MSNBC.com May Change Its Name

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

NBC Universal and Microsoft, the parents of msnbc.com, are holding high-level talks about changing its name, an unusual and potentially risky endeavor for the third most popular news Web site in the United States.

The two parents have not yet agreed on what to call the site. But according to internal memorandums obtained by The New York Times this week, the parents have concluded that the brand known as msnbc.com, a strictly objective news site, is widely confused with MSNBC, the cable television channel that has taken a strongly liberal bent in recent years.

Charlie Tillinghast, the president of msnbc.com, wrote in one of the memos, “Both strategies are fine, but naming them the same thing is brand insanity.” The channel and Web site are already separate companies.

Under the current plan, the msnbc.com Web address would become a site exclusively for the cable channel, fulfilling the channel’s desire to have an independent site to promote its TV programs. The existing news site, called the “blue site” internally, would move to a new and as-yet-undetermined Web address. There is a subsection on msnbc.com for the cable channel.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/business/media/07msnbc.html

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Whoa, whoa. Stating as fact that MSNBC television is liberal? During primetime, yes, but I doubt that MSNBC sprinkles liberal spin into its daytime regular news coverage as much as Fox News sprinkles conservative spin in its.

[onehandle]

1. So in other words, they want to create an altogether new news site.

Because anybody who goes to msnbc.com will continue to do so.

It would be a new entity with no identity and no anchor.

Good luck with that.

[krispos42]

7. Good point n/t

[Skip Intro]

2. Let msnbc.com to be the website of the cable news net, use nbcnews.com for the "objective" news site

have both sites link to each other prominently - seems simple enough

[krkaufman]

10. honestly, I thought that the issue was going to be the "MS" in MSNBC.

I thought Microsoft had divested itself of its investment, and that they didn't want to be associated with a network that dared to present a viewpoint from anywhere left of center.

[McCamy Taylor]

3. What is so bad about being liberal? I think there is a market for "liberal".

Bigger than the 25% of Americans who are right wing kooks.

[defendandprotect]

11. Nothing bad about "liberal" except right wing spin on it -- Plenty bad about right wing...!!

[TheEuclideanOne]

4. WTF? A strictly objective new site?

Give me a fucking break. Objective my ass. No more objective than Fox claiming they are fair and balanced. I strongly believe that it is a false equivalency to compare MSNBC to Fox and I get pissed off when I hear people make the comparison. Fox is simply propaganda. At the same time, even though it is not Fox, it is not "strictly objective" either.

Here is what I think that happened. Somebody in upper management woke up and realized that the corporations own the news and in turn own them. Maybe they went to school with high hopes and aspirations about being a real journalist and becoming part of that 4th estate, but that ship sailed a long time ago. If somebody wants to play pretend and associate "News" with their career, that is up to them. They can even make a big deal about it here and say "Look at us, we are going to call ourselves "News". See! Look, we are doing strictly objective news!". At the end of the day, they are just distributing the media that the corporations allow them to, no matter how you paint it.

[digitaln3rd]

5. Good on them.

They clearly own nbcnews.com (since it redirects to msnbc.com), why not just use that.

Nothing wrong with being liberal, but when it comes to news, I *want* objective, non-biased news not more talk radio stuff.

[SoapBox]

6. "liberal bent"? Don't they mean HONEST truth.

SO...the fact that people like Keith, Rachel, Ed, Lawrence, etc. have to
expose the FREAK'N lies and bull$hit put out by the RushTurds and T.HaterBaggers
makes the channel liberal?

What a load!

Thank GOD for these people...just take a look at the flat out LIES
vomited up by the creeps, running with an "R" next to their names.

Again, I say...Thank GOD for Keith, Rachel, Ed and all the folks that expose the
RushThug and T.HaterBagger LIES.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. nbc = GE = not liberal at/to the core

Worse than Fox because they act liberal but hold to their right wing ideology apart from their standard bearing nightly personalities.

[krkaufman]

9. Indeed.

> MSNBC, the cable television channel that has taken a strongly liberal bent in recent years.

Yes, they have finally brought on liberal programming, and may have finally balanced out Joe Scarborough's valuable 3-hour morning slot.

Schultz + Coundown + Maddow + O'Donnell = 4 hours of original content, to balance Scarborough's 3 hours in the morning, so you could say that MSNBC has a slight liberal lean, depending on how much weight you give to the time slots and the repeats for the evening programs -- and how you view Dylan Ratigan's show. It's arguable that MSNBC still maintains an internal balance, or even skews Right, if you consider that Scarborough's show has more power in regards to setting a day's agenda.

[LynneSin]

12. Consider this much - many of us liberals have job and don't bother with daytime MSNBC

For all I care they could show two dogs humping each other during daytime hours.

Primetime is where it's at!

[Cleita]

13. Oh, the horror, the liberal bent.

:sarcasm: