MSNBC: The Place For Politics (And Taped Programming)

I'ts 8:00 pm on the day of primaries in Nebraska, Washington State, Louisiana and Kansas, and MSNBC just started its live coverage. During the day, while CNN was covering the ongoing voting via "Ballot Bowl" and Fox News was doing the same with "You Decide 2008," MSNBC was running taped programming like "Sex Slaves in America" and "Lockup: Holman" and "Born in the Wrong Body," up until 6pm when Tim Russert's show began, followed by a taped documentary on the career of Hillary Clinton, narrated by Lester Holt. Now the coverage is in full swing, anchored by Norah O'Donnell along with Chuck Todd, Lee Cowan, Alex Witt, Eugene Robinson, Pat Buchanan and Rachel Maddow, but earlier today, when Mike Huckabee took Kansas and when Washington — a state where Obama has led in fundraising and endorsements and which has almost as many delegates as New Jersey — was caucusing (in a voting system that tends to favor Obama) and even the U.S. Virgin Islands was getting in on the act, American Samoa-style, MSNBC was off the case. Why, with so many correspondents in the field and what could be a decisive day for the Democrat side going on, was the decision made to go to tape? I asked MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines, who pointed out that the network would be running three hours of live coverage tonight. "We're always live when there's breaking news to report as there is tonight when there are election results to report," said Gaines. (Though I can't help pointing out that Huckabee's win in Kansas sort of counts as news.) Gaines declined to give any other reason for the decision to go to tape; it should also be noted that MSNBC was live during the day of the South Carolina primary.

What MSNBC missed during the day: Huckabee's Kansas win; live coverage of Huckabee addressing CPAC, including this already-widely-quoted line about why he's still in the race: "I did not major in math. But I did major in miracles. And I still believe in 'em!"; Fox News being sure to mention David Shuster's suspension from MSNBC because of his comment about Chelsea Clinton — but did not, however, mention that David Shuster had formerly been at Fox News.

Related:
'Significant Saturday': Three Things to Watch [Newsweek]
Not Super, But Still Important [Forbes]

Comments

[zull2]

MSNBC has been doing taped programming for years. Probably has to do with a tighter budget than CNN and Fox, aside from advertisers usually being a couple years behind the trends. If the cash flow had ramped up early enough, you'd probably have seen MSNBC put out their own election watch deal too. Plenty of folks are fed up with the sloppiness of CNN and the nutty right wing bias of Faux News. But as it stands, MSNBC can't do anything without taking a major loss (oh, wait, I was supposed to lambaste MSNBC for their irresponsible journalism...as this article obviously wanted commenters to do).

[ParacleteofKavorka]

Just what does 'MS' in 'MSNBC' contribute to the programming?

[bmnehls]

Did anyone else notice that last night when Hillary and Obama were both giving speeches in Virginia MSNBC was the only one that aired all of both speeches. I was originally watching CNN and then during Clintons speech they cut away from her, then flipping through the channels to get to MSNBC, FOX is in the middle and noticed that they too didn't have Hillary on, thankfully MSNBC did. But then later in the night during Obama's speech, just to make sure everyone was given equal time, i switched through the channels and what do you know! Everyone had Obama's whole speech on. I understand that the media isn't so thrilled about Hillary but she deserves as much time as Obama does.

[kroses98]

I didn't see that happen with Obama. I think you are mixing up the candidates. It happened with Hillary on CNN for two weekends in a row, however. I know, because I wrote to complain to them. They continually cut off, just as he was to make his speech, after having played her speech for many minutes, on at least 2 or 3 successive turns. They gave him no time, other than a few seconds. Last week, it also happend at the Obama LA rally, but I was fortunately able to switch to C-SPAN to see it. It was fantastic! What a shame for CNN, that they must have lost a lot of ratings, because instead of covering the live rally, they switiched to a taped re-run of the RePUKE Debate, which had been seen at least 4 times already! You can never account for the taste of programming directors, but I guess they receive their orders from "on high!"

[AlabamaGunn]

Propaganda as Apology

I found it very interesting that MSNBC ran no election coverage prior to 7:00 pm cst, and they showed no polling data about the current tide in each state. All of this after Schuster's moronic comment about Chelsea. The Clintons, though, did get multi apologies (Mathews, Olberman--for nothing, and Schuster)as well as an unscheduled airing of a HRC documentary--talk about free advertising. Meanwhile, no one was taking the pulse of the voters in LA, WA, NE, or ME where Obama was cleaning house (or may today in ME's case) and adding more delegates to lead in pledged delegates (the ones he won from actual voters). Another developent was the network's decision to start focusing on a delegate count that includes pledged superdelegates (which benefits HRC, by the way) as the true delegate count. We all know these "pledged" superdelegates are not bound by anything other than the current direction of the wind so their superdelegate enhanced count means nothing; however, it is a good way to appease the Clinton camp by making it appear she is in the lead when she clearly is not.

[sheperdess]

You know I started watching MSNBC because I heard NOTHING positive about Obama. CNN and Wolfe have an agenda. I think David S was wrong to use the phase (not so ofensive to young people) but between the New York Times and Cnn I found myself staying with MSNBC. I do like Chuck and Tim R. I very rarely get to see Morning Joe....but get a kick out of itit's not as saccrin as TODAY and GMA. Sorry

[SadAmerican]

MSNBC is the absolute WORST. They are totally irrevelant, and their pundits are outrageous.

I stopped watching on the day of the South Carolina primaries. They were over the line, caught up in the wave of Obamamania, and their hatred of Hillary.
PLEASE, all we want is the news, and ability to decide on our own.

Goodbye forever MSNBC and especially to Screaming Joe, Big mouthed Mika, Maniac Matthews, Pathetic Tucker, No-Nothing Barnicle, and Class-less Shuster. Good riddance to all.
I have even given up on Olberman. (that was the hardest)
We do NOT want your biased opinions !!!!

[riverhorse]

ditto man, i've never seen such non-stop bashing of anyone as i've seen of Hillary. the woman has worked all her life to help lift people of all races up and all she gets is a constant bashing. if you ever cared about heath care for everyone she's the one who could do it if anyone could. thank God she's tough, she sure as hell has game and she is unflinching in the face of fire.

[Araxiel]

You have got to be delusional. Where do you get your facts? Hillary has "worked" to help lift people of all races up? Hardly. For over half of her "career," she was a high paid corporate lawyer, who did one year of so-called pro-bono work for the children. She sat on corporate boards, including Wal-Mart, hardly any endorsement for your claims of her good works. In addition, Hillary has never really explained how all this universal health care will be paid for, and even more, where the actual supply of health care providers will come from. She is a power-hungry, immoral behavior enabling woman who has actually done little for the country she claims to love so much.

[realpolitic]

"We do not want your biased opinion!!!!"

Isn't an "opinion" always biased? That is why it is called an "opinion." He does not magically mix his opinion with fact the way O'Reilly does and pretend they are one and the same.

[zona9]

You're right, Olbermann doesn't mix his opinion with fact like O'Reilly. Olbermann mixes his opinion with lies. And, no matter what you think of OReilly, he doesn't pretend to be a straight journalist/reporter/anchor. He constantly reminds people that he's offering opinion. On MSNBC, however, they have deeply partisan host doing the straight freaking election coverage! Fox has never and would never do that-despite Olbermann's lies on the subject.

Olby actually said that Fox did the same and named Hannity as the partisan that also juggled straight anchoring duties on Super Tuesday. Total lie, of course. Hannity was on ST night on his REGULAR show, Hannity and Colmes. He never did straight anchoring. Chalk up another Olby lie. MSNBC is a disgrace. I haven't even started on Matthews.

[SadAmerican]

You are correct "realpolitic".

My comment should have said "biased reporting", and not opinion.
I stand corrected !!!

[Kane]

When MSNBC offers up topics such as prison conditions, child prostitution, serial killers, and internet sex predators, an argument can be made that these are important stories to report. But when these individual stories are regurgitated into a series, it becomes nothing more than exploitation and television at its worst.

MSNBC has had an identity crisis for sometime now. It still doesn't know whether it wants to be a serious news channel, a flagship for republican chatter, or cut costs altogether in offering titillation television.

[pithy]

I think they threw Hillary a bone (after the Chelsea fap) with the "here's her life" special, which was rather complimentary.

I have to say, as far as laughs go, if we're into criticizing women for the most absurd things, Nora O'Donell has a laugh like a braying donkey. She makes HRC's laugh sound like a tinkling bell.

[Lolalabloggera]

pithy, you make me laugh! That's so true about Nora O'Donell's laugh.
MSNBC is disintegrating before our very eyes. What a shame. I used to enjoy Chris Mathews so much, but his constant Hillary-bashing has lowered his IQ about 50 points.

[ParacleteofKavorka]

You're right about Norah's laugh. I only noticed it since the 2/5 primaries. I wish Jon Stewart would do multiple clips of her laugh on his show so that it would get back to her. The same with Matthews' 'HA'.

In fact, the pundits and anchors should all be forced to watch Stewart to see how ridiculous they are.

[ParacleteofKavorka]

At the end of Olberman I can't change the channel fast enough to avoid the first few seconds of Lockup.

[realpolitic]

Lockup is so redundant I feel I know all the guys down at San Quentin and that is probably not good. The prisoners should insist on a share of the profits as with any reality TV show. Soon Lockup will feature birthday parties among the prisoners and weddings.

[OSUMercutio]

My hunch is that the reason they had less live coverage was due to the whole Chelsea-gate/David Schuster pimp comment. They usually have Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and Joe Scarborough leading the coverage. Instead, the only top talent they had left was Norah O'Donnell (who I do love BTW), but it was clear they wanted to have as little testosterone as possible to appease the Clinton folks.

[in4success]

the apology wasn't good enough for the clintons because they want to make a camopaign issue out of it. they are disgraceful.

shuster slipped up and said something stupid about a grown woman... get over it and move on with dignity.

just goes to show how the clintons really are... should wake a few people up.

[Aristedes]

Here we go again-in4excess is obviously obsessed with the Clintons having any success. So exactly what success are you IN for?

[Rickter]

MSNBC became irevellent a long time ago. They aren't news show, they're a network to show repeats of Dateline over and over.

They forget there is a large audience in the rockies and the west coast. By 6:00 PM on any weeknight, they re-running a dateline retread - missing out on a huge segment of their potential viewing audience.

Chris Matthews re-runs, Tucker Carlson (same shit, different day). The only decent programming on MSNBC is obberman.

[Kundera]

It's in bad taste to air Olbermann. MSNBC is using an insane bitter angry man to mock him. He has no idea what an idiot he is. Although it could be a warning to others what happens when you go off your meds.

[kingcityguru]

Come on, if Keith did not share your political view you would find him as obnoxious as O'Reilly. What a self-important blowhard!

[swift goat pet for truth]

Unfortunately, there are LOTS of Neocon blowhards, and on more stations than Faux.

KO is the only liberal blowhard I can find.

Got anyother suggestions?

[realpolitic]

Keith does not lie. He does not lie about his own statements, especially when they are on tape, as O'Reilly does.

[unitron]

Tucker Carlson (same twit, different day).

There, fixed that for you.

[ljsfolly]

I turned on MSNBC several times during the day on Tuesday looking for the updated info on the campaigns and any coverage of how Barack was doing and encountered the taped crap. I am very upset to think that I had to watch CNN (never ever FAUX news) to get any info and I gave up on that as it also was the over and over almost taped feeling election crap they do. Why was the states who also count discounted as not important? Will this continue as we go along? Is it because it wasn't considered "big enough" like super tuesday or is it just that no one in the cables cares about the actual outcome of the individual states that will lead up to the nominee when it's so close?

[realpolitic]

Probably the anchors at MSNBC needed a day off. I guess they have no "B" team.

[hjo4]

I was wondering when this story would finally appear.MSNBC is not a "news network" its a talk show station (sometimes) .As it was pointed out who'd expect any better with Dan Abrams (the oldest frat boy in tv) at the helm, he must be one of the laziest execs in that industry.Get him out please.I could do a better job and I have zippo experience in the so-called cable news network.

[LarBear]

Maybe because Dan Abrams opted for his own Program instead of taking the Helm?

[brakmaster]

Ummmmm... Dan Abrams is not at the helm anymore. And when he was "at the helm", he fought pretty hard to meet Olbermann's contract demands.

The oldest frat boy in TV? Really? He doesn't seem that old.

[realpolitic]

Abrams acts much less like a frat boy then does Bush.

[tumblewind]

I can well imagine that Obama will be smeared by the GOP! I would be shocked if the perverts didn't smear him! When sick little minds dwell in the nearest sewer with religious fundies what do you expect???? The saddest part about it there are people who aren't intelligent enough not to listen to this slop! And slop is a nice word for it! But, what do you expect from bottom feeders! The Republican's have become nothing but bottom feeders! They don't have a decent candidate to put forth. Just an old war hawk who is still fighting the Viet Name War and a religious nut! So they are going to resort to dirty tactic's to keep their fascist wet dream going!

[SunshineDaydream]

it said in the story that caucusing favors obama. could that be bc caususing isn't decided by diebold?

[hank48188]

No, because a caucus isn't decided by many voters, just the ones that available at a certain time and have a few hours to devote to the process. Two things about them go against what most people think as Democracy, It is not secret ballot and they don't give everyone the chance to have their voice heard like a primary does. They do this caucus thing because it's cheap, a real election costs much more. Most of the States Obama won have a caucus because they don't have much of a Democratic party, Utah, Idaho and Alaska are RED States and I can't ever recall when any of those States delivered their Electoral votes to the DEMS.

[Aristedes]

Does the word Caucus have anything to do with Caucasian? Just asking.

[nancytheragingliberal]

The mean, fire-breathing repubs. have two playbooks; one for Hillary, one for Obama. Regarding Hillary, all of Bill's dirty laundry will be on the conservative media 24/7 and for Obama, it will be "Dear heavens, he is a LIBERAL"! "A Muslim"! People see these rebubs. for what they are, by viewing the devastion of the world. Repubs. are not excited with their candidates and are coming out in small numbers.

[CharlotteNH]

Congratulations are due to Barack Obama. As a lifelong Democrat, I am thrilled that we had so many good candidates. We now have two great candidates who are running neck and neck.

The republicans are in a mess. John McCain is the conservatives' foe and Mitt Romney (rumored to be a potential VP candidate) is the faux conservative. Maybe I'm reading into Pat Buchanan's comments but it seems to me that he is all over the board - it seems he can't decide which democratic candidate to alternately dump on or give the edge to. I think the republicans are totally confused as to which candidate they can beat. It's likely that they won't beat either potential nominee. I think I remember that one of Pat's comments was that the republicans will tear Obama to shreds - while I agree that negative campaigning can work in some instances, tearing a candidate to shreds will backfire in a big way.

Most commentators are not good at hiding their candidate preferences. Some seem to change with the wind while they criticize candidates for doing the same. As "professionals", they should be a lot better at objective commentary.

One last thought - Rachel Maddow is a great commentator.

[ridge]

Rachel Maddow rocks! Smartest commentator on the tubes. Rhodes Scholar! Yeah, baby!

[bikerdude]

I agree. Rachel is smart, fair and articulate. I believe she is Dr. Maddow...She and Keith Olbermann make that otherwise vacuous network watchable.

[blastocyst]

Would enjoy seeing her 'rock' in luxury via some intimate private video on YouTube. Until it's taken down, could we pleez see 'er going down?

[swift goat pet for truth]

Don't know why Rachel does not have her own TV show. She should. I would watch it.

[Lolalabloggera]

I became a Rachel Maddow's fan from day one--I even wrote to NBC to complain about Matthews and suggest they give Rachel her own show--BUT lately she's jumped on the Hillary-bashing bandwagon and is beginning to lose credibility.

[Aristedes]

Republiguns Love Oblama at the moment. I wonder why?

[SUNRAI]

Yesterday I watched MSNBC for most of the day...I watch 16 Boys and 16 Girls...that was quite interesting - I'm a mother of a 10 year girl - but all that other stuff was just straight trash - Born in the Wrong Body - Um who cares! I know I was born in the RIGHT body.

As I watched 16 Boys and Girls....I flipped back to CNN to see what was going on...however the real kicker was after 12 midnight MSNBC was back to Lock Up (that show is worthless) and I moved BACK to CNN to get more coverage.

MSNBC is some crap on the weekends and after 10pm weeknights....it's no wonder they lag in the ratings...I think they have to potential to do better, but it's like they don't want to spend the money...

[bikerdude]

Who ever it was who described them as lazy is right on. Abrams is a lawyer and I guess finds all that taped stuff interesting. He is not a bad commentator if he keeps his ego in check, but he sucks as a program exec. Matthews has slipped to the point where I only watch him in fits and spurts. If he has a good guest or panel, I'll watch, mostly to see who will call him on his embarrassing shit. Tucker is way too right wing and obnoxious for me to watch at all. At least he got rid of that stupid bowtie...

[swift goat pet for truth]

Matthews does not know when to shut up and let the guest answer a question. The only person who is worse is Larry Kudlow. But then Kudlow is a moron by most standards.