NYT Shocker: 'MSNBC Is Less a News Provider Than a Carousel of Liberal Opinion'

August 30th, 2011 10:55 PM

When one of the nation's most liberal papers thinks the nation's most liberal cable news network is too biased, the owners of said network should sit up and take notice.

Consider what Alessandra Stanley wrote about MSNBC at the New York Times Tuesday:

The Rev. Al Sharpton began his new career as an official MSNBC talk show host on Monday by telling viewers not to expect James Brown.

“I’m not going to be a robotic host reading the teleprompter like a robot,” he said. “Nor am I going to come in here and do the James Brown and do the ‘electric slide’ to prove to you that I’m not stiff,” he added, waving his arms in a rough approximation of a dance move. “I’m going to say what I mean and mean what I say.”

And that may be the problem with Mr. Sharpton’s cable news pulpit: what he means to say is in lockstep with every other MSNBC evening program, making the stretch between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. a nonstop lecture on liberal values and what is wrong with the Republican Party.

I very much understand if you're checking that link to verify this was indeed a Times article. I checked it thrice - be my guest.

But Stanley wasn't finished with her critique of this farce of a so-called "news network":

[I]n the evening at least, MSNBC is less a news provider than a carousel of liberal opinion — potential conflicts of interest are swept aside in the swirl of excitable guests.

Unfortunately, so is conflict. There is almost no real debate on any of these evening shows: a conservative is brought on and put on the spot, then in a different segment two people who agree with the host on a given issue answer the host’s questions, usually, with words like “you’re so right.”


That bears repeating: "MSNBC is less a news provider than a carousel of liberal opinion."

This from the New York Times.

Maybe the folks at Comcast, General Electric, and NBC should sit up and take notice that even one of the most liberal publications on the planet finds this cable network to be too biased.

Is it possible any of these people actually care?