest here. Look, we are not propagandists. We're not like them. We don't insulate ourselves into our own little media bubble, impervious to the reality around us. We are the ones who are supposed to tell it straight even when it's not convenient.
. . . We are not the ones giving comfort to the GOP propagandists. The failing website, which is keeping people from signing up for health care, is what has given them comfort.
. . . It seems to me that everyone who believes in this law, who believes in universal healthcare, everyone who believes in the promise of the Federal Government to do big things ought to be outraged at this manifest incompetence. Just because it's our team who messed things up doesn't mean they should get a pass.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

photo EzraMorningJoe.png

Washington Post Pundit Ezra Klein on MSNBC's Morning Joe
Watch Video Here
These aren’t glitches, the website, to a first approximation, simply isn’t working. When the Obama Administration calls them 'glitches' I think they are underplaying the problem.
. . . There’s a real management failure here. It isn’t that nobody knew. A lot of reporters, health care reporters, people who were engaged with HHS and CMS, folks like me and a lot of my colleagues, were going to them and saying, ‘We’re hearing bad things out of your testing. We’re hearing you’re not being able to transmit your data the way you need to transmit it.’ Senior White House staff said, ‘No, we’ve been watching this, we’re talking to people, it’s all fine, bugs are getting fixed.’ Somewhere along the management chain the news, the actual truth of what was going on—because it was not unknown—got lost, got spun, got hidden, got obscured, and they know that.
. . . There were things they could have done, and they were not given the information by their own bureaucracy to do it. That is a management failure on them.











~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

photo musical_notes.gif photo musical_notes.gif photo musical_notes.gif













photo musical_notes.gif photo musical_notes.gif photo musical_notes.gif


















~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joan Walsh on Salon
As predictably as night follows day, on Monday the media establishment pivoted away from obsessing about GOP extremism and the party’s alleged “civil war” to the “train wreck” that is, allegedly, the Affordable Care Act.
And liberals helped lead the pivot.
Don’t get me wrong: The problems with Healthcare.gov are real, and disturbing, and must be fixed asap....But excuse me if I believe the president knows that without my telling him.
. . . when liberals rush conscientiously to do that, they only encourage the completely unbalanced and unhinged coverage of whatever the problem may be.



















All In With Chris Hayes Transcript, Oct. 23, 2013
Watch Video Here
EZRA KLEIN: -- And, they are getting your eligibility information through that computer system. That isn`t working. So, those things don`t work. No. Obamacare doesn`t work. And, that`s why this is a really big deal. And, we are reporting it at Wonk Blog and by the way, we are doing the same thing during the shutdown as a very big deal.

CHRIS HAYES: Do you think part of -- so, what`s your response to that?

JOAN WALSH: No. It`s more than just a website. But, I think that -- you know the affordable care act is already helping people. Millions of kids are still on their parents` policies. Millions of us, myself, included, are getting preventive care that we used to have to pay money for without a copay.

Millions are getting help through Medicaid and millions more would be helped through Medicaid except for republican governors. So, there are a  lot of great things going on. And, there also a lot of people frustrated but hanging in there because they desperately need health insurance.

So, they`re going to get it. It may be a complete disaster down the road. But we are not there yet. And, I guess, Ezra, what I would say to you is you are a wonderful reporter. I read you every day. I probably read close to every word you write.

(To Klein) But, it was your tone and I think what people trust about you is your sobriety. People think you`re a liberal, that`s because reality has a well known liberal bias. But, you know, you do your job and I appreciate that. I just felt like, you know, live blogging your attempt to reach somebody on the phone and complaining about the lack of hold music kind of crossed over.

KLEIN: No.
WALSH: This is a little bit.

KLEIN: But, this is really important, right? Because -- I hope that I got a reputation from the readership of being sober about these things. I think it`s really important to keep your head about you when these things are going on. When I called the system, it`s because president was saying call the system that day. And, the system dropped the call twice because it was so overwhelmed.

 I am trying through this reportage to convince people to persuade them something has really gone wrong here. Now -- You know, Chris, I don`t think there is anybody that wasn`t literally writing the law that wrote much more about this law in the construction phase in its legislative phase and through Wonkblog and its implementation phase and we have a Wonkblog.

I mean, we have been sort of covering this all every step of the way. And, so the reason we are covering this with the aggression that we are is that something real is going on here. We never said the law is doomed, but I think what we kind of found in our reporting, they think if this is fixed by thanksgiving, it`s probably pretty much OK.

But, these are not small problems. And, they`re not at the moment by the way OK problems. These are not things that the Obama administration should be given a pass on. Not least because they didn`t know they were happening. And, so one thing that I think is important about our role in the kind of informational ecosystem is something that went wrong for the
Obama Administration is they didn`t know. There was a breakdown between their bureaucracy and them.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)