According to CNN Money’s Tom Kludt late Tuesday night, NBC News confirmed that the disgraced former NBC Nightly News anchor’s six-month suspension has ended and will be returning sometime next month. Kludt reported that “NBC told CNNMoney on Tuesday that Williams will assume his new role as a breaking news anchor for MSNBC in mid-September, but no date has been set.”
Phil Griffin
By Tim Graham | December 29, 2014 | 5:00 PM EST
MSNBC boss Phil Griffin has sent around a memo to staff admitting the obvious: that 2014 was a very difficult year for MSNBC. But he blames technological change -- not the rejection of the MSNBC agenda at the polls. America is "leaning backward" at the moment.
“It’s no secret that 2014 was a difficult year for the entire cable news industry and especially for MSNBC,” Griffin wrote. “Technology is continuing to drive unprecedented changes across the media landscape – and we all should be taking a hard, honest look at how we need to evolve along with it.”
By Tim Graham | November 10, 2014 | 7:28 AM EST
USA Today media columnist Michael Wolff let MSNBC have it with both barrels in a column headlined "MSNBC Loses Election." Wolff asked “Is a vote against a political party also a vote against the network that supports it?”
He suggested the sinking fortunes of the Democrats “have been pretty accurately charted in the declining ratings at MSNBC,” which unsurprisingly fell 22 percent from their 2010 midterm ratings in the important demographic of 25-to-54.
MSNBC President Claims Cinco De Mayo Contrition Makes Him Upset Walking by Mexican Restaurants or Seeing Sombreros
By P.J. Gladnick | August 10, 2014 | 9:14 PM EDT Okay, I can understand that MSNBC President Phil Griffin would feel terribly embarrassed by a dopey Cinco De Mayo studio stunt in which a pale yanqui dressed in a sombrero staggered across the set while taking swigs of tequila (video after the jump). However what is really bizarre about Griffin's contrition is that it also takes the form of declaring that he now gets nervous while walking by Mexican restaurants and becomes upset at the mere sight of a sombrero. I kid you not. And if you doubt me, Griffin is quoted about his new obsessions in the Huffington Post.
To see why Griffin is so contrite complete with strange side effects, read Mark Finkelstein's description of the Cinco De Mayo boomerang in Newsbusters:
By Randy Hall | April 28, 2014 | 11:05 PM EDT
While a guest on the 92Y American Conversation program on Sunday, TIME magazine political analyst Joe Klein vented to host Jeff Greenfield of the Public Broadcasting System: “I miss being able to turn on a straight newscast” after returning home at 6 o'clock on weekdays.
He added that the only place he can find such a program in that format and at that time is the Fox News series Special Report With Bret Baier before declaring: “It is such an embarrassment to our profession" that the Cable News Network “has gone in the toilet the way it has.”
Alec Baldwin, at NY Mag's Vulture.com: 'It’s Good-bye to Public Life'; Equates Fox and MSNBC As 'All About Hate'
By Tom Blumer | February 23, 2014 | 11:58 PM EST In a lengthy item "as told to Joe Hagan" at NYMag.com's The Vulture, actor, commercial pitchman, and brief MSNBC host Alec Baldwin makes it very clear that he is fed up with a lot of things.
There is plenty of material for discussion in his writeup. I want to focus on what he sees as his mistreatment at the hands of MSNBC and the self-described "progressive" community. Unfortunately, after said mistreatment, it's clear that he still doesn't get the difference between legitimate if strident criticism and expressions of over-the-top hatred, as the excerpts which follow will show (bolds are mine):
By Randy Hall | February 8, 2014 | 10:41 PM EST
During an interview with Joy Reid, whose new MSNBC weekday show -- The Reid Report -- begins airing at 2 p.m. on Monday, February 24, the perennial network guest stated she is taking a radically different approach than most of her counterparts on the “Lean Forward” network.
“I’m not on there to do an hour of why Republicans suck,” the African-American woman said. “I don’t think I have to do that. I think what MSNBC does really well is to have a really smart conversation both with the left and the right. We may not get that right all the time, but I don’t know a mean-spirited person in this building.”
By Tim Graham | February 8, 2014 | 1:09 PM EST
The notion that MSNBC is now the most controversial gaffe-a-minute cable news network has been ratified by the Associated Press. AP media reporter David Bauder wrote a story headlined “Loose lips give ammunition to MSNBC foes.”
“Since MSNBC is in the political ring, its opponents are always on the lookout for things to attack,” Bauder wrote. “Lately, NBC's left-leaning cable news sister has offered plenty of ammunition.”
By Jack Coleman | February 4, 2014 | 9:06 AM EST
When anyone can be described as left of MSNBC, they are heading into fringe territory. Or as Bill Press thinks of it, home sweet home.
In yet another futile attempt to remain relevant, Press on his radio show lashed out at MSNBC for apologizing for a Twitter post last week claiming that conservatives might "hate" a new Cheerios commercial featuring a biracial family. (Audio after the jump).
It’s Not Just a Tweet: MSNBC’s Despicable Record of Smearing Republicans, Conservatives, and Tea Party as Racists
By Rich Noyes | February 3, 2014 | 8:27 AM EST
On Thursday, MSNBC President Phil Griffin apologized for a Twitter post suggesting conservatives (“the rightwing”) are racists who would “hate” a cute new Cheerios ad because it featured a biracial family: “The tweet last night was outrageous and unacceptable. We immediately acknowledged that it was offensive and wrong, apologized, and deleted it. We have dismissed the person responsible for the tweet.”
Griffin’s statement was a good first step, but if an apology is owed for this tweet, then MSNBC owes conservatives many, many more. The Media Research Center has compiled a long list of instances in which the network’s anchors have committed character assassination disguised as journalism, unjustly smearing conservatives, Republicans and the Tea Party as racists. Here are just some of the many outrageous examples we have documented:
Bozell Calls Out MSNBC on The Kelly File: They Specialize In 'Scurrilous Personal Character Assassination'
By NB Staff | January 31, 2014 | 8:33 AM EST As the latest MSNBC scandal and firing unfolded over a tweet insisting the "rightwing" would hate an "adorable" Cheerios ad with a biracial family, MRC president Brent Bozell appeared on "The Kelly File" on Fox News Channel to discuss NBC's "Lean Forward" offshoot.
MSNBC said this conservatives-hate-racial-mixing tweet is "not who we are." Bozell said, oh yes, that's exactly who you are. It's a network that seems to uncork scurrilous character assassination every week. (video and transcript below):
By Randy Hall | January 30, 2014 | 10:09 PM EST
During an interview with Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast website, MSNBC president Phil Griffin strained at gnats when he stated that his network “has never had an ideology” but insisted that the dominant Fox News Channel does.
“An ideology is a single thought across all programs,” he said. “We’ve never had that.” However, Griffin asserted, MSNBC instead has “a progressive sensibility,” which he claimed is not the same as an ideology. “Obviously, I hire people who fit the sensibility” because “we do stay true to facts. You have to build your argument. That's why I call it a sensibility.”