MSNBC Caves

by Steve Soto

Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews will no longer anchor MSNBC political coverage, because they are too leftward in their perspective, a double-standard because Brit Hume gets a pass over at Fox for the same thing but as an avowed conservative. MSNBC will go with David Gregory as their anchor for the rest of the campaign, which given his gushing over Sarah Palin will please the right wing just fine.

This is the inevitable outcome from two high visibility pundits aligning themselves with one Democratic candidate over another, and then being allowed to manage a network's political coverage of that candidate when he becomes the nominee. There is nothing wrong with MSNBC being the center-left alternative to Fox, because as long as Fox gets to call itself a news organization then MSNBC should also. But the political coverage at MSNBC has been weak and too reliant upon in-house types like Rachel Maddow and establishment types at NBC News, who are Beltway enablers of the corporate status quo in this country. There are plenty of center-left political observers in the media and academia who never make it on MSNBC, and the network now resembles Fox more than it wants to admit, which isn't a good thing.