Dear "MSNBC,
I am what you call a heavy user of your product. The kind you dream of. I watch for long periods of time, giving you greater quarter hour numbers and boosting your ratings and your shares. In my long career I have spent hours working in tv newsrooms across the nation including one of your sister networks. I understand the pressure of news as a profit generator. I understand that the reason you select the stories you choose. Let's be honest, it has little to do with "need to know" and is more about keeping me from switching before the turn of the quarter hour. (Those meters are running!) (I actually had a Neilson Diary in May, but i didn't fill it out! If I had you would have been sorely disappointed with my viewing habits.. YOU were not on the list.
Where did I go? The internet mostly, but even that has been little comfort. You see real JOURNALISM in this country is DEAD. MSNBC use to be a network of great journalism. You covered the issues, you welcomed opposing points of view, you reported on topics that were vital to an informed electorate. You covered real stories about real people, real lives and the challenges facing every US citizen. You have given up.
In your quest for ratings and profit for first GE then Universal, now Comcast, you and all of your competitors have forgotten what you are supposed to be doing and through your actions YOU ARE HURTING THE NATION!
You have traded in your critical thinking and objective reporting and surrendered! You only care about the next fifteen minutes (avg. quarter hour) and you think you have to sell anger and outrage to keep me watching. You have forgotten that journalism is not a contest. Its about truth telling and digging for facts then reporting what you find no matter who you piss off or expose. You use to do this.
Now. I admit I am a political junkie. I love elections. I eat up process and progress, yet i can't watch you anymore. You forgot that your number one mission is to honestly inform voters like me. NOW YOU ONLY COVER THE CONTEST, who's up, who's down and "your not gonna believe what __(republican candidate name goes here) said about Obama." You only show outrage, shame, shock and who's in and who's out and the latest polls to "prove it." WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?
If you want US to elect someone decent as the next President, then you'd better start going after the truth about why we need to vote and encourage us to become more than red faced outrage zombies. Give us the truth about why the election is important and how the actions or inactions of our leaders are helping or hurting the nation. Tell us who is buying whom no matter who it hurts. It is your job! If you don't do another Goddamned poll between now and the election, it would be fine with me! When you cover the horserace and call it news you lose audience, we all lose and you become the same thing as FOX.
We are more than a year away from the election, and five or six months before any vote is cast. Why not spend this time educating the electorate on ISSUES and the consequences of this lethal Republican Congress. Report on what is at stake, the fight for free and open elections, the threats to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid, equal pay for equal work. fair wages, solving our immigration issues, Student Loan debt, breaking up the robber banks.
Instead, because you think you can keep me watching for another 15 minutes, you will show the results of the latest God Damned meaningless poll. You'll have six pundits bloviate on who will beat Hillary and who next is going to crawl out of the Republican Clown Car. What you are doing is turning the most important election in my lifetime into an episode of Celebrity Apprentice and and your former viewers will say to you, to quote Donald Trump, "YOUR FIRED! Just before they swear him in as the next President of the United States.
