MSNBC

FoxNews Election Coverage more fair [and watched] than MSNBC and CNN

Published by Papa Giorgio

 

So my question is this then, considering the below examples (old and recent), if one who watches MSNBC cannot see the liberal bias in MSNBC… what does that say about their cognitive skills? BigJournalism has the ratings from the election night, and FoxNews trumps the liberal media… here is what the cable networks drew on average From 8-11 PM ET:

  • FNC: 6.957 million total viewers, 2.43 million A25-54
  • CNN: 2.423 million total viewers, 1.03 million A25-54
  • MSNBC: 1.945 million total viewers, 669,000 A25-54

Fox gets a better mix of watchers compared to other news outlets — a more even mix of political watchers in other words:

The elitism and disdain at MSNBC was palpable. For instance, take the snickering and liberal elitism on display when Chris Matthews “interviewed” Michele Bachmann, or when Chris Matthews says Palin hasn’t read a thing. This is blatant non-journalism.

And it is why Fox slams MSNBC in the ratings daily! We find others agree (Media’ite) with the idea that Fox’s coverage was superior:

  • “Fair and Balanced” is a tag line for Fox News that often gets derided by its critics (and sometimes most deservedly.) But that does not mean that they don’t deserve credit when credit is due.

Writing for Time’s Tuned In blog James Poniewozik seemed to agree that Fox News was fairer than the lot:

To be fair, NBC did join coverage earlier, after an all-new Biggest Loser.) Fox News, for all its image as the Republican-friendly network, actually seemed to have the most reserved coverage in tone of the three big cablers, going with a more reserved set and less flashy graphics (granted, by cable news standards) than its competitors. A whiteboard was even employed.

Credit where due, Fox also had a more, well, balanced panel much of the night than its competitor MSNBC. Holding forth from left of center for Fox were the recently-high-profile Juan Williams and Democratic political guru Joe Trippi. MSNBC’s main lineup, on the other hand, was basically its center-to-left lineup of nightly hosts: Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell.

Politico also drew a similar distinction between the coverage and analysis provided by MSNBC and Fox News:

Although Fox News took the most criticism during this campaign season for its alleged bias, it was MSNBC — whose new “Lean Forward” tagline inspired CNN’s promo — that wore its point of view most on its sleeve Tuesday night.

MSNBC’s election coverage was led by a panel comprised mostly of its opinionated prime-time hosts (Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell, along with frequent contributor Eugene Robinson), with nary a conservative voice in the mix. In contrast, Fox News’s was provided by two anchors from its straight-news dayside, Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier, along with a panel that included conservatives like Karl Rove as well as liberals like Juan Williams. Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity stopped by only briefly.

Verum Serum adds to the mix with the following stories:

Mediaite’s round-up did not include this similar conclusion from left-of-center NPR:

On MSNBC, however, the voices vied to dominate. From left to right — visually, not ideologically — the channel’s analysis was handled by Lawrence O’Donnell Jr., Eugene Robinson, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. (O’Donnell waited his turn to talk, but the others didn’t stand on courtesy.) They made up a lively liberal bunch, but hardly a varied one, with nary a feint toward balance.

And the same from US News:

Fox is at least making a pretense of maintaining the traditional separation between news and commentary. Then there’s MSNBC, which is being anchored, more or less, by liberal yakker Keith Olbermann…Occasionally they bring in the hyper-aggressively liberal bloviator Ed Schultz, setting up the image of the left quizzing the far left.

The Washington Post offered a pox-on-all-their-houses approach, which nevertheless criticized the biased MSNBC coverage. And sure enough the biased anchors at MSNBC provided plenty of far-left insight. Rand Paul’s victory speech was an occasion to predict the end of global civilization (no really). Marco Rubio’s win in Florida immediately led to a discussion of ethnic authenticity. Chris O’Donnell asked Michelle Bachmann if she’d be “hypnotized” to laughter from the panel. Lawrence O’Donnell warned Rachel Maddow not to compare any “human being” to Glenn Beck. And so it went.

Fox News Does Better Even Among Democrats

Published by Papa Giorgio


News Busters posted something that goes well with an old graph I post often… sort of like a “rub in your face fact” I like to put on the screen to irk passerbys. Here is the NB post followed by the graph:

According to a recent poll, likely voters get their political news primarily from cable television. Among cable channels, 42 percent, a plurality, watch Fox News for its political coverage. Only 12 percent said they watched MSNBC. What’s more, most likely voters don’t like or have never heard of MSNBC’s prime time talent.

The poll, conducted by Politico and George Washington University, used a sample split evenly between political parties – even slightly favoring Democrats in some areas: 41 percent of respondents identified as Republicans, while 42 percent said they were Democrats. Forty-four percent said they usually vote for Republicans, while 46 percent answered Democrats. Forty-eight percent voted for Obama, while only 45 percent voted for McCain.

Even among this group, Fox News is by far the most popular cable outlet. CNN comes in at second, with 30 percent. A sorry MSNBC brings up the rear.

MEDIAite goes further with the stats:

Also not surprising: Fox News hosts wield a great deal of influence over the political discourse in this country:

Bill O’Reilly was rated as having, by far, the greatest positive impact, with 49 percent of respondents rating him positively, and 32 percent negatively. Glenn Beck was the second most-positively rated personality, with 38 percent of respondents saying he had a positive impact, and 32 percent saying he had a negative impact.

Rush Limbaugh meanwhile is losing steam and far more people dislike him than like him (36%-52%). Here’s the surprising part however: Very few people polled had heard of Rachel Maddow.

MSNBC’s personalities were largely ranked as unknown by respondents: 70 percent said they had never heard of Ed Schultz, 55 percent said they had never heard of Rachel Maddow and 42 percent said they had never heard of Keith Olbermann…

…(read more)…

Media Guessing Game-Islamophobia Seems To Be Their First Guess

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Click to Watch MSNBC Interview)

NewsBusters will start out this little test of fact versus fiction. As all the facts reveal, Islamophobia seems to have NOTHING to do with this knifing.

CNN’s Deborah Feyerick joined the media guessing game as to the motivation behind the stabbing of Muslim taxicab driver in New York City, emphasizing the possibility it may have been “connected to this big Ground Zero controversy, where we’re hearing so much anti-Muslim sentiment.” Feyerick raised this hypothesis during reports on Thursday’s Rick’s List and The Situation Room.

The correspondent’s first report on the attack aired 12 minutes into the 4 pm Eastern hour of Rick’s List. Anchor Rick Sanchez played a clip from victim Ahmed Sharif’s press conference on Thursday before introducing Feyerick. She began by stating that when “Michael Enright, the suspect, was arrested, he had numerous journals and notebooks on him, all of them filled with writings, some of it completely illegible. That is now with authorities, all of that being vetted and looked through to see whether, in fact, there was anything indicating that he had undergone some sort of a mental or emotional change.”

Feyerick did mention that Enright “ironically…was a volunteer working for a non-profit organization that promotes peace,” but didn’t mentioned that the organization, Intersections International, actually supports the planned mosque near Ground Zero. She continued with the speculation over the possible motivation of the attack, including the “anti-Muslim” charge….

…(read more)…

The Wall Street Journal points out some media bias here:

…Then–in paragraphs 28 and 29–comes this:

Mr. Enright is also a volunteer with Intersections International, an initiative of the Collegiate Churches of New York that promotes justice and faith across religions and cultures. The organization, which covered part of Mr. Enright’s travel expenses to Afghanistan, has been a staunch supporter of the Islamic center near ground zero. Mr. Enright volunteered with the group’s veteran-civilian dialogue project.

Joseph Ward III, the director of communications for Intersections, said that if Mr. Enright had been involved in a hate crime, it ran “counter to everything Intersections stands for” and was shocking.

It’s shocking, all right. It’s also news! The Times hasn’t exactly buried the lead here: The attack is a significant story in itself, and it’s an entirely defensible editorial decision to begin by simply telling what (allegedly) happened.

But revealing the suspect’s association with the pro-mosque left so low in the story shows atrocious news judgment. Rehearsing the America-hates-Muslims narrative first strongly suggests that the Times’s reporting is driven more by an ideological agenda than by the facts of the case.

That ideological agenda is shared by Intersections International, as evidenced by the organization’s Aug. 2 statement supporting the Ground Zero mosque:

The controversy surrounding this project stems from the fact that the proposed building location lies in close proximity to the former World Trade Center, the site of the horrific terrorist attack in New York City on September 11, 2001. Intersections grieves along with those who suffered losses in that tragedy. Intersections acknowledges that any association between that event and this project is a fabrication. Further, Intersections applauds the work of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan, principals in The Cordoba House, for their long-term and steadfast commitment to interfaith relations. While acknowledging the real pain that 9/11 continues to evoke, Intersections deplores those who would use this project to promote fear and vitriol for personal gain or partisan politics….

…(read more)…

And the woman interviewed at the beginning will take us out. Above she is interviewed by Contessa Brewer. Below she is interviewed by Michael Medved:

Sophia Nelson Interviewed About Islamophobia from Papa Giorgio on Vimeo.

Rachel Madcow Caught Again

Published by Papa Giorgio

This catch over at NewsBusters made me laugh while wagging my head, as you will see, Rachel goes through her throes of body language while weaving a capitalist and xenophobic conspiracy of a great order. Except, her own guest makes a few statements both times he is on (the second interview begins around the 1:56 mark so you know) her show that complete;y dismantles her beliefs about this whole “sorted” topic.

Here’s NewsBusters end to their post on this:

But after Maddow introduced Loew, and Loew rehashed the details of his reporting on Senseman, Coughlin and CCA, Loew mentioned this awkward fact right at the end of his interview with Maddow…

LOEW: In addition, in Arizona we have a mindset among a couple of key legislators that privatizing the prison industry is a good thing. As you mentioned, they tried to privatize the entire system last year. The governor did veto that after the state corrections director sent her a letter saying, look, we can’t imagine having death row inmates in private prison systems and having death row inmates being taken care of by the lowest common bidder.

Excuse me, did you say “the governor” — by whom you mean Jan Brewer, correct? — vetoed the bill to privatize nearly all of Arizona’s state prisons? Shortly before she signed SB 1070, the law that would create vast penal colonies of suspected illegal immigrants? Apparently Brewer missed the memo on this fine-tuned, lucrative conspiracy.

Maddow’s flimsy premise having been demolished before her eyes — by a simpatico guest, no less — she invited Loew back the next night to harrumph about links between Republican state senator Russell Pearce, a major backer of SB 1070, and the private prison industry. (full segment from Maddow show linked here). Once again, Loew served up an inconvenient fact right at the end of his discussion with Maddow (third part of embedded video, starting at 2:28) —

MADDOW: Morgan, am I also right that in thinking that Russell Pearce was the man behind the effort last year to privatize all of Arizona’s state prisons?

LOEW: He was. He sponsored that legislation and we looked through his legislative record and it looks like as far back as 2003 he was pushing legislation that was calling for the privatization of state prison beds, I think 1,000 beds back in 2003, another 1,400 before that. But the biggest one is the bill that you just referred to, which would have handed over our entire prison system to the private prison industry. Now, that bill was vetoed but another bill passed that essentially did the same thing. Last year, our prison system would have, in a sense, most of it, would have been handed over to the private prison industry, but none of those companies would come forward to bid on them.

Once again, this fine-tuned, lucrative conspiracy — thwarted by the alleged conspirators.

Rachel Maddow Crazy Rants Refuted

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is a great story coming from Big Journolism, let me post a summation of it here:

Rachel Maddow does in her extremely lame attempt to prove that Fox News in general and Bill O’Reilly in particular are trying to make white people afraid of black people. She gives us the following examples:

  1. The Shirley Sherrod video
  2. ACORN sting videos
  3. Van Jones is a Marxist
  4. Eugene Robinson “traffics in racism”
  5. Black/White divide on limited government

Here is John Sexton’s response:

  1. On the Sherrod video, O’Reilly’s report didn’t appear until after she’d been fired at which point it quickly became national news. CNN also ran the clip twice the same night. Is Anderson Cooper trying to scare white people too?
  2. …Clark Hoyt, ombudsman at the New York Times, looked at all the evidence and concluded that the manufactured sideshow about what the pair wore did not change the fact that they had presented themselves as a pimp and prostitute, nor did it cause the entire sting to unravel…
  3. As for Van Jones, he is a self-identified Marxist and co-founder of the explicitly communist group STORM. You can read a pdf put out by the group itself here…
  4. Eugene Robinson writes frequently about racial topics, including this defense of Harry Reid’s statements about the “light-skinned” President. I don’t consider that piece racism, but Robinson definitely traffics in race. Maybe O’Reilly misspoke. Even if he didn’t, where exactly is the fear factor here…
  5. As for Maddow’s final clip, to which she devotes the most screen time, O’Reilly was discussing the findings of this Gallup survey. How can Maddow, minutes after blasting O’Reilly for his stance on the Sherrod video, then edit the clip of O’Reilly so dishonestly that viewers will have no idea of the proper context of his statements? That level of bullpucky should give Maddow whiplash, but apparently it doesn’t.

…(read more)…

Anderson Cooper Apologizes? Bravo! (Update: Chris Matthews vs Howard Dean)

Published by Papa Giorgio

 

Chris Matthews is right, by the way (is Hell frozen over??), Shirley’s whole story of redemption was included in the original video. (see my video posted July 19th – its Breitbart’s release).

 

 

Also note that FoxNews didn’t talk about this story until the White House had already moved on it, which Chris Matthews points out. Anderson Cooper admitting?  Bravo.

On Thursday’s Anderson Cooper 360, anchor Anderson Cooper faulted himself for not pressing Shirley Sherrod when she appeared on the show back on July 22 and claimed that conservative Andrew Breitbart was a “vicious” racist who “would like to get us stuck back in the times of slavery.”

Cooper now says he should have challenged Sherrod to support such an inflammatory charge with facts: “I believe in admitting my mistakes….I didn’t challenge her that night and I should have.”

[….]

COOPER: I interviewed Shirley Sherrod last Thursday. And in the course of that interview, I failed to do something that I should have. I believe in admitting my mistakes. I looked at the interview again today, and Ms. Sherrod said during that interview that she thought Mr. Breitbart was a racist. She said, quote, “I think he would like to get us stuck back in the times of slavery.” She went on to say she believed his opposition to President Obama was based on racism. Now, she, of course, is free to believe whatever she wants, but I didn’t challenge her that night and I should have.

I don’t want anyone on my show to get away with saying things which cannot be supported by facts. I should have challenged her on what facts she believes supports that accusation. That’s my job, and I didn’t do it very well in that interview, and I’m sorry about it. If I get a chance to talk to her again, I will.

…(read more)… Here is Dennis Prager on the issue:


Prager Discusses the Race Card and Howard Deans Use of It from Papa Giorgio on Vimeo.