As NewsBusters has often reported, MSNBC's line-up has led the cable news channel to a freefall in the ratings, with Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik blasting the schedule as “unwatchable” and “24 hours a day of mess.”
In an article posted on Thursday, Politico columnist Dylan Byers reported that the channel's daytime year-to-date viewership “is down 21 percent overall and 41 percent in the coveted 25- to 54-year-old demographic.”
On Thursday morning, Thomas Jackson -- the chief of police for the city of Ferguson -- released a video in which he apologized for many things, including the death of Michael Brown, the African-American teenager who was shot and killed by white police officer Darren Wilson on August 9.
Later that day, Rev. Al Sharpton – host of the weekday afternoon PoliticsNation program on the MSNBC cable channel -- attacked the apology as “too little, too late.”
Soon after 18-year-old Michael Brown was gunned down by an unidentified policeman on Sunday afternoon in Ferguson, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis, Rev. Al Sharpton arrived on the scene to “speak up for the family of the victim” and spend a great deal of time in the spotlight.
However, the host of MSNBC's weekday afternoon PoliticsNation program quickly became the target of several critics, one of whom accused him of being a publicity-seeking “coon.” Sharpton shot back that “using a racial term tells you more about him than me.”
There seems to be a concentrated effort on MSNBC lately to dismiss certain legitimate concerns raised by Republican political figures as loony or unworthy of serious consideration. On Wednesday’s edition of PoliticsNation, Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune killed two birds with one stone by simultaneously linking concerns over Benghazi and Hillary Clinton’s health to the “birther” conspiracy theories.
Host Al Sharpton played a clip in which Comedy Central host Jon Stewart mocked Karl Rove’s question about the health of Hillary Clinton’s brain. Stewart dubbed the concern “Brainghazi,” and Page loved the term:
Dana Milbank of The Washington Post was one of the many liberals in the media who were elated that House Republicans caved in to President Obama’s demand to increase the debt limit with no offsetting spending cuts or concessions on ObamaCare. Milbank was so gleeful, in fact, that he brought a blueberry pie onto the set of Tuesday’s PoliticsNation on MSNBC to celebrate with host Al Sharpton.
But Milbank warned the reverend not to get too excited, explaining:
At 4:57 on Monday afternoon, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner hyped “Breaking news from the Treasury Department. The White House has announced a second delay to part of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate. Details on that are next.” But the next “details” did not come for 12 and a half hours at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday morning during MSNBC’s Way Too Early broadcast.
In between, MSNBC ran 9 full stories on Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) and the “Bridgegate” scandal surrounding his administration. Rachel Maddow, devoted nearly half of her broadcast, 29 minutes to the Christie scandal. The rest of her primetime colleagues similarly couldn’t be bothered to inform their viewers of the latest ObamaCare delay, despite Wagner’s promise: “details on that are next.”
Usually, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry only toils for the Obama administration on the weekends. Last Friday, she worked overtime. On the May 31 edition of Al Sharpton’s PoliticsNation, Harris-Perry fawned over the Democrat-controlled 111th Congress, which sat for the first two years of President Obama’s first term, as the “most incredible legislative session in American history.”
Yes, this is the same left-wing legislature that placed burdensome regulations on the financial sector under Dodd-Frank and rammed ObamaCare down the nation’s throat. Unsurprisingly, the liberal host is just fine with aggressive, one-party rule in Washington – as long as it’s the Left’s agenda being supported.
Although he should have a little bit of latitude as a news columnist for the Washington Post over, say, an ostensibly objective staff reporter, Dana Milbank made abundantly clear on the Thursday edition if PoliticsNation that he has a complete disregard for any sense of fairness or objectivity.
Milbank blasted Republican senators Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and other as “children,” telling MSNBC host Al Sharpton he should just accept the need to “be patient” with them, sounding like someone counseling an exasperated mother trying to discipline her toddler.
MSNBC contributor Joy Reid – in her infinite liberal wisdom – has the Republican Party all figured out. In a sneering tirade against conservatives on Wednesday’s PoliticsNation, Reid broke the entire party into five separate groups: the “angry” Tea Party, the evangelicals that “want to litigate social issues only,” the “economic conservatives” who want to “get rid of Social Security and Medicare,” those who focus “on ripping away programs for the poor,” and the “Wall Street guys who really run the party.”
Reid, of course, didn’t just reserve her criticism for views she disagrees with. She also claimed the only thing these ‘groups’ agreed on was “despising Barack Obama.” Doubtless we can trust Reid, managing editor of NBC’s left-leaning website TheGrio.com, as a trusted source on all things conservative.
On his May 23 program, the Rev. Al Sharpton’s PoliticsNation panel turned to the thorny issue of race in politics. As could be expected, it was not a balanced discussion as Sharpton’s panel was an Amen pew of liberal pundits: the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank and left-wing XM Radio host Joe Madison.
For his part, Milbank snarked that the GOP is made up of “a coalition of white southern men,” but even more outrageously, Madison railed that Republican leaders “really don’t know people who look different than they are.” Sharpton, a Baptist minister, did not rebuke his guests for bearing false witness.
In a way you have to hand it to Krystal Ball. The former Democratic congressional candidate-turned-MSNBC co-host is always hard at work spinning for the Obama administration, come what may. Appearing on Thursday's Politics Nation, the co-host of MSNBC’s The Cycle raved about President Obama’s May 23 national security speech, claiming the president is “reining in his own power,” a “remarkable and incredibly unusual” move.
Ball fawned over the president’s speech to host Al Sharpton, claiming he “put the steps in place” to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, before offering this proclamation about Obama’s executive power:
Chris Matthews’ toxic anti-conservative vitriol has spread onto other MSNBC shows, infecting them with his slanderous language. It is no secret that Matthews opposes the Tea Party as extremists, often times accusing them of outright racism towards President Obama.
Appearing on PoliticsNation with racist host Al Sharpton, Chris Matthews disgustingly claimed that a full 10-20 percent of this country: