Benton Harbor Radio sale UPDATE.
Last week Rachel Maddow bought to light the latest in the saga that is the effect of the Emergency Manager on the town of Benton Harbor in Michigan. Turns out the sale of the station, in particular it’s license on Ebay is illegal. And there may yet be hope that the station will ultimately return for the good of the people it aimed to serve.
Goings on at MSNBC
When Keith Olbermann abruptly departed from MSNBC the network’s schedule was thrust into chaos. Lawrence O’Donnell was moved up two hours. Ed Schultz went from early evening to 10:00pm. Schultz’s old slot was a menagerie that eventually settled on Cenk Uygur for nearly six months.
All of this turmoil occurred at the same time that Glenn Beck was slated for an early termination of his contract at Fox News. That made much of the Fox schedule vulnerable as Beck’s audience formed the foundation for the evening news hour and primetime. So what did MSNBC do to take advantage of this opening?
Nothing – nothing at all. Their schedule barely budged. There were no new face outside of the 6:00pm slot that Schultz vacated, and even those were often familiar faces on the network. This was the best opportunity for MSNBC to challenge Fox during a period of weakness and MSNBC slept through it.
Now MSNBC is compounding their mistakes by (reportedly) replacing Uygur with Rev. Al Sharpton. The circumstances of Uygur’s departure are disturbing, but that’s a subject for another article. While Sharpton can be an aggressive advocate for lefty issues, he is hardly the banner carrier for progressive journalism. With a background predominantly in civil rights and social activism, his lack of experience in broadcasting does not portend well for MSNBC. His areas of expertise are rather narrow and he can come off as bombastic and rigid.
Although, i would rather see Rachel, and Chris (Matthews and/or Hayes) go over to Current, and in some sort of journalist utopia, have Bill Moyers come out of retirement.
The Last Word’s new timeslot
False Equivalency FUBAR
OK, I’m sick of this bullshit accusation that Jon Stewart was equating MSNBC as the opposite of FOX at his ralley. He was not. He was focusing on the larger issue of how politics is discussed in this country. And MSNBC is a part of that discussion whether you like it or not.
I think Jon’s politics are fairly clear. He has far fewer right wing guests than those from the left, and is constantly calling out FOX. But to isolate FOX and say it’s all their fault would just emphasize the us versus them mentality that poisons this society today.
While those on MSNBC are far more transparent and reliable when it comes to factual-ness, by responding to every outlandish freakout from the right they are doing nothing but contributing to the screaming match.
That is all.
Pat Buchanan is insane
Andrea Mitchell did a segment yesterday afternoon about Rush Limbaugh’s insane attack against Obama’s Supreme Court nominee by saying Sonia Sotomayor was tearing down Martin Luther King’s dream about race relations, I kid you not. Bob Shrum went off on Pat Buchanan after the MSNBC Republican analyst went into a racist diatribe about Sonia Sotomayor and President Obama.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him get into it like that before. Buchanan is arguing that the civil rights movement was about protecting the rights of white people. I think. The viciousness with which Buchanan talks about race in America and Sonia Sotomayor is appalling, and frankly I don’t know how he sleeps at night.
Limbaugh: Now, you want to enshrine racism on the Supreme Court. It’s a setback for civil rights. Dr. King, you judge a person by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. it seems that all of his proponents have forgotten his number one goal…
Yes, Limbaugh actually tried to frame this debate using MLK’s best wishes against Obama and Sotomayor. Can you believe that? Pat Buchanan does.
Mitchell: Do you disagree with anything Rush Limbaugh said?
Buchanan: Yeah, I do agree, I don’t agree with some of the terms, but I do agree Sonia Sotomayor [he pronounces her name wrong, probably on purpose] does believe in race-based justice basically at the expense of white males and to advance people of color. The truth is that’s what Barack Obama believes as well.
See, Pat needed to disavow some of Limbaugh’s rhetoric to try and outdo it apparently. When Shrum came in to respond, Buchanan attacked his own record of political victories … and that set up the fireworks.
Buchanan: You’ve got that hostility and bigotry toward white males in America…
Yes, they are trying a race baiting reversal on civil rights. It’s astonishing. I didn’t know white men in America were so persecuted. Pat uses the Republican talking point and the distorted passage from her Berkeley talk against Sonia too…. Keep it white and male, you Republicans. It’s what you do.
