Phil Donahue Was Fired For Threatening Tweetie's Manliness?

[kpete]

I think he saw me as a threat to his supremacy,” Donahue told HuffPost Live’s Marc Lamont Hill. “He wanted to be the face of MSNBC and here comes this talk show host. I had the benefit of recognition … I think I was a threat to his goal of being the man at MSNBC. He was quite emotional. He was emotionally upset.”

He said that he had not been prepared for “the fear of the suits at MSNBC” about his show, adding that he was forced to put two conservative guests on for every liberal.

Donahue said he thought corporate pressure had played a key role in his show’s demise.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/03/23/tweetys-ugly-story/

[CTyankee]

1. Maybe this was before Chris stopped drinking?

He might have been right on the edge of a breakdown and that caused him to clean up his act with regard to alcohol.

[Bucky]

5. Nah, Matthews still has an Alpha Male problem. Did you see him w/Alex Witt?

I think that's her name. They were on a panel with Chris Hedges doing a follow up to Maddow's "Hubris" documentary. Every time Alex started talking, he'd interrupt her and several times he'd shoot down her arguments before she'd finished making them. He never interrupted the other guests, only her.

She's young and pretty; Donohue is notoriously sensative and feeling-focused. I see a pattern with Matthews. He may be liberal, but I think he's a closet bully. I think when he sees anyone who represents weakness in his angry little alpha male worldview, he seeks them out and punishes them. Remember, he's spent years in the hyper-masculine, bourbon-swilling Washington culture. Policy nerds like Chris Hedges don't bother him. The only reason he doesn't go after Rachel Maddow is that she's such a strong presense on camera, he probably doubts he could take her.

But at least he's liberal.

[DURHAM D]

10. Her name is Alex Wagner.

She has a show on MSNBC M-F at 12 noon - Now With Alex. I hope someone puts up the video of the way he behaved toward her - it is classic male bullying.

Not only that, when she was speaking in agreement with Cong. Murphy (re: chicken hawks who start wars) Tweety said he categorically disagreed with her and then went on to make the same argument she had just made. In other words, he did not hear or understand a word she said. To put it another way - he doesn't respect women so he doesn't acknowledge what they say, he just steals their positions.

He does the same thing to Joan Walsh and Joy Ann Reid when they are on his show. He strongly disagrees with them, slaps them around, shuts them down and then when he finishes up a segment he takes their positions as if he they are his and not the opposite of what he just argued.

I agree that his prior experience of working on the Hill is a part of his problem and I assume he was squeezed out because he tried to take credit for other people's ideas. His bombastic reversals would have been a source of great irritation and generally speaking he would have received an F on "Getting along with others". With his own show he does not need to get along with others.

I also don't think he is a liberal. He has been trying to paint himself as anti-war from the beginning but that is not the way I remember is - he was consistently bi-polar on the issue. Also he had/has a big crush on Bush because he thought he was such a man's man. It was embarrassing to watch him slobber for 8 years.

So I am not buying Tweety's current position on his prior positions.

[TinkerTot55]

13. Hafta say...

Well said, D.D.

[Bucky]

15. Thanks for the clarification.

Ever since I read about how men interrupt women 3 times as often as they interrupt men in a group conversation, I've tried to be aware of how I interact with others in informal groups.

Half of Matthews's interruption problem seems to come from the fact that he doesn't listen to what other people are saying (unless, of course, they're saying what he expects them to say).

[The Second Stone]

16. I remember Matthews as being for the war

and having a crush on GW Bush.

[northoftheborder]

18. Ditto. I can't stand Tweety's rude interruptions of lots of people.

[dsc]

21. He is a horrid sexist

but when his sexism rebounded to Obama's favor DU became fine with it. DU wasn't alone. The fact is if he had been as racist as he is sexist he would have been given his walking papers years ago.

[SoCalDem]

22. "Move in Erin...,heheheheh".. He almost got fired for that one

[DURHAM D]

23. Yep. He is a garden variety old school sexist and needs to be fired.

His 7 pm (EDT) time slot should be given to Joy Ann Reid.

[SoCalDem]

25. I really like JoyAnn

My only quibble with her is that she's very uncomfortable with teleprompters.. The irony is that she's so well versed on most subjects that she does not need them, but they make the hosts use them for the time-cues..

[DURHAM D]

27. True.

For a long time I thought Joy Ann should stay out of the host chair because she makes such a great counter-weight.

But the time has come and frankly I think she can do anything she wants to do, including working out the teleprompter thing or just communicating with hand puppets if that makes her comfortable in the host chair.

[Whisp]

24. ++++

[AndyA]

14. I saw that last night and thought Matthews was very rude and disrespectful

I expect that from him on his own show, and figure some of it is due to time constraints, or an attempt to move the conversation in the direction intended for that segment, but when you're a guest on another show you should behave appropriately.

Matthews has a very annoying habit of NOT SHUTTING UP. He'll ask a question, then repeat it and express personal views on it before allowing the person the question is addressed to a chance to respond. Or, he'll interrupt them before they have a chance to fully respond to the question.

I don't much care for Matthews. Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell do a much better job of interviewing, because they allow their guests to participate. They actually seem to *want* a response from the guest. Matthews would probably be happiest with no guests, so he could just talk the full hour.

Chris Matthews is one of MSNBC's weakest personalities. Despite his tenure in the business, I find others to be more interesting and worthy of my time. Some of the newer people, like Alex Wagner, Joy Reid, and Krystal Ball are all more interesting, and I actually want to hear their opinions. Not so much with Matthews.

I think MSNBC would be a much better network if they got rid of Chris Matthews, Chuck Todd, Joe Scarborough, and S. E. Cupp. And thankfully, they finally dumped Pat Buchanan after allowing him to spew his insults for way too long!

[DURHAM D]

20. I completely agree with your program changes.

I like Alex and Krystal and I am interested in what they have to say but for me Joy Reid is in a class by herself.

MSNBC is the default on my tv/Tivo and if Joy is on a show I rewind and then fast forward through the shows, only stopping to listen to what she has to say.

[arcane1]

2. "he was forced to put two conservative guests on for every liberal"

There it is.

[hlthe2b]

3. See this link for video interview with Donahue on this (& longer one with Donahue and Michael Moore)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022550948

Yes, Tweety was a real twit (but I guess we sorta knew that, didn't we?)

[joelz]

4. Phil tells a different story here

PHIL DONAHUE: Well, I think what happened to me, the biggest lesson, I think, is the—how corporate media shapes our opinions and our coverage. This was a decision—my decision—the decision to release me came from far above. This was not an assistant program director who decided to separate me from MSNBC. They were terrified of the antiwar voice. And that is not an overstatement. Antiwar voices were not popular. And if you’re General Electric, you certainly don’t want an antiwar voice on a cable channel that you own; Donald Rumsfeld is your biggest customer. So, by the way, I had to have two conservatives on for every liberal. I could have Richard Perle on alone, but I couldn’t have Dennis Kucinich on alone. I was considered two liberals. It really is funny almost, when you look back on how—how the management was just frozen by the antiwar voice. We were scolds. We weren’t patriotic. American people disagreed with us. And we weren’t good for business.
Very good 10 minute clip here

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/21/phil_donahue_on_his_2003_firing

[brucefan]

6. Not really a different story

Just adding a little more info.

[DURHAM D]

12. Exactly -

Tweety bought a house on Nantucket near Jack so he could suck up to him.

Pics of his home - http://www.washingtonlife.com/issues/october_2005/inside_homes/

[babylonsister]

7. I don't think it had anything to do with Matthews;

the suits didn't want to give time to anyone who was anti-war; he was a threat to so much ka-ching involved.

[ewagner]

8. Agree...

take into consideration that Donahue is probably a pretty competitive person himself and perhaps he and Chris were engaged in a head-on competition but the heart of the reason was what Babylonsister stated.

[JDPriestly]

9. Then the question is why didn't Chris Matthews have the courage to

tell the truth about the war? Why did he give in without a fight?

Seems to me that Matthews was the 90-lb weakling at MSNBC.

[Bucky]

11. You don't. But Donohue, who was there, seems to think he did.

Just cause Matthews didn't write the memo doesn't mean his fingerprints weren't on it.

[shenmue]

17. What a shame

Too bad he couldn't have stayed. I still like him.

[deurbano]

19. Digby provides some insight into the motivation behind the opinions expressed by Matthews... on-air.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/did-chris-matthews-bravely-stand.html

You have to read the whole thing, but here is a very interesting bit from a blogger (Samela, posting on Bartcop's message board) who attended an event featuring Matthews and his wife in 2002:

"...I say I want to ask about how ratings affect his approach to political discourse. I say I have noted, as have many others, that there is a certain disjuncture between the kinds of positions and tone he brings to discussion on his television show, Hardball, and the positions and tone he brings to his syndicated column or his appearances on other shows. I cite, as an example, how a study on media bias in election coverage done by the Project for Excellence in Journalism attributed a full 17% of all negative characterizations of Al Gore in the last election to Hardball. And yet, according to the same article in the Columbia Journalism Review, when he appeared on Charlie Rose in the post-election period, he had nothing but praise for Gore.

Who did that study? he yelled! Did you watch my coverage? Yes, I responded, I watched you in part. And how did you think it was? I said I thought he was throwing some red meat to a particular base. He quieted. Look, I said, what I'm saying is: you wrote a column for the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this year on John Kerry that was very thoughtful, especially about his energy policy. But on Hardball, are you going to talk about that or about his haircut like everyone else has been doing today?....

...Look, he said, turning to me. (And I am quoting here! I wrote it down!). "You're a very smart woman. You got me." And he went on to say, look, yeah...the audience for cable is very right wing, they feel they've been left out and have nowhere else to go. Charlie Rose is not going to make it on cable."

[SoCalDem]

26. Hardball ratings were in the crapper...and then W got selected

That event saved Matthews & his show.. (and a lot of others)

Before that event (and then of course, 9-11), that type of show was waning,. People were tired of the Monica thing, and most people expected Gore to win.. The whole outrageous 00 election revitalized the format and saves Tweety's ass..

[JI7]

28. the stuff with Tweety is no surprise but that was not why he was fired

[MFM008]

29. Ironic isnt it

Keith Olbermann became the face of MSNBC. Matthews is like tapioca, you forget you saw it, or ate it. Rachel now dominates. ouucchhhh.

[grasswire]

30. well, Chris Hayes put the screws to Tweety on camera Friday night

Tweety was sitting directly across from Hayes when Hayes criticized MSNBC for pushing Donahue out for his views on the war run-up. This was on the "Talking Hubris" program.

Tweety's face was not clearly in view when this happened; too bad.