Dangerous Liaison: The pro-Obama case against MSNBC's pro-Obama political coverage

The New Republic: Dangerous Liaison
by Isaac Chotiner
The pro-Obama case against MSNBC's pro-Obama political coverage.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008

.... David Shuster's comment about the Clintons' "pimping out" their daughter, Chelsea, was clearly boneheaded, but, as Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson pointed out, it caused such a stir among Clintonites because it highlighted the rest of the network's anti-Hillary coverage. Now, that's not to say that their slant has been bad for business; to the contrary. And it has certainly made for some enjoyable television -- Matthews is often supremely engaging (who, after all, does not enjoy watching someone exclaim that seeing Obama speak gives him a "thrill going up my leg"), and however withering he can be, Olbermann is frequently hilarious. But the network's coverage has helped create a bubble around Obama supporters that in the end is neither healthy nor desirable.

In fact, MSNBC's bias has actually hurt the Illinois senator. After all, it was the Obama cheerleading from MSNBC (among others) that helped lead to Clinton's New Hampshire comeback. And even if you think (as I do) that the Clintons have made too big of a deal out of the "sexist" and "unfair" portrayal their candidate has received in the press, if you watch enough MSNBC, you realize that their claim isn't without truth. How could you believe otherwise when Olbermann, with his trademark hauteur, told Hillary that "voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth (of the campaign)," or when Matthews took such self-evident glee in trouncing Clinton in between the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary? Similarly now, by mocking Clinton's decision to stay in the race, Olbermann has only bolstered her argument that "the boys" are trying to push her out. And finally, on a number of primary nights, but most notably in Pennsylvania and Ohio/Texas, MSNBC has become so excited by early exit polls that it has raised expectations that Obama ultimately could not live up to.

Now, the question of whether the network's coverage is healthy for Obama supporters is a little more subjective....I increasingly started watching the channel last year because of its political focus, and for the novelty of seeing outspoken liberals on television....As the campaign progressed, however, it became clear that neither Matthews nor Olbermann could stand Hillary Clinton. This, I must admit, I found appealing, too -- especially because I agreed with the hosts that some of the Clinton campaign's tactics have been either ridiculous or dirty or both. Still, a downside quickly surfaced. Shuster's "pimping" remark and Matthews's crude (even if somewhat accurate) comment about the Monica Lewinsky scandal being a boon for Hillary's political career were notable precisely because they had nothing to do with policy or ideology. It wasn't as if Shuster and Matthews and Olbermann were siding with Obama on the issue of individual mandates. Rather, by giving "the personal" precedence over "the political," the network was using Hillary Hatred to fuel its coverage in a similar fashion to how Fox News uses Democrat Hatred to excite its viewers....

Dangerously, too, MSNBC's coverage can lead to a perverse sort of cognitive dissonance in viewers like, well, me. Throughout the primary process, I often found myself much more bullish on the Illinois Senator's chances after watching MSNBC than I had any reason to be. After Obama's Iowa victory, for instance, I remember hearing Matthews' description of a giant "wave" of Obamamania sweeping across the nation; surely, the race was over. Likewise, during the month of February, when Obama won eleven straight primaries, I recall watching the network and occasionally convincing myself that Clinton was certain to drop out before Texas and Ohio because her chances had become so diminished. The problem here is that when supposedly "straight" news anchors phrase questions in leading ways, and report one campaign's spin as if it were fact, it distorts what is actually going on in the campaign--even for those of us who make a living obsessing over and writing about politics. And when anchormen themselves shill for Obama, the distinction between his talking points and the truth grows even blurrier still. So, as much as I find MSNBC entertaining, their creation of a parallel, pro-Obama universe is the type of thing I'd expect of Fox. That's when I know it's time to change the channel.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=b48a6936-fb3c-42b0-83c1-f91d1cb3a3dc

to the "liberal bias" in the "mainstream" media.
Yet in the cable news universe, the bias has been
toward the right, so if MSNBC leans left, it can
rightly claim only to be "fair and balanced" ...

but I inadvertently left it out. I need to do a little editing --

it truly surprised me how many DUers think the pro-bush slant sucked while the pro-Obama/anit-Hillary stuff is just A-OK - they should be REPORTING THE NEWS, PERIOD - there should BE NO SLANT

feel a little responsible to heal the rift they delighted in exploiting. I noticed Keith had nothing mean to say about Hillary (1st 20 minutes)It was a first.Tweety spent his time on Bill

helped lead to Clinton's New Hampshire comeback is, on its face, a post hoc, propter hoc fallacy, which weakens to the point of irrelevancy his whole argument.

More than two hundred comments; most of them tell why they are no longer watching MSNBC.

and I'm supposed to be impressed?

Uh-uh. Olbermann didn't start out having problems with Hillary; they developed as her campaign went on. And all the talk of "Hillary hatred" is way exaggerated. Why is it that no one can say anything negative or critical about the woman without being accused of "hating" her?

What's revealing is that (1) Olbermann openly has problems with Hillary and (2) the editorial content of his show is adjusted accordingly. What it means is that Countdown is the World According to Keith Olbermann. That's fine as long as everyone knows it (and I think we do) and your world and Olbermann's world are very similar.

I loved watching Olbermann when he was railing against Bush. Fine by me. I accepted the skew because up until then, damn it, "we" (meaning Democrats and anti-Bushites) didn't have a show of our own. Now we did, and it probably saved what little political sanity I had left.

But once the primaries started, I was surprised that Olbermann didn't maintain neutrality about the Democratic primary candidates. I was disappointed that he didn't go into much, if any, depth about the issues; instead -- true as ever for MSNBC -- he went all horserace, all the time.

And then, slow on the uptake, I realized: it's Keith's world, welcome to it.