Off work today, I cast an eye on Morning Joe. Jeers is too nice a word for my reaction. Instead, I prefer a Fuck U to Joe Scarborough and assembled YES-people gathered 'round the Starbucksy lord and master's table.
This morning, Joe Scarborough had a field day mocking Jesse Ventura for claiming he had left MSNBC because of the network's bad reaction to his criticism of the Iraq War (happily leaping onto Geist's prickish tee up of said mockery... MSNBC do that?! Oh my stars, get Jesse a straitjacket!) Joe proclaimed, with much bluster and zero factitude, that no one was ever fired from MSNBC for expressing criticism of the Iraq war...
I got two names that spell: Y-o-u A-r-e a F-u-c-k-i-n-g L-i-a-r, J-o-e,
and those names are:
*Phil Donahue
*Ashleigh Banfield
It's no secret that those two, who had their own shows on MSNBC, were unceremoniously dumped, back when MSNBC was a complete war whore, for not falling in line with the whoring...
As the war drums beat louder, MSNBC became increasingly alarmed by the antiwar outlook of Donahue's show. They sought to neutralize the message by forcing upon the show an imbalance of more rightwing to leftwing guests, by constantly meddling with the format, to the show's detriment. Finally, they just killed the show.
We do have NBC's insider study and memo behind the Donahue firing...
See:: The Surrender of MSNBC
[... ] the harshest criticism was leveled at Donahue, whom the authors of the study described as "a tired, left-wing liberal out of touch with the current marketplace."
The study went on to claim that Donahue presented a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war......He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The report went on to outline a possible nightmare scenario where the show becomes "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
More at: Donahue--War Casualty.
As for Ashleigh Banfield, after she took on the toughest of assignments for her ingrate bosses, travelling into dangerous areas in dangerous hot spots in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the region, they canned her for letting loose some embarrassing truth at a speaking engagement, including the fact that the media failed to be critical re the war, failed to do their job in that and other ways... (See: The Immolation of Ashleigh Banfield).
Excerpts from Banfield's rebel speech, (linked above):
“So many voices were silent (before and) in this war. We all know what happened to Susan Sarandon and her husband for speaking out, and we all know that this is not the way Americans want to be. Free speech is a wonderful thing; it’s what we fight for, but the minute it’s unpalatable we fight against it for some reason.”
“If we give them democracy they probably will ask us to get out, which is exactly what many of them want.”If we give them democracy they probably will ask us to get out, which is exactly what many of them want.”
“As a journalist I’m often ostracized just for (carrying) these messages, just for going on television and saying, “Here’s what the leaders of Hezbullah are telling me and here’s what the Lebanese are telling me and here’s what the Syrians have said about Hezbullah. Here’s what they have to say about the Golan Heights.” Like it or lump it, don’t shoot the messenger, but invariably the messenger gets shot.”
“We hired somebody on MSNBC recently named Michael Savage. He was taken aback by my daring to speak with Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade about why they do what they do, why they’re prepared to sacrifice themselves for what they call a freedom fight and we call terrorism. He was so taken aback that he chose to label me as a slut… as a porn star…as an accomplice to the murder of Jewish children. These are the ramifications of simply being the messenger. How can you discuss, how can you solve anything when attacks from a mere radio flak is what America hears on a regular basis, let alone at the government level?”
When was the last time you saw a story about Afghanistan? (As of April 2003) it’s only been a year, you know. Only since the major combat ended, you were still in Operation Anaconda not much more than 11 or 12 months ago, and here we are not touching Afghanistan at all on cable news.”
“There was just a memorandum that came through saying we’re closing the Kabul bureau. (As of April 2003) the Kabul bureau has been staffed by only one person for the last several months…”
“And I am very concerned that the same thing is about to happen with Iraq, because we’re going to have another Gary Condit, and we’re going to have another Chandra Levy and we’re going to have another Jon Benet, and we’re going to have another Elizabeth Smart, and here we are in Laci Peterson, and these stories will dominate. They’re easy to cover, they’re cheap, they’re fast, you don’t have to send somebody overseas, you don’t have to put them up in a hotel that’s expensive overseas, and you don’t have to set up satellite time overseas. Very cheap to cover domestic news. Domestic news is music to news directors’ ears.”
“We haven’t been back to the West Bank since Operation Defensive Shield last year (2002). It’s been a good solid year since we gave you wall-to-wall coverage on what’s been going on in the West Bank and Gaza. Hell, (Israel) just raided Rafa again. I mean, the Israelis had an incredible raid in Rafa, one of the deadliest in years, but it barely made headlines here.”
“It’s important that we continue to want to know what happens overseas… It’s important to demand coverage of these things. It’s important because your safety and your future and your world and your children will depend on this.”
“The Fox effect is very concerning to me. I’m a journalist and I like to be able to tell the story as I see it, and I hate it when someone tells me I’m one-sided. It’s the worst I can hear. Fox has taken so many viewers away from CNN and MSNBC because of their agenda, and because of their targeting … cable news viewership, that I’m afraid there’s not a really big place in cable for news. Cable is for entertainment, as it’s turning out, but not news.”
“I’m hoping that I will have a future in cable news, but not the way some cable news operators wrap themselves in the American flag and patriotism and go after a certain target demographic, which is very lucrative. You can already see the effects, you can already see the big … right wing hires to chase after this effect.”
Here is how the great NBC (that Jokester defends), behaved toward Banfield, after the speech.(Talk about shabby!)
Link
Banfield's breakup with NBC News, where she was a rising star war correspondent and primetime anchor on MSNBC, was bitter. After a speech in which she was seen as criticizing NBC's coverage of the war, she was publicly rebuked by NBC News executives and ostracized at the office, as she explained to a Connecticut magazine earlier this year:
"I was office-less for ten months....No phone, no computer. For ten months I had to report to work every day and ask where I could sit. If somebody was away I could use their desk. Eventually, after ten months of this, I was given an office that was a tape closet. They cleared the tapes out and put a desk and a TV in there, and a computer and phone. It was pretty blatant. The message was crystal clear. Yet they wouldn't let me leave. I begged for seventeen months to be let out of my contract. If they had no use for me, let's just part ways amicably -- no need for payouts, just a clean break. And Neal wouldn't allow it. I don't know what his rationale was -- perhaps he thought I would take what I felt was a very strong brand, and others felt was a very strong brand, to another network and make a success of it. Maybe that's why he chose to keep me in a warehouse. I will never forgive him for his cruelty and the manner in which he decided to dispose of me."
In her controversial speech, delivered at Kansas State in April 2003, Banfield argued that the coverage of the Iraq War left out much of the harsh realities of war and was more "coverage" than "journalism"
Back to this morning's Joe:
In trying to make the case that MSNBC fired no one for speaking out against Bush's war in high Bush-times, Joe named Buchanan, Olbermann, Matthews as examples of fierce anti war critics who are still at MSNBC... Only they werent at all fierce at the time, and, oh whoops, Olbermann only entered the MSNBC stable because he was the REPLACEMENT for the guy they fired for being critical of the war - Phil Donahue!
Keith did not voice strong criticism during his first few years (very boilerplate delivery of small news bits, the MSM version of a straight news show... along with celebrity trashmix), and Matthews was hardly a stand out voice of opposition... perhaps a few skeptical questions, mixed in with a lot of slobbering over Bush... Buchanan was hardly the critic on TV that he was in his magazine or on the web. He was so muted, it didnt really register... he mostly played the bystander analyst, not the opinionated critic.
Scarborough then upped the liar ante by claiming that back then, he had been, like, the ONLY network hire who was for the war! Gee, that parade of war-promoting generals sure coulda fooled me... Savage, anyone?)
As Scarborough went on and on, his coterie (Geist, Mika, Barnacle, Sorkin, et al) all laughed along...
I declined to join in because it wasnt a laughing matter to me -- not at the time and not now -- not while recalling the breathtaking failure of the MSM, including MSNBC (prior to the network's progressive makeover) to be anything but war whoring lapdogs for Bush's obviously immoral and illegal war.