Eat The Press

Newsbriefs: An Open Letter To MSNBC

Jason Linkins |  Posted Tuesday April 17, 2007 at 08:13 PM

Hey, MSNBC! How you doing? We have a question: What is the deal with this "Mourner-in-Chief" stuff? We've heard you've been calling the President this all day long (David Gregory, Howard Fineman, Brian Williams). Why are you doing this? It's emo and it's weird. You really have to stop doing that.

Look — we have strong, strenuous doubts that President Bush would want to be tagged with this title. And why would he? Seems to us that you really cannot pick a chief mourner among so many people who've lost loved ones, and anyway, by all accounts, the President has been pretty deferent to the needs of Virginia Tech's community. He's not exactly looking for attention, and for what it's worth, we sort of question you designating anyone "Mourner-in-Chief." It's not very sensitive. (True, there's precedent, but not much.)

Look at it this way: the President has his supporters and his detractors, but in a time like this, no one's asking him to...you know, write a Bright Eyes album. So, please, take our advice and just let this one go. Okay?

And while you're at it, could you maybe calm Olby down on all this Cooper stuff? I mean, really.

More news from the media world, after the jump:

Romenesko has responded to the shootings at Virginia Tech by providing readers with a ton of great coverage and resources. Ranging from media criticism, advice to journalists, timelines of similar tragedies, and entries covering the emerging trend of non-traditional journalism. For full and vital coverage of the media on the scene, it's required reading.

How did an army officer make waves today? By insisting that the media's coverage of the Iraq war has been "reasonably full, fair and balanced."

The Project for Excellence in Journalism reported that the Imus flap was the second-most covered story of 2007, behind only the coverage of President Bush's "surge" strategy. Prepare, PEJ, for an extraordinarily joyless recount.

Aww. You know, nothing helps take our minds off recent tragic events quite like someone who resolutely documents their missing of the point entirely.

How'd Couric do, you ask? Trounced, brother. Trounced.

We simply shall not countenance the way the liberal media has cockblocked so many. You hear us? WILL NOT COUNTENANCE IT.