New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff weighs in on comedian Jerry Seinfeld calling the younger generation too politically correct for comedy with an odd, condescending criticism: "Perhaps some of Mr. Quinn’s working-class bona fides will rub off on Mr. Seinfeld, whose recent remarks on political correctness have seen his man-of-the-people status called into question."
NBC Universal
By Matt Philbin | February 16, 2015 | 12:05 PM EST
To “Today,” a comedy show retrospective is 11 times more important than Isis slaughtering Christians. In its first three hours Monday, “Today” spent 14 minutes 28 seconds on last night’s SNL40 anniversary of “Saturday Night Live” – another NBC production. On the other hand, it gave all of one minute, 20 seconds to a mass atrocity and the military response to it.
The other networks also spent more time on "SNL" than ISIS on Monday morning.
By Tim Graham | January 14, 2015 | 2:16 PM EST
David Weigel at Bloomberg.com reports a PAC called Conservative War Chest, is arranging an ad buy against Comcast in five swing states – Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The two-minute ad warns that Comcast is becoming “America’s most powerful and militant left-wing political force” and conservaitves should “fight the corruption of American journalism.”
"Comcast needs Obama administration approval to merge with Time/Warner cable, giving it access to two-thirds of American’s homes,” spokesman Mike Flynn said in a statement. “The last time Comcast needed a government favor we got Al Sharpton five nights a week. What will we get in exchange for a deal worth billions to Brian Roberts and other owners of Comcast?"
By Jeffrey Lord | December 27, 2014 | 12:53 PM EST
Happy New Year, Comcast. Now do yourself and your company a favor and fire the man identified by Mediaite as ..really…””the most powerful man in America.” Who would that be, exactly? “Outside of the president, Al Sharpton might possibly be the most powerful man in America right now.”
By Kristine Marsh | September 16, 2014 | 3:24 PM EDT
It’s no secret that Hollywood loves Hillary Clinton, and now some network execs are openly basing their White House characters on her. The media’s new favorite, Dem. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is also an inspiration for some new Fall shows.
CBS will premiere “Madame Secretary” this Sunday night, Sept. 21. According to Politico, the show’s creators were inspired by both Clinton and Gillibrand in their portrayal of a female politician who struggles to juggle work and family life. The show stars Tea Leoni as Elizabeth McCord, a former CIA agent who becomes the new Secretary of State. The character Leoni plays is both blonde and the mother of two children, like Gillibrand.
By Matthew Sheffield | December 13, 2013 | 5:29 PM EST
Radio and TV blowhard Ed Schultz decided to take a break from his normal act of ranting against Republicans today by raging against some fellow liberals who had the temerity to criticize him and other MSNBC hosts for declining to publicly take the side of union members in a dispute they're having with the cable channel's parent company, NBC Universal.
Schultz, whose shtick is that he is just a working stiff looking out for people like him, lashed out at a report from Salon.com which mentioned him: “I become the target because I’m living good. I become the target because I have a platform,” he said on his radio show Friday. “They’re just out to take somebody down who’s got something they don’t have.”
By Tim Graham | October 31, 2012 | 8:19 AM EDT
Tuesday’s front-page of The Washington Post offered a positive profile of Comcast’s chief lobbyist (and Democrat) David Cohen, the “wonk rock star.”
The story’s central idea was the notion that Cohen’s offering of a low-income Internet service was a crucial part of Obama’s FCC approving Comcast’s merger with NBC Universal....as if the massive campaign cash for Democrats didn’t help seal the deal. Kang began:
SNL Weekend Update Thursday Concludes Two Episode Run with Some Obligatory, Half-Hearted Obama Criticism
By Ryan Robertson | September 28, 2012 | 1:29 PM EDT
Having spent a considerable portion of their first episode skewering Romney last week, the folks at Saturday Night Live's special "Weekend Update Thursday" program decided to lampoon President Obama, although in doing so, the mockery wasn't as full-throated and nasty as it was against Romney, who was portrayed as a plutocratic racist.
Comedian Jay Pharaoh portrayed the president as overconfident and somewhat delusionally optimistic about the nation's economic outlook, but Obama was spared mockery of his many gaffes. Romney, you will recall, was mercilessly taken to task last week for the comments he made at a private fundraiser, and made to look like a out-of-touch bigot in the process (see video below, MP3 audio available here)
By Ryan Robertson | September 12, 2012 | 6:45 PM EDT
In light of the tragic events that just transpired in Egypt and Libya on Sept. 11, both presidential candidates felt obligated to host separate press conferences that aired just 30 minutes apart. In yet another example of the ‘journalistic integrity’ that saturates the MSNBC network, the Jansing and Co. hostess and guests openly showed favoritism to President Obama, who was glaringly devoid of any time for questions from the media.
Anchor Chris Jansing engaged in a conversation with NBC’s Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd that continued off and on throughout the allotted hour. Republican challenger Romney was taken to task for sharing his opinion on the matter without the benefit of “any foreign policy experience,” or as they described it as “launching a political attack” after the murder of an ambassador.
That it’s entirely possible there were dangerously incompetent policies in place regarding diplomatic security in both Cairo and Benghazi were not even considered.
By Kyle Drennen | July 10, 2012 | 11:49 AM EDT
Appearing on Tuesday's NBC Today to promote her new USA series Political Animals, actress Sigourney Weaver admitted that her character, a former first lady turned secretary of state, was based in part on Hillary Clinton: "Elaine Barrish Hammond is this very gifted politician with a very strong moral compass....we are inspired by Mrs. Clinton, who's such a remarkable woman and a great secretary of state. She was a great senator for New York State." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
By Tom Blumer | October 24, 2011 | 6:45 PM EDT
Herman Cain has been ahead of Mitt Romney in the most recent GOP presidential candidate polling average at Real Clear Politics by a microscopic margin since late last week.
Readers might be surprised to know that the wordings of the presidential preference questions at the various polling organizations differ significantly. In my view, the same person might given a different answer depending on which organization's polling question was asked. Here are the examples, with the Cain-Romney split identified in each instance (links are to fairly large PDFs in some instances):
By Tim Graham | August 28, 2011 | 5:59 PM EDT
The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association held their annual convention this weekend in Philadelphia, and the keynote speakers were CNN's Don Lemon and NBC's Ann Curry. Their pictures were featured under the motto "Creating a Revolution." The group says it's "working from within the news industry to foster fair and accurate coverage of LGBT issues." (That often means censoring conservative views, not just correcting errors.) Comcast, the majority owner of NBC Universal, is a top financial backer of the convention.
The plan was for Curry to be interviewed by Javier Morgado on "How does she see network news evolving?" And "does she believe in the ‘greater good’ of the work that journalists do?" Morgado, a gay activist, spent 11 years at NBC, including five years as Senior Producer at the Today show, and he managed the network's political coverage for the 2004 presidential election and the 2006 midterm elections as Senior Political Editor.