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.”
“If you can't beat 'em, join 'em” seems to be the new motto of Phil Griffin, president of the liberal and low-rated MSNBC cable channel, who is trying to attract young consumers “who get their news via digital means.”
The online initiative -- which will be known as “Shift by MSNBC” -- will contain 14 new series ranging from The Briefing, a political program hosted on Mondays and Fridays by Luke Russert, son of the late Meet the Press icon Tim Russert; to Krystal Clear, a show centered on issues younger women face that will be anchored by Krystal Ball, the co-host of the channel's daytime The Cycle show.
MSNBC’s Krystal Ball substituted for Ronan Farrow as host of his MSNBC show on Friday and remarked with a guest during a segment on the Islamic terror group ISIS that their reported waterboarding of their captives, including the late James Foley, can be blamed on the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and what happened at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
After shifting gears from talking about the increased terror alert in the United Kingdom and fears across western Europe that hundreds of their citizens have joined ISIS and could return to commit terrorist attacks, Ball mentioned an article in The Washington Post that reported ISIS captives were waterboarded. She then asked MSNBC terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann what he thought about this news. [MP3 audio here; Video below]
Ronan Farrow is at it again. On the August 14 edition of Ronan Farrow Daily, MSNBC’s favorite Hillary Clinton prodigy tried to blame the outfitting of local police departments with military-style gear, as exemplified in the police reaction to the recent racially charged protests in Ferguson, Missouri, on evil “defense contractors.” He asked his guest Radley Balko, author Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces “how much of” the militarization of police “is due to defense contractors profiting off of this ability legislatively of the Defense Department to purchase to the point of surplus?”
Earlier Balko explained that President Reagan “off the cuff, instructed the Pentagon to start making surplus military equipment available to police departments across the country.” He added it was not until the 1990's, and the institution of section 1033 of the National Defense Authorization Act that the “transfer to Federal and State agencies personal property of the Department of Defense, including small arms and ammunition” to local police forces to aid in fighting the War on Drugs became official policy. [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
In a discussion about the recent unresolved shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow Daily touted the idea that there is a war on black men in America.
Host Ronan Farrow cited a piece from Jonathan Capehart in the Washington Post that discussed the circumstances surrounding the deaths of African-Americans, specifically Trayvon Martin, Renisha McBride, and Michael Brown. The article hinted that black people – and particularly black males – are under attack in America. Farrow brought Capehart onto the program to ask the question himself, wondering: “Are black Americans, as you put it, under siege?” Capehart responded without hesitation: [MP3 audio here; video below]
Ronan Farrow could barely contain his glee on his August 7 program at being able to work an odd twist in a border-crisis story that ensured the segment was a two-fer involving illegal immigrants and, wait for it, the transgendered.
As “schools across the country are bracing for up to 50,000" “undocumented migrants” -- MSNBC no longer refers to them as immigrants, let alone illegal ones -- the host of Ronan Farrow Daily reports, “an interesting wrinkle" has occurred in the form of Marichuy Leal Gamino, “an undocumented transgender woman held in custody with men.” [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
On a truly idiotic segment of the July 29 edition of Ronan Farrow Daily, the host of the Lean Forward network’s “next-generation news show” discussed the current state of emojis with linguist John McWhorter, CNet’s Maggie Reardon, and journalist Dave Cullen. Farrow commented how the popular emoticons are “becoming more and more the fabric of the kind of communication you see,” and truly out-liberaled himself with his question to McWhorter, who happens to be black.
After wondering whether emojis, which originated in Japan, could alter “tech-driven communication across international lines,” Farrow asked McWhorter, “do you think there's a limitation we're suffering from in terms of the racial diversity of these emojis?” [See video below]
According to MSNBC, Republicans are always making things worse. On the July 25 edition of Ronan Farrow Daily, the cable host began a segment entitled “Kinder, Gentler GOP?” after playing a clip of Rand Paul at the National Urban League annual conference speaking of the “poverty problem.” Farrow asked his guests a stream of leading questions insinuating that Republicans are “catering to a demographic that may have lost Republicans the last general election” rather than actually working to aid low income individuals.
While the president of the National Urban League Marc Morial tried to avoid being too overtly political, MSNBC analyst and former DNC communications director Karen Finney made it clear that Republicans “tend to be policy ideas that actually make things worse, not better.” They oppose “things like an increase in the minimum wage or equal pay for women that we know could actually help communities of color.” (See video below)
MSNBC has truly outdone itself. On the July 21 edition of Ronan Farrow Daily, the MSNBC host invited Eli Lake from Huffington Post and Italian-Palestinian journalist and MSNBC contributor Rula Jebreal onto the show to discuss how Secretary of State John Kerry’s off-air comments about Israeli operations in Palestine revealed a gap between “American officials’ public versus private thoughts when it comes to Israel.”
When Farrow asked Jebreal, “Why can't American leaders be more honest?” she responded that because of “AIPAC and because of the money behind it and because of Sheldon Adelson and because of all of us in the media,” American political leaders are forced into a pro-Israel stance. [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
Discontentment over the Supreme Court ruling on Hobby Lobby today continued this afternoon on MSNBC. Appearing on Ronan Farrow Daily on Monday afternoon, National Organization for Women president, Terry O’Neill argued Hobby Lobby’s beliefs to be “heinous” and compared them to an apartheid in South Africa, slavery and Jim Crow laws. Naturally host Ronan Farrow did nothing to rebuke O'Neill for the patently absurd and offensive comparison.
Earlier today NewsBusters documented anger from CNN and MSNBC over the Supreme Court’s decision. Immediately following the ruling MSNBC began touting it as an “complete and utter defeat for women’s reproductive rights.”
Only MSNBC’s token failed congressional candidate can make Ronan Farrow seem less partisan. On the June 26 edition of Ronan Farrow Daily, guest host Kystal Ball did everything she could to downplay the latest unanimous Supreme Court decision which corrects executive overreach by President Obama while simultaneously demonizing Republicans.
When Republican strategist John Feehery called the verdict “a significant victory for the legislative branch,” Ball replied that “it's important to remember the context of where this case and this decision came from.” She agreed with Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau that the case “starts and ends with Senate Republican obstructionism” and emphasized that the new filibuster rules mean that as long as “the Democrats are in power in the Senate, this isn't going to have such a large impact on the president directly.”[See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
When the “Lean Forward” network hired Ronan Farrow last October to host his own weekday news/interview show, the 20-something son of actress Mia Farrow was hailed as “an original thinker” who could bring his 250,000 Twitter followers to watch him on MSNBC.
However, only a month after Ronan Farrow Daily debuted in mid-February, an anonymous source inside the channel told the New York Daily News that Farrow's ratings have been poor, and his program “has been a disaster for MSNBC” because the young host “sort of stinks on TV” and “hasn't turned out to be the superstar they were hoping for,” even in the relevant demographic of younger viewers ranging from 25 to 54 years of age.