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Hack List No. 8: MSNBC

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 19:48:00 +0000

This year, my annual list of the worst of political media highlights not just individuals, but the institutions that enable those individuals. The 2012 Hack List will be counting down the 10 media outlets that are hurting America over the next two days -- stay tuned! (Previous Hack List entries here, here and here.)

MSNBC, we're told all the time, is the liberal Fox News. That's reductive and stupid. It isn't. MSNBC isn't the liberal Fox News for two very important reasons: It usually demonstrates a greater respect for the truth than Fox News, and it's not as good as Fox News. It's not as good at being liberal as Fox is at being conservative. Fox is rigidly ideologically consistent, with its "straight news" programs echoing the same talking points and pushing the same slanted stories as its opinion shows. While there's no doubt that MSNBC is more unapologetically liberal than it used to be, it's still all over the place, with a conservative anchoring its flagship morning show, objective Beltway "straight news" proponents like Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell dominating in the daytime, and weekends full of ... prison shows. But more important, it's not as good as Fox at being compelling TV, which is why millions more people watch Fox every day. (There are demographic reasons for Fox's advantage, too, but it's still a huge number.)

Must-see morning clip

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 14:20:00 +0000

"Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough summoned his inner John McCain this morning when he asked, "Why are liberals still so angry on the Twitter?" He added:

They are angry about everything. Like they won. They don't understand like when conservatives win, we go hunting. and drink beer. And know we're going to control at the same time, the country for four years. The liberals on the Twitter, on my machine, are so angry. And it doesn't bother me. I feel sorry for them.

When asked, "What did these people do before the Twitter?" Scarborough joked, "They kicked their dogs."

Joe Scarborough to Nate Silver: “I’m sorry”

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:13:00 +0000

Joe Scarborough -- who called the 2012 election a "dead heat" on Twitter and mocked anyone who would predict how it would turn out -- has apologized to the man who correctly called every state for the second presidential race in a row.

In a column on Politico this morning, the "Morning Joe" co-host told Nate Silver he was sorry for doubting the methodology Silver uses on his fivethirtyeight blog.

"I do need to tell Nate I’m sorry for leaning in too hard and lumping him with pollsters whose methodology is as rigorous as the Simpsons’ strip mall physician, Dr. Nick. For those sins (and a multitude of others that I’m sure I don’t even know about), I am sorry," Scarborough wrote.

He added:

Politics is a messy sport. And just as ball players who drink beer and eat fried chicken in dugouts across America can screw up the smartest sabermatrician’s forecast, Nate Silver’s formula is sure to let his fervent admirers down from time to time. But judging from what I saw of him this morning, Nate is a grounded guy who admits as much in his book. I was too tough on him and there’s a 84.398264% chance I will be less dismissive of his good work in the future.

Must-see morning clip: Obama talks debt cuts on “Morning Joe”

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 12:08:00 +0000

"Morning Joe"'s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski interviewed President Barack Obama during a recent New Hampshire campaign stop for a segment which aired Monday. The hosts lightly grilled the president over the Libya embassy attack and gave him the opportunity to talk about his immediate plans should he win a second term.

Obama told the hosts that "our first order of business is going to be to get our deficits and debt under control,” for which he said the Bush-era tax cuts' expiration would be a "forcing mechanism." He appealed to conservative undecided voters with talk of "steamlining" and questioning the size of government, but managed to slip in a back-handed compliment to Romney over healthcare. "I stole a whole bunch of ideas from a Massachusetts governor," he said.

Watch the full interview below, via MSNBC:

Junot Díaz, Dave Eggers among National Book Award finalists

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:20:00 +0000

It's been a great year for Junot Díaz: The Pulitzer Prize-winning author recently won a coveted MacArthur genius grant, and his latest book, "This Is How You Lose Her," is a bestseller. Now "Lose Her" has landed him on the finalist list for the National Book Award. Díaz is joined by veteran writer and McSweeney's founder Dave Eggers ("A Hologram for the King"), Pulitzer Prize finalist Louise Erdrich ("The Round House"), Ben Fountain ("Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk") and newcomer Kevin Powers ("The Yellow Birds").

Nonfiction finalists include New Yorker staff writer Katherine Boo's journey in an Indian slum (“Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity"), tireless biographer and journalist Robert A. Caro, for his fourth book on Lyndon B. Johnson (“The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson") and a posthumous nomination for New York Times foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid (“House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family and a Lost Middle East"), who died earlier this year while on assignment in Syria.

Mika Brzezinski’s erotic dance

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 20:54:00 +0000

Vanity Fair’s short profile of MSNBC’s Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough ostensibly depicts them as a dynamic duo reminiscent of the great screwball comedies of the 1940s (the article references The Thin Man’s Nick and Nora). But the sassy journalist heroines popularized by Rosalind Russell and Katharine Hepburn would have balked at a photo shoot like this one—which is both reflective of current attitudes toward professional and political women and jarringly anachronistic. The notion that women exist primarily for men’s amusement (both on and off the job) seems oh so Mad Men, yet the trend toward depicting public women (especially those whose jobs place them in the realm of politics) primarily as sex objects is alive and well in the 21^st century. The pornification of political culture (a process in which some women participate willingly and others have foisted upon them after their image is conscripted) has depicted political candidates (e.g., Sarah Palin and Janice Hahn) and women voters (in viral videos like this one and this one from the 2008 campaign) as strippers.

Quote of the day: Scarborough’s lesson

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 22:50:00 +0000

Joe Scarborough, the host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," wrote an Op-Ed in Politico last night called "The Problem With Mitt," where he sums it all up:

"And the lesson is clear: If we want to win the battle of ideas in the long term, we should be willing to face the fact that Mitt Romney is likely to lose -- and should, given that he's neither a true conservative nor a courageous moderate. He's just an ambitious man. Nothing wrong with that, except when you want to be president. Great leaders combine ambition and ideas and conviction."

Tom Brokaw discharged from hospital

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 17:30:00 +0000

NBC News correspondent Tom Brokaw was discharged from the hospital Thursday "in great health" after he "mistakenly took a half dose of Ambien."

NBC News president Steve Capus said in a statement: “After medical evaluation and a round of tests, Tom was pronounced in great health and has been discharged. We're immensely grateful to the team at Carolinas Medical Center for their excellent care and professionalism.”

Earlier in the day, Brokaw checked into the hospital after he felt "light-headed" during an appearance on "Morning Joe." He later tweeted: “All is well. Early AM I mistakenly took a half dose of Ambien and made less sense than usual. Made a better comeback than Giants ...”