I wonder why it was that the MSNBC people got the invitation and not the Foxies? Geez, I have no idea. DuH…could it be because the MSNBC people don’t talk about the President like he is a bug beneath their feet? Could it be that they are respectful of both him and the office he holds?
Did the Foxies forget, for just a moment, that they are the Republican Channel? I sure haven’t. I am reminded every time I am surfing and accidently land on their turf.
Is the President wrong to have those hosts in for a visit? What were they invited to do?
Nothing to see here, they were just there to pick up their paychecks.
Directly influencing one segment of the media is not that far away from controlling the media as is done in those countries headed by a dictator. Anyone with half a brain would naturally look at this with some suspicion. News networks are no more than political affiliates anyway.
@Cato the Elder
I agree. MSNBC did a great job as a major media extension of President Obama’s campaign, getting his talking points out, and providing free advertising for his campaign. I’m not surprised at all that he would invite them to the White House to thank them. Expecting Obama to invite O’Reilly, Hannity or any of the FOX hosts would be like thinking Peacor would invite the Sherriff to the McCoart Building for lunch.
They didn’t do as well as Fox News did for the Rs though. MSNBC had all that prison stuff on on the weekend. Just didn’t have as finely tuned machine as the foxies.
Let’s see… Fox is reporting what a blogger reported. Unless there has been an update, I don’t know if there has been independent corroboration. I’ll wait for a more fact-based report before I draw conclusions.
It’s been confirmed by White House staff. I would imagine they would like to be invited so they could turn the White House down. Fox and Friends is the Entertainment Tonight of Fox News…
Al Sharpton has experienced (among other thing) tax problems. Maybe he brought a check?
Rachel Maddow is a bar tender by avocation. What are a few tax problems? The Rev’s supporters will help him out. The Rev is growing on me. He has toned it down a lot since the Duke Lacross players scandal.
@Second Alamo
They didn’t directly influence the media. Its not influence if said media is already on your side and acting as a wing of your campaign.
@Need to Know
+1
I heard that Karl Rove and Dick Morris have both almost been fired from Faux News. Now what does sorta been fired mean? I dont know.
Does anyone have any info?
Karl Rove doesn’t make me sick. I just don’t like him. Dick Morris is revolting in every sense of the word and he is just a liar.
@Moon-howler
MSNBC has to make some money some way, thus the prison shows on the weekend that attract more viewers than do Maddow, et. al. Fox has much higher ratings. I checked into cable TV advertising not long ago. The local Comcast people almost beg you to buy time on MSNBC, and it’s very cheap. Fox ad time is much more expensive.
Lots of people watch MSNBC. They just dont have Huckabee and that libertarian whose name starts with an S running all night.I don’t doubt that Fox does have higher ratings if we are speaking in terms of hold white conservatives who get lied to all the time.
My problem with the foxies has never been that that are conservative. It is because they lie and twist all day long.
Why would Comcast be shilling for MSNBC?
You are aware that you just suggested that more people are interested in prison life than are interested in progressive news and politics? To that I saw bull pucky. Or perhaps I should just ask the obvious. Who will be president for the next 4 years?
@Moon-howler
Comcast has blocks of commericial time allocated to them to sell locally. Some of the ad time is national, but the local providers have an allowance also. The Fox ad time is easy to sell and fetches a much higher price. The MSNBC ad time, not so much. I got the quotes and actual numbers from them.
I’m just telling it like it is. Shows about prisoners attract more viewers on the weekend than do Maddow, Schulz, etc. If MSNBC thought they would get better viewership and ad rates showing lefty talking heads on the weekend, they would do it.
I think you are assigning the wrong cause/effect to it. Fox News airs 24/7 throughout the weekend. The shows aren’t shows I would watch but if you were a foxie, nothing wrong with them. MSNBC pretty much goes dark. It is cheaper to run prison show reruns than to do weekend production, bringing in all those hosts with star status. Its a matter of money. There has probably also been marketing testing. Maybe more progressives go out whooping it up on the weekends and don’t sit at home and watch cable news. I am an anomoly.
I will not believe the prison shows are there because they attract more viewers. They are there because they are cheaper air during a down time.
That doesn’t even make sense. I get it that you don’t like MSNBC. However, prison shows don’t trump the entire programming for that news station.
You ought to at least try Morning Joe. It is a good way to get exposure to the movers and shakers. It isn’t all progressive….not even close.
Moon, I didn’t say I didn’t like them. In fact, I sometimes watch “Morning Joe” and like that program. I even watch the lefties sometimes. Maddow is irritating. She just reads from the teleprompter, and invites friendly guests whom she asks questions her show’s writers have prepared. Sharpton is a big snake oil salesman and a bigot. Don’t forget regarding him tax problems, Duke Lacrosse, and the incident that made him famous, the Tawana Brawley hoax. Lawrence O’Donnell is really creepy, but so is Dick Morris. I guess Fox and MSNBC are a wash with those two. Ed Schultz is like the loudmouth relative who comes to Thanksgiving dinner and keeps on spouting off a lot of BS. Everyone kind of likes him so they ignore what he says. Of the whole lot, if I were going to have a beer with one of them, it would be Ed.
I like Rachel alot. She is very liberal, much more so than I am. She is very polite. Not sure there about all she does is read from a teleprompter. That might be conjecture on your part. Sometimes she needs to move on….I would say her show should be 45 minutes instead of an hour. One thing about Rachel. I she is wrong, she makes the correction.
Ed would be good to go drinking with but so are all Virginia boys.
Lawrence O’Donnell is a prince compared to Dick Morris. Sharpton is Sharpton. He has grown on me, but he is what he is and makes no claims otherwise.
He has had a make over. I don’t even mind him being a bigot. That is part of his brand.
@Moon-howler
I don’t know what MSNBC’s thinking is on their programming. All I can say with confidence is that they do whatever they think can maximize their profit. Even they ultimately have shareholders who want results – Comcast again, who bought a controlling interest. That’s likely one of the reasons Comcast pushes MSNBC advertising so much, especially when advertisers are willing to pay much more for Fox. Comcast has no readily apparent political agenda like Murdoch’s NewsCorp, or NBC/MSNBC. NBC still has a stake in MSNBC, but Comcast is calling the shots. As anyone around here who has Comcast cable can tell you, the only thing on that company’s mind is making money.
I had forgotten they were owners. re comcast. That explains the shilling.
I expect that it is just cheaper for them to run prison than it is for them to pay the hosts, newcasters etc during the off hours on the weekend.
I can’t imagine anyone watching all that garbage but what do I know. I hope the right people watch and decide that is NOT where they want to go.
On the other hand, who really sits home on a fri and sat night and watches 24 hour cable news. Not the demographics of msnbc aparently.
@Moon-howler
I agree Rachel is polite and seems to be a nice person. That’s not the issue. Compare the styles. She is rarely animated or moves off script. Ed, and people like O’Reilly on Fox, get wound up and throw out the script. You know they are saying what they really think, even if you don’t agree with it.
I’ll take O’Donnell or Morris over Chris Matthews. Talk about creepy and and unable to discuss any issue with an open mind. After he talked about seeing Obama making something run down his leg I couldn’t bear to watch or hear him.
Matthews said he got a chill going up his leg watching Obama after the night of the first election. i think he meant a shiver. It usually goes up my back. Maybe Matthews is wired differently. I don’t care for him some of the time myself. However, he is a hero compared to Dick Morris.
Maddow is actually quite animated. You probably haven’t watched her very much. I think she does better each year she is on. She also talks a lot with her hands.
Ed..now Ed is Ed. He is a blusterer.
I wasn’t really talking about the commentators on Fox or MS. I was thinking more of friends and the people who appear throughout the day. They lie for news except Shep.
“MSNBC has to make some money some way, thus the prison shows on the weekend that attract more viewers than do Maddow, et. al. Fox has much higher ratings. I checked into cable TV advertising not long ago. The local Comcast people almost beg you to buy time on MSNBC, and it’s very cheap. Fox ad time is much more expensive.”
That’s because the conservatives, even though a minority number, are the ones who can afford cable TV. We may pay the government’s bills, but we don’t have the numbers to vote anyone in any longer it seems. This may be the start of a downhill spiral.
I should probably check with Elena and Censored and starry to see if they need help with their cable bills this month. I know I could use some help. I pay an arm and a leg.
I’m surprised O’Reilly wasn’t canned for his utterly inexplicable rif on Christianity not being a religion. Where that came from, I still can’t figure out. And to hear O’Reilly not only say it once, but to dig in on the position under questioning from, of all people, an atheist, was, for me at least, the sign of the End Times. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a huge howl on this from the conservative and religious blogs to which I am, alas, somewhat addicted.
The morning people on Fox must have been specifically chosen because they are dim-witted and uninformed. I assume Fox management believes there is tremendous humour value in putting out people like that in a highly public setting to just look goofy. As the day goes on, the Fox heads seem to get smarter, but the schtick is so thick that news is the last thing I expect or look for. Shep almost seems like a news guy, but he’s the exception. Sharpton and Ed Whats-his-Name are no better on MSNBC. Maddow at least is clever, although her supercilious sarcasm is set on “high” far more than it should be.
I would agree with you about Fox getting smarter as the day wears on until you bump into Hannity. He breaks that rule all to hell.
I don’t put Ed in league with anyone but himself. He is Ed. He serves a function. If something happens in the world, he is a good liberal cheerleader.
He also passionately supports educators. His mother was a teacher and I love his “commercial” about Maury High School in Norfolk.
It all boils down to who you like combined with your politics.
I like anyone better than Hannity. I don’t see him as truthful. Greta is another thing. She generally does a good job. She got a little too snowed over Sarah Palin but perhaps Palin, on a personal level, had some appeal to Greta. We don’t know Palin personally so its hard to say.
Probably the best thing going on MSNBC is Morning Joe. The guests range from conservative to liberal. The various hosts come from different parties….good cross section. You aren’t going to get a continual feed from either party line. To me, that’s invaluable. The viewer comes away with a better stash of news here than say of Faux Friends because of the various “sides” represented.
Morning Fox is just bull crap. Morning Joe is substanative.
CNN has been left out of the party. I can remember when they used to be the anti-christ and a bastion of liberal drivel in the minds of everyone to the right of center.
The O’Reilly exchange was unbelievable. He likened athiests to fascists. As to Christianity being a philosophy not a religion he’s right. Probably why he hasn’t been canned.
@Lyssa
Yeaaah… the Catholic Church would disagree with ol’ Bill…..who, I think, is Roman Catholic?
@Cargosquid
Actually, they would agree. Look up the word religion.
@Moon-howler
CNN just hired Zucker (I forget his first name) as their CXO in an attempt, according to them, to boost ratings. CNN rates behind FOX and MSNBC. He’s the same guy that ran NBC’s programming into the ground, put them in last place, and then got fired. Why anyone at CNN thinks this is a good idea is beyond me. We might see the demise of CNN soon not because of political bias but because of stupidity. That would leave the two politically-oriented networks FOX and MSNBC with no one even making a pretense of providing objective news.
@Lyssa
Um..so the Catholic Church is not a religion or, at least, a religious sect? Christianity is not a religion?
Noun
The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.
Details of belief as taught or discussed.
@Need to Know
with no one even making a pretense of providing objective news.
You say that like its a bad thing. You are correct. CNN was a PRETENSE of objective news.
No the Roman Catholic Church a religion subscribing to the Christian philosophy. So is Greek Orthodox. The Roman Catholic Church and many many others are Christian churches. The RC is the largest Christian church.
On this topic Bill O’Reilly is well educated.
So it is a Christian philosphy? As opposed to the belief and worship of God the Father, through His Son, and belief in the Holy Spirit? Sounds like religion to me.
Buddhism is a philosophy. Christianity is a Religion. The philosophical part is the adherence to Christ’s teachings.
Whatever Buddhism is, Christianity is. I don’t really think it matters. Lyssa will explain it. I failed the explain test.
I think it was a foolish fight for O’Reilly to start, personally.
Example: First two lines of the Nicene Creed, Profession of Faith:
We believe (I believe) in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and born of the Father before all ages.