Comment On MSNBC's Handling Of Obama Appearance On Hardball College Tour......

[global1]

For the last week or two - MSNBC had been hawking the appearance of Barack Obama on Chris Matthew's Hardball College Tour. They've been getting a lot of mileage out of it.

I watched it and thought that Barack did extremely will and looked very presidential. In fact it made me admire the man more than I did before I watched the show.

What is pissing me off now is that as soon as it ended - the next show - which was David Gregory's and then every show after - including Morning Joe this morning - analyzed every word that came out of Obama's mouth and criticized him up and down and seemed to be making a case for him not getting the nomination. Even Chris Matthews made appearances on all these shows to chime in. In my opinion they've been brutal. Now that's gratitude - given Obama's appearance probably was a ratings boon for them.

Last I heard is that Hillary hasn't committed to do the Hardball College Tour yet. Now if she doesn't show up - I think that it is a 'chicken way' out for her. But in retrospect - from her perspective - it is probably the best thing for her to do - given what MSNBC has done to Obama for his appearance on the show. Why should Hillary subject herself to the same treatment? I'm sure her handlers are worried that she will be thrown hardball questions from Matthews and made to look less than presidential.

With respect to the Rev. Wright issue that they keep on bringing up - Matthews asked Obama why did he continue to go to the church and provide $27,000 in donations after hearing Rev. Wright's comments?

Reflecting on that - when I donate to my church - I'm not donating to an individual 'pastor' of that church. I'm donating to the 'church' and what it stands for and what it can do for the people of the church. I never considered a donation to my church as going into the pocket of the pastor.

Also - I don't agree with all the things that are said by my 'pastor' or for that matter by any of the 'priests' (I'm Roman Catholic) at the parish. No one says that I have to agree with everything that is said. That doesn't mean that I walk out of this parish and find one that I can agree with everything that is said to me.

The comment by Matthews is silly on 'face value'. I'm thinking that Matthews is a catholic as well. I'm sure he doesn't agree with the whole controversy in the catholic church of the 'child molestations' that have been going on for decades. Nor I'm sure he doesn't agree with how the church as a whole dealt with the issue. But I'm also sure that he didn't change his 'faith' nor seek out a catholic church where it wasn't touched by this scandal.

Overall - this post started out with a criticism of MSNBC's handling of the Obama appearance and is kind of ending on a rant. In the bigger picture - my criticism of MSNBC probably should be directed at the whole of corporate media and how they are trying to influence, sway and manipulate us masses into voting for the person/party that provides with the best 'money making' future for them.

What is a person to do when they can look at what is fed to us on a 24/7 basis - a person that can think for oneself and not be manipulated - yet knowing that this constant manipulation is working for a great deal of the masses that watch their programming?

Making an analogy of Matthews comments about the $27,000 dollar donation to Obama's church - maybe I should stop buying 'cable tv'. In essence - stop the donations to those that I don't agree with. Maybe I should reject, renounce and denounce the corporate media. But then again - being a basically decent person - how would I be able to form my opinions and make my own decisions about how I should think and live out 'my' life - if I didn't have others opinions with which to compare and contrast?

[Atman]

1. MSNBC is desperate to nominate Hillary Clinton

This is their MO. She's the war/corporate candidate and MS N-obody B-ut C-linton is doing everything they can to help her. It's disgusting. I hate to admit it, I've actually started switching over to CNN again. They have those insipid bubblehead news readers, but at least they're pretending to do NEWS, even if it's just apartment fires and missing girl stories. At least it's not a three-hour Hillary love fest like Morning Joe is.

.

[dsc]

7. Oh Please

What a crock of nonsense. Two of their anchors (Matthews and Shuster) had to apologize for comments they made that were so over the line about Clinton. Matthews has literally called Clinton both evil and a witch. I would sure hate to see what they would be doing if they didn't wish her to win.

[ClassWarrior]

17. Oh please. So why wouldn't they want her to kick around in the General?

It's obvious they don't want her to win the election. But they do want her to win the nomination. They want her to pummel during the GE.

NGU.

[dsc]

22. The example I sited are from this primary season

sorry, but it is borderline delusional to say that MSNBC has been pro Clinton this primary. Go to Mediamatters, which has been pretty neutral and do some reading.

[Atman]

28. You actually kind of prove my point...why did Matthews have to apologize?

Scab hasn't been forced to apologize for anything he's said about Obama or the constant Obama-bashing he does every morning. But Chris had to apologize for roughing up Hillary. Hmmm.

.

[dsc]

39. because he was on a two year jihad

of sexist anti clinton behavior. I will go ahead and link it for you.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801110011

Go to that site and read those comments then then tell me the person who made them isn't a sexist pig who has trouble with powerful women. Women, quite rightfully, got fed up with his being a sexist pig.

[EffieBlack]

21. They're not desperate to nominate Hillary Clinton . . . but they seem to be getting freaked out

at the possibility that a black man may get the nomination. Suddenly, they seem perfectly fine with moving the goalposts: "Sure, he's ahead in delegates, number of primaries won, the popular vote, etc. But can he beat McCain in the fall? THAT's what the Superdelegates need to decide!"

Excuse me?

[C_U_L8R]

2. I was cracking up at Mourning Joes body language

His arms were crossed so tightly around his chest that I thought he'd crack a rib.
That sphincter boy needs to loosen up and ditch the bigotry. Racism is so last century.

[BeyondGeography]

23. Mika has totally caved as well

I guess she wants to spare herself the exhaustion of contradicting bully boy every morning. Or maybe she's just a go-along, get-along kinda gal. Either way, she has become an absolute waste.

[Atman]

30. Their cute little spat routine has worn thin

I love Mika, I think she generally does a great job, but she seems to have turned into an almost giggle-girl persona. She's beautiful, but a large part of that beauty is her intelligence and her strength. But when she starts with the batting-her-eyes damsel routine with Joe I just want to puke. She needs to tell him "Just STFU and let me do the news, asshole!" He never interrupts Willy's News You Can't Use segment like he does to her. Joe's show won't last too long if they don't change something relatively soon. I mean...I'm watching CNN again! Are you listening MS-Nobody But Clinton? I hate CNN. But I've grown to hate Joe Scab even more.

.

[WolverineDG]

3. Give it a rest

they're going to do the same thing with McCain when he appears. Hillary is the only one who hasn't agreed to appear, although she's been invited.

And if she can't handle hardball questions, she's got no business running for president in the first place.

dg

[DeeDeeNY]

4. Email or call MSNBC

That's the only way to let them know the viewers are not stupid.
But you are right - it is really the mainstream media as a whole, and it gets worse every four years. They have in the past also picked apart every word uttered by Kerry in 2004 and Gore in 2000.

[noel711]

5. YOu can tell how desperate they are...

for talking points against him.

They'd prefer to be the "Rev. WRight channel" 24/7....

He's said all he's gonna say. What do they want him to do,
crucify the man..? The MSM had done a good enough job with that.

No, they can't touch him, they know it, so they peck peck peck
at the chaff around their feet.

But they just look even more stupid right now.
fawning at McCain...

[EffieBlack]

13. LOL - I made the same suggestion just before I read your post

Maybe if we can get a third to come in with us, we'll be able to convince MSNBC to go with the idea. :-)

[Mira]

6. These comments are insightful. We need more diverse news on

MSNBC than to just suffer the milking and stringing along of the political situation. There are other things happening in the world, yet they keep feeding us "dreck". I make little bets with myself when turning it on on how many SECONDS it takes to hear either of the names mentioned.
As I type this John McSame is on MSNBC hemming and hawing with generalities about the economy.
It makes me sick.

[Saturday]

8. Obama continuing at his church because, after all,

you don't have to agree with everything your pastor says is one thing. Putting Wright on your advisory committee is another. MSNBC has been pro Obama for months now, including Matthews and Olbermann. Olbermann got the one on one interview with both Bill and Hillary and then turned on them. Scarborough is giving an even hand to the bias. And why in the world would Hillary even want to go on Hardball when Matthews has been so pro Obama? So his rating would go up? Matthews has made his bed, now let him lie in it. To your point that the media is leading us, they certainly are....they took us to war.

[ErinBerin84]

25. Clinton should do the college tour

I don't really buy the whole "Hillary won't go on the college hardball tour because Chris Matthews trashes her" thing. A lot of people thought that Joe Scarborough made a lot of sexist comments about Clinton in January, but Clinton still asked Scarborough to "be her running mate" in an interview with him in March. And if she is able to face the engineer of the right wing conspiracy and change his opinion of her, she should be able to face Matthews (plus, college kids largely have the control in this format). It just makes me kind of suspicious since she won't go on Larry King or Anderson Cooper, despite their long standing invitations. And Matthews likes Obama, but still makes a lot of stupid comments about him anyways. He said a couple of weeks ago that he only appeals to "college kids with stars in their eyes". And a lot of the times, he talks about how Clinton has guts and that if you watch the debates , Clinton stares Obama down and he looks at his notes, and says that"People really need to pay attention to cues like that." Plus, Hillary brought up the instance of Matthews asking the Austin mayor to name Obama's legislative accomplishments in a debate. I don't support her, but I would definitely watch to see how she would do in the College tour format. She has support among younger voters too, so she shouldn't just send Chelsea out there and let Obama claim that demographic. And a lot of the positive coverage that Obama received following the Iowa caucus was pretty superficial, so I knew it wouldn't last. It was all "He draws CROWDS! He gets young people enthusiastic!" and would still say "But Clinton has all of that EXPERIENCE and she knows so much about POLICY!" Plus, since Clinton had been treated as the presumptive nominee for the MSM for close to a year, it was obvious that they were going to switch back and forth since the audience has a "short attention span".

I agree that I don't trust the media either way...they will be the biggest champion of trying to get John McCain elected.

[janetblond]

9. MSNBC is a mouthpiece for the right-wing ..

I've had to TURN OFF my television ... nothing but Obama bashing 24/7.
CNN and MSNBC have become Faux news lite.
Screw the media.

[Atman]

12. Don't tell dsc upthread.

Obviously a Hillary Clinton supporter if he/she thinks MSNBC has been not turned into an Obama-bashing Hillary-fest.

.

[EffieBlack]

18. Morning Joe crew spent most of the morning agreeing with the Clinton campaign that "Obama can't win"

Interestingly, they kept citing head-to-head state polls that showed Obama doing just fine against McCain - of course, it's all irrelevant anyway since the polls are meaningless this far ahead of the general election.

I wonder if Scarborough, et al, were this interested in "electability" - especially as an excuse to override the primary voters - in previous presidential campaigns. If they were, I sure don't remember them ever mentioning it.

This really all boils down to, "Oh, my GOD! We are THIS close to possibly electing a black man as our president. Let's back up and take another look at this thing before that happens."

[quantass]

10. Obama did a BRILLIANT Job on Hardball -- The MSM is just looking for ratings now

[EffieBlack]

11. Excellent point about paying for "cable television"

Excellent. I'm going to borrow it, if you don't mind.

Perhaps MSNBC can spin off a new channel - the RWN (Rev. Wright Network), hosted by Joe Scarborough. That would give Joe the opportunity to blather on and on and on and on to his heart's content demanding to know why Barack Obama didn't "get up and walk out" - while the rest of us can move on to other issues that really matter.

[crankychatter]

14. Media = War Profiteers, Megapharms, Energy Transnationals AND Big Media

Anyone that still thinks these influences don't exercise editorial control is not paying attention.

They've been doing it with increasingly draconian discipline for decades.

I empathize with your feelings 100%.

However right now, it's so obvious, I think it's actually waking people up to the fact of media bias.

Obama is being hammered on a scale that makes "swiftboating" look like child's play...

BUT STILL HIS NUMBERS RISE

be encouraged

[JayFredMuggs]

15. Joe Scarborough, still talking about Obama's bowling score

He's the only MSNBC anchor who keeps karping on that!

I can't stand that man, he's never going to be impressed with Obama.

[crankychatter]

26. JUST IN: Michelle Obama tips Pedicurist 20 BUCKS!

it's just sad really, innit?

[Life Long Dem]

34. Is Joe stil looking for WMD's as well, because his logic reminds me of the same.

[Me.]

16. David Gregory

Is the David Broder of MSNBC, hasn't made a good call since he danced with Rove. The first segment on his show after HB, was spent on what a HUGE problem the Rev is for Obama.

[MyNameGoesHere]

19. Being the front runner sucks huh? I got a couple pillows for

Obama if it was too much on him.

[totodeinhere]

20. Another thing about Tweety that irritated me was the fact that he would hardly let...

the students get a word in edgewise. He talked too much and left hardly any time for the students to ask any questions. And I thought the idea was to have this on a college campus so that the students could ask questions, not so that Mathews could turn into a big windbag.

[BumRushDaShow]

29. Well don't forget the zinger that Obama hurled at him about

why he didn't "watch cable news" or some similar statement (am waiting for the transcript to go online). :rofl:

[Irishonly]

24. I Gave Up On the "News"

I saw the Rev Wright tapes so often I dreamed about them. Only inflammatory sound bites were played and the MSM won't let go of it. I didn't watch Hardball because my disdain for Tweety is so great. He is a sexist, he is rude and thinks he is a lot more omnipotent than he is. With comments he has made about women and that includes Hillary, he should have been fired a long time ago but he slobbers on.

I am curious why McCain's inability to understand the economy by his own admission is not being covered. His financing irregularities aren't covered and I believe the MSM is ready to crown him king.

I haven't watched much of anything including Olbermann. I want them to cover republican tricks and ask why some of the more corrupt ones have avoided going to trial. All the MSM has done is given us a preview of what will be covered during the general again. IMHO none of them are pro democrat. Who knows maybe Tweety will say Michelle's pearls are perfect again and wonder why Hillary has thick ankles. It's just the commentary I am dying to hear.:sarcasm:

[Bluenorthwest]

27. I'm confused

First, I'm confused as to why anyone would expect decent treatment of Democrats on Hardball, which for some time last year was a venue for Coulter to call two of my favorite Democrats 'fags' and follow it up by attacking Elizabeth Edwards. So gee, anyone who goes on Hardball and is not subjected to actual slurs is doing great! Myself I have not watched him since then. Those who do keep him there, stinking up the airwaves.
Second, I am confused as to why the OP would think that any News organization should serve up positive spin and 'reporting' about a candidate simply because the candidate made an apperance on one of thier shows. MSNBC is GE, and fair is out of the question anyway, but I'm sorry no journalist owes good spin to anyone merely for giving them an interview. That is one sick way to look at the press. Think about it. It is not what you want. It would be even worse than what they now do. McCain goes on, so they have to do a day of McPraise? Shall the same be done for Hillary, she show up so they have to say good things after and not be critical?
If you want the candidates to get cozy treatment, they should produce 'infomercials' for themselves. Obama's apperance may have gotten them a ratings boost, but let us not forget that the one who is there to get what he needs is Obama. He is the one who needs to be on that show. The press, even those I dislike such as Chris, do not owe the candidates or other guests at thing. In theory, their duty is to the people. In reality their duty is to the Corp, but it sure is not their duty to engage in PR for a candidate who gave an interview, and in fact it should not be.

[Life Long Dem]

31. Post Interview with Chris and crew, they found nothing to attack after mulling over all they could

It was an excellent interview.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

32. Personally, I don't think that Obama can really win the Rev Wright

controversy. I think he just needs to start refusing to
answer questions about it.

Mainly, because the general white population has no earthly
idea about this culture. They are trying to equate it
to their own paradigm of what church is like. But, it is
an entity unto itself.

What I don't understand is why no one on this church's
behalf or in the interest of fair media, is not airing
any of the positive sermons of the pastor's 30 year
tenure there.

[BumRushDaShow]

35. The church itself did come out a couple weeks ago.

But of course unless you own the media (which they don't), nothing they say will be reported on or at least reported fairly because the media wouldn't be able to get any ratings mileage out of ending their smears. Trinity's mother church (UCC) even came out:

http://www.ucc.org/news/chicagos-trinity-ucc-is.html

But alas, perpetuating controversy using racism gets the ratings and they will always turn a deaf ear to something that won't generate $$$ for them. The M$M has no credibility on this issue.

[slinkerwink]

33. david gregory has been such a big disappointment

[Ino]

36. I was glad Tweety asked him about Wright.

Am I the only one? That question about why he stayed, stupid though it is, is still out there. It gave Obama another forum to address it calmly. I don't think Tweety HAMMERED him about it.

What if it hadn't been asked? People would accuse Matthews of not asking the hard questions, and perhaps accuse Obama of requiring it be avoided.

[Apollo11]

37. Most of the good content you get on cable TV can be found online or on DVD

For example, you can watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart at www.thedailyshow.com

You can also watch your favorite HBO series on DVD.

The sad fact is we are addicted to watching all these Talking Heads!

[DeeDeeNY]

38. "Reverend Wright is the gift that keeps on giving to Republicans"

This was spoken by some smiling female airhead on an MSNBC afternoon show a week or two ago. I don't know who it was or what show it was, and I only saw it because I had just put the TV on for my son and was changing the channel to his show. She just couldn't contain her enthusiasm or her ear-to-ear constant smile. It was really disgusting for a cable station that wants to take itself seriously.

[ErinBerin84]

40. the worst

My least favorite MSNBC person is Julie from the Houston Chronicle. She always looks so jubilant and it always looks like a freaking windstorm whenever they shoot to her. I mentioned this on the Huffington post, but the other day, she actually said "Sure, Obama can ACT gracious in front of the camera.But then he went on again today..."casting" himself as the presumptive nominee and turning his focus to John McCain!".

Um, isn't that what the Democrats are supposed to be doing? Does she think that Clinton is arrogant for just making an attack ad against McCain?

[Celebration]

41. what is kind of funny about this

Is that Obama did such a great job that it made everyone commenting about it look petty and ridiculous. The net effect of it was that Obama came out looking way better than anyone else. Anyone agreeing with the pundits wasn't going to vote for him anyway.

[ErinBerin84]

42. agreed

Wasn't there a study recently suggesting that everyone who watches cable news acknowledges that pundits are full of it and don't know what they are talking about? I have got to admit, I loved it when they proved themselves to look like such idiots after Clinton won New Hampshire. Did anyone see that episode of David Gregory when Joe Scarborough said that Hillary proved everyone wrong because everyone had counted her out, and Richard Wolfe said "Actually, Joe, only the pundits counted her out. The news agencies and the voters weren't the ones who counted her out, it was the pundits like you." or something?

[UALRBSofL]

43. OP I understand your post however your argument has no legs

As you may not know, there is a company that monitors the positives and negatives a candidate gets on MSM. I don't remember the exact percent but Obama was close to 80% positive and Clinton was in the 40's%. This isn't just an opinion poll but a full fledged monitoring agency. Therefore your argument doesn't hold water. Your post is not fact based but opinion based. The MSM relies on these monitoring agencies to know how there messages are being accepted.