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MSNBC Drops the Ball

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by YankeeFan, Dec 19, 2009.

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  1. I'm a proud liberal and other than Olbermann, MSNBC is crap. I get sick when I see that Doctor tard's show on around noon every weekday.
     
  2. X-Hack

    X-Hack Well-Known Member

    I'm a proud liberal too. But I'd still rather watch prison docs than healthcare coverage. As long as it's a new episode of Extended Stay instead of one of the generic Lockups.
     
  3. GB-Hack

    GB-Hack Active Member

    Have to say that when Nelson (D-Neb) was giving his press conference this morning, MSNBC was all over it. I was watching it.

    Are we talking about what they were running a few hours later?
     
  4. Ashy Larry

    Ashy Larry Active Member

    THIS is our problem. Sadly, the people that actually vote are just as uninformed as the everyone else.

    What I would love to see is to abolish parties. Every candidate would lay out their agenda, and be elected because the voters agreed with their message, not because their was a "D" or "R" next to their name. I know many people that only vote "D", no matter what. And I'm positive the same exists voting "R".

    We've turned politics into a game!!!! We've turned on each other, we're not enemies......we need to be allies. Blue and Red, Blue and Red...., and nothing gets done....it's not a fuckin game.
     
  5. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    Yes ... when there's still news happening but MSNBC is showing rancid turds like Born In The Wrong Body.
     
  6. TrooperBari

    TrooperBari Well-Known Member

    I'm sorry, Larry, but The Base says there's no room for bipartisanship these days. Modern US politics is a zero-sum game — every inch of ground you cede is a victory for the Other Team.

    However, we have some lovely parting gifts for you and Mr. Madison on your way out the door.
     
  7. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    If there are any major votes, I'm sure MSNBC will break in. They don't have to cover the floor debate live. That's what C-SPAN2 is for.

    MSNBC usually breaks in for big events on weekends. When I spin by and Lockup is on for the jillionth time, I know all is well in the world.
     
  8. Brooklyn Bridge

    Brooklyn Bridge Well-Known Member

    PC,

    You would proabably have a better idea, how much would it have cost to run an update, with a reporter from capitol hill twice an hour and then return to reg. programming? You would still need a producer, camera operator, director....Anchor and reporter are salaried, no? Or maybe it wouldn't have been that cost effetive vs. a full newsteam? Just asking.
     
  9. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    Check the ratings these docs get. MSNBC is actually more competitive with Fox on the weekends than they are on the weekdays.

    And given the reruns CNN and Fox runs, I think MSNBC is wise not to run news-based repeats. CNN was showing a rerun of Larry King Live discussing the collapse of the health-care bill Saturday night.
     
  10. PCLoadLetter

    PCLoadLetter Well-Known Member

    Hard for me to say -- I don't know the exact technical setup for the network and I don't get the bills for stuff, so any dollar figure I put on it would be a guess.

    I can tell you what it would require for a local station, though. It would be a reporter and photographer at the Capitol -- both hourly in our case, so they're likely on OT. I assume the network has a fixed satellite uplink from the Capitol, which probably needs an engineer to operate.

    Back at the station, on the editorial side you're looking at an anchor and producer -- both salaried -- along with likely a writer and a tape editor, who are probably hourly. On the production side there's a director, technical director, graphics person, audio operator, and floor director. They'll all be hourly. That may be slightly off, depending on their level of automation.

    Add in satellite time, which will be in the thousands.

    That's the bare minimum for a local station. We're not a union shop, so a lot of those people will be multitasking. MSNBC will be unionized, so you have to account for all the people standing around, not doing shit. That will double or triple the body count.

    Now that you've staffed it, you've got to go on the air with something. If you are just doing updates every half-hour, we'll assume each one is two minutes long. Either those two minutes come out of programming -- infuriating the people who are watching the prison docs -- or, more likely, they're coming out of the commercial breaks. That means MSNBC loses four minutes of commercial break income every hour.

    Also, just from a human standpoint, it's less than a week before Christmas, so there's a good chance all of these people getting called in have plans and are going to be really pissed off. A huge percentage of the staff is going to be on vacation. Those who are salaried will get comp time, but good luck scheduling it with 10 days left in the year.

    And, not for nothing, people are suggesting doing all of this so MSNBC can cover two major stories: (a) a Saturday debate on health care that didn't accomplish anything, and (b) a snowstorm that impacts maybe 20% of the audience tops, and anyone who is actually affected by it will be watching a local affiliate instead of a national network.
     
  11. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    Stop sounding like George Washington :).

    Seriously, a few months ago, the DoJ refused to allow a North Carolina town's referendum to go to nonpartisan elections because it would harm minority voters' ability to identify (and elect) the Democrats on the ballot.

    Washington said parties cause division and that with them, a citizen's loyalty to the party will eclipse one's loyalty to the country -- e.g., I'd rather see the country fail than see the other party succeed. But at the same time, the two-party system was developing under his nose, because there are (and always have been) two basic interpretations of the Constitution.

    I'm largely a one-party voter, but it's not because I'm a blind voter. I'm actually very informed. However, it's because the parties are so ideologically-defined, that the candidates from one party almost invariably represent my viewpoints on issues, and the candidates from the other invariably oppose them.

    There are two big issues coming with this thread. One is that the cable news nets should be treated as serious 24/7 news operations, but all three are accused of (and, for at least 2 of them, it's a very valid accusation) being extremely partisan. I've always seen MSNBC as a liberal answer to Fox/talk radio -- a way of packaging news & commentary to a very specific, and narrow, audience that shares an ideological viewpoint.

    The other issue is our ignorance as voters. I teach high school. I gave my students a current events quiz last week. Two questions, everyone answered correctly -- one asking them to identify the POTUS (one actually answered Abraham Lincoln), and one asking them to identify the golfer who has been in the news for infidelity (everybody answered that one right). Only about 1/3 could identify that health care reform was being debated in front of Congress, and about 1/10 could identify that climate change was being discussed at Copenhagen, even though we had discussed both of those in great detail in class multiple times over the previous weeks. That's the biggest issue -- apathy. We know more about American Idol and pop culture than we do about politics, which we ignore until they affect us directly. And that's the biggest issue -- that MSNBC can get higher ratings showing Dateline reruns than showing live coverage of what is one of the most important and divisive issues to go in front of Congress in years (yeah, and an East Coast snowstorm that is news because, well, it happens outside the doors of the news nets).
     
  12. Piotr Rasputin

    Piotr Rasputin New Member

    Deaf ears, dude.

    Politics as Fanboy Rantings is the way it is now. The loudmouths have taken over.

    This board is no better. A resident of California posted months ago that if the state fails, "at least we get to blame the Republicans." The Administration hits a wall on health care, and there's dancing in the streets because, ohmygoodness, this means the GOP's undoubtedly terrible candidate will have a chance in 2012!

    Politics turns intelligent people into morons. It's especially notable when people who are supposed to be journalists forget to question when the talk comes from the party they happen to support.

    MSNBC should be indefensible here. Are they "the place for politics," are they a news network? Or, as one defender said, are they "a business, not a public service"? Will they again be wonderful and relevant as a news network the next time Keith Olbermann gets all passionate and says "Good Night and Good luck!"

    I understand the issue of cost to produce news on the weekends. But the MS in MSNBC doesn't stand for "We have no f%$#in' money because we're a network merged with some fly-by-night business." The NBC doesn't stand for "Bankrupt news organization."

    And this:

    Sounds like a typical experience in the life of a media member.
     
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