Joe Scarborough Suspended Over Campaign Donations Too

Joe Scarborough Suspended From MSNBC For Campaign Donations


MSNBC said Friday that it is suspending “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough for two days after he acknowledged giving eight previously unknown $500 contributions to friends and family members running for state and local offices during his tenure at the network, a violation of parent NBC’s ban on political contributions by employees without specific permission from the network president.

“I recognize that I have a responsibility to honor the guidelines and conditions of my employment, and I regret that I failed to do so in this matter,” Scarborough said in a statement. “I apologize to MSNBC and to anyone who has been negatively affected by my actions,” he said, adding that after he was made aware of some of the contributions, he called MSNBC President Phil Griffin “and agreed with Phil's immediate demand of a two-day suspension without pay.”

POLITICO had sought comment from the network after finding evidence that Scarborough gave at least five previously unknown $500 contributions while serving as an MNBC host — all to Republican candidates to whom he was close who were running for state legislative seats in or near Scarborough’s hometown of Pensacola, Fla. After being contacted by POLITICO about the donations, Scarborough voluntarily disclosed three other $500 contributions to a friend running for county office in Florida.

Scarborough’s suspension, during which he will not be paid, will end Wednesday, Griffin said in a statement, adding, “As Joe recognizes, it is critical that we enforce our standards and policies.”

The disciplinary action against Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who also writes a weekly column for POLITICO, came two weeks after MSNBC announced it was suspending “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann “indefinitely” for three contributions he made to Democratic candidates during the 2010 campaign cycle. The network later reduced the suspension to two days.



After the Olbermann suspension, POLITICO found two other contributions in Scarborough’s name, though the network said he had permission for one and accepted his explanation that the other was actually given by his wife.

Still, Griffin said in his statement that, the Olbermann situation prompted a conversation with Scarborough about political giving, in which the host “did not recall” the Florida contributions.

Olbermann’s suspension provoked outrage from many supporters of the former sportscaster, whose liberal opinions have helped define MSNBC as a counterpoint to Fox News with its conservative show hosts such as Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly. Other critics said it was pointless to enforce the standards of objective news organizations with hosts whose entire appeal is based largely on their ideological viewpoints and their personalities.

The eight newly unearthed contributions from Scarborough, who left Congress in 2001, were all made since he joined MSNBC fulltime as host of the evening show "Scarborough Country” in 2003.

They include a pair of checks to Scarborough’s brother, George Scarborough, an attorney who twice ran for state legislature, as well as three to a father-son legislative duo who have known Joe Scarborough since the mid-1990s, and three to Scarborough’s former congressional chief of staff David Stafford, who is Escambia County’s elected supervisor of elections.

The five state legislative donations – each of which was for the state’s legal maximum of $500 per election – turned up in a search of the Florida Division of Election’s campaign finance database. Some were recorded in variations of Scarborough’s full name, Charles Joseph Scarborough. In each case, his wife, Susan Scarborough gave matching contributions on the same day.

Joe and Susan Scarborough each contributed $1,000 ($500 last year and another $500 this year) tostate legislative candidate Matt Gaetz, who won an April special election for a suburban Pensacola seat. And the Scarboroughs also each gave $500 in 2005 to the state senate campaign of Gaetz’s father, Don Gaetz.

“These contributions were nothing more than simple acts of friendship,” Scarborough said in his statement Friday. “I gained nothing personally, politically, or professionally from these donations.”

But a close friend of Scarborough’s was more dismissive about the donations. “These are bulls-- local races that mean nothing to Joe,” the friend said. “Anybody who knows Joe’s life wouldn’t be surprised by the fact that these small, local donations were not top-of-mind.”

Pointing out that Scarborough on Friday was in NBC’s Washington bureau to conduct an interview with Vice President Joe Biden, the friend said “Nobody is more pissed by this distraction than Joe. He goes from interviewing the vice president of the United States to being asked about local races in Escambia and Okaloosa County, years ago. Give me a break.”

Like Scarborough’s previously disclosed contributions to Kitts and Merrill, the newly unearthed Florida contributions do seem to reflect support for longtime friends – and, in the case of his brother, close relatives.

The Gaetz’s relationship with Joe Scarborough dates back to his first congressional campaign in 1994, when Don Gaetz was running for school board and, due to a scheduling conflict, could not attend a cattle call-style debate featuring candidates for a range of offices, including Scarborough.

Gaetz asked his son Matt, then a precocious 12-year-old, to take his place.

Scarborough, then in his early 30s, joked that “he wanted to bring me to all the debates because nobody would say that he was too young to run for Congress,” recalled Matt Gaetz, who said he was so impressed by Scarborough, that he wanted to help his campaign.

“I reached in my pocket and I think I had about $12 on me, and I made a contribution to his first campaign for Congress in 1994 when nobody thought he could win,” Gaetz said. “So, when I decided to run for state representative, I called him up and asked if he would return the favor – if he would contribute to my campaign.”

Matt Gaetz also reported receiving $500 from Scarborough’s son Charles in 2009, when the latter was a college student in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Both Gaetzes remain in the Florida legislature. And Matt Gaetz said he keeps in touch with Scarborough via periodic phone calls and text messages, and considers him a mentor.

The Beltway debate over whether journalists should refrain from contributing to campaigns should take a backseat to the First Amendment, Gaetz said. “I don’t think you check your individual liberties when you step in front of a television camera or a microphone.”

Asked his thoughts on NBC’s policy of requiring employees to seek permission before contributing to campaigns, Gaetz said “That would be up to NBC not me. I’m a lowly state representative in Florida. I’ll let them make their own corporate policies.”

The Scarboroughs’ contributions to George Scarborough, an attorney, came in 2005, before he dropped out of a state legislative race, and 2007, when he lost in a primary.

After Olbermann’s donations were first reported by POLITICO, a search of campaign finance records also found contributions in Scarborough’s name in the amount of $4,200 to the Oregon congressional race of close friend Derrick Kitts in 2006, and for $5,000 in April to Alabama legislative candidate John Merrill, another old friend.

An MSNBC spokesman said at the time that the first donation complied with network policy because “Joe sought permission in advance.” And Scarborough’s co-host on “Morning Joe,” Mika Brzezinski told POLITICO, that it should have been recorded in the name of Scarborough’s wife. POLITICO was provided a copy of the bank transfer, which was dated April 9 and signed by Susan Scarborough.






Joe Scarborough Suspended Over Political Donations



MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough was suspended without pay for two days Friday for making eight campaign donations to Florida political candidates, in violation of NBC News ethics policy.

Scarborough, a former Republican member of Congress from Florida and host of the cable network's "Morning Joe" program, said he agreed with the decision by msnbc President Phil Griffin, which was similar to the sanction Griffin imposed two weeks ago on another host on the network, Keith Olbermann.

When Olbermann, host of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," was suspended Nov. 5 for making donations to three Democratic congressional candidates, Scarborough acknowledged that two political contributions had been made in his name, but he said they had been made by his wife.

Griffin said in a statement that Scarborough informed him Friday that he had in fact made eight contributions from 2004 to 2008 to local candidates in Florida that he did not recall.

"He will be immediately suspended for two days without pay and will return to the air on Wednesday, November 24th," Griffin said. "As Joe recognizes, it is critical that we enforce our standards and policies."

In his own statement Friday, Scarborough he had "recently" been made aware of the contributions and told Griffin about them himself.

Like many news organizations, NBC News, parent of msnbc TV, prohibits political contributions by its journalists without prior approval of the president. (Msnbc.com, a joint venture of NBC Universal and Microsoft Corp., also has a policy against its journalists contributing to political campaigns.)

"Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest," the NBC News policy reads.

"Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the president of NBC News or his designee."

Scarborough said he made the contributions to the candidates — his brother and three family friends — as "simple acts of friendship."

"I gained nothing personally, politically, or professionally from these donations," he said. Nonetheless, he said he agreed with Griffin's decision and said, "I apologize to MSNBC and to anyone who has been negatively affected by my actions."

Scarborough's reaction was in sharp contrast to that of Olbermann, whose suspension ignited a firestorm of protest from supporters who created an online petition that attracted more than 250,000 signatures. Olbermann apologized to his supporters but not to NBC News and broadcast a commentary objecting to having been punished "without a hearing."


Sources: MSNBC, Politico, Youtube

Keith Olbermann Suspended For Donations To Democrats (Ethics Violations)

Keith Olbermann Suspended After Donating To Democrats

MSNBC host Keith Olbermann has been suspended indefinitely without pay after POLITICO reported that he made three campaign contributions to Democratic candidates.

MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement Friday: “I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay."

Olbermann made campaign contributions to two Arizona members of Congress and failed Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway ahead of Tuesday’s election.

Olbermann, who acknowledged the contributions in a statement to POLITICO, made the maximum legal donations of $2,400 apiece to Conway and to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. He donated to the Arizona pair on Oct. 28 — the same day that Grijalva appeared as a guest on Olbermann’s “Countdown” show.

NBC has a rule against employees contributing to political campaigns, and a wide range of news organizations prohibit political contributions — considering it a breach of journalistic independence to contribute to the candidates they cover.

Olbermann is one of MSNBC’s most recognizable faces, and has emerged as one of the country’s most prominent liberal commentators. A former ESPN star, Olbermann’s “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” started in 2003 as a traditional news show but evolved into a left-leaning opinion program – and in some ways, led the network into its new identity as the cable-news voice of the left and an attempt to be a counterweight to Fox News.

Olbermann tripled MSNBC’s ratings at 8 p.m. In the past two years, MSNBC’s left-leaning opinionated hosts have helped propel it past CNN in prime time, and even lately during the daytime, too.

MSNBC has branded Olbermann as a prominent face in its new “Lean Forward” marketing campaign. It wasn’t immediately clear what the network would do with Olbermann’s 8 p.m. time slot.

Despite MSNBC’s embrace of a more opinionated format, NBC News has a policy against its employees making political contributions – and it appears that Olbermann ran afoul of that policy, even by contributing to candidates he gave a platform on his show, like Grijalva.

In addition, Olbermann has been a critic of the political donations made by Fox News’s parent company, News Corp., which contributed $1 million each to a pair of organizations trying to defeat Democratic candidates.

Griffin also tweaked rival network Fox over the contributions. “Show me an example of us fundraising,” Griffin told The New York Times last month.

A 2007 MSNBC.com story laid out the rules for the network regarding such contributions:

"Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest. Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the president of NBC News or his designee.”

POLITICO discovered the Olbermann donation to Grijalva in a Federal Election Commission filing, and when MSNBC was asked for a comment, it forwarded a statement from Olbermann:

“One week ago, on the night of Thursday October 28 2010, after a discussion with a friend about the state of politics in Arizona, I donated $2,400 each to the reelection campaigns of Democratic Representatives Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords,” Olbermann said. “I also donated the same amount to the campaign of Democratic Senatorial candidate Jack Conway in Kentucky.”

In his statement, Olbermann said he wasn’t using his influence to solicit any donations for the candidates.

“I did not privately or publicly encourage anyone else to donate to these campaigns, nor to any others in this election or any previous ones, nor have I previously donated to any political campaign at any level,” Olbermann said.

Under FEC rules, an individual donor may give only $2,400 to a candidate per general election campaign. The FEC filings for Olbermann’s contributions list an address that is a Mailboxes Etc. storefront in New York, and it also lists his occupation as a newscaster for NBC Television.

News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, came under fire from liberals during the past election cycle for its contributions to the Republican Governors Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

On Oct. 7, Olbermann had House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) on his show to discuss the donations. At one point, he asked Clyburn: “Is there a legislative response to the idea that there is a national cable-news outlet that goes beyond having a point of view and actually starts to shill for partisan causes and actually starts to donate to partisan groups of one party?”

Olbermann’s contributions came amid a brutal campaign season for Democrats.

Giffords had appeared on Olbermann’s program in May, as did Conway. During his more recent broadcasts, Olbermann also made frequent references to the “Aqua Buddha” controversy involving Conway’s Republican Senate rival, Rand Paul, who handily won election Tuesday.

Grijalva, a prominent liberal who was just declared a winner in his race Thursday night, was in a tight contest against tea-party-backed candidate Ruth McClung when he appeared on "Countdown" — one of several appearances he made on the show.
Grijalva had seemed to be in a safe race until the month before the election, when he became targeted by outside groups. In mid-October, national Democratic interests began putting money into his district to compete with fundraising for McClung from outside conservative groups.

On Oct. 28, Grijalva went on Olbermann’s show and fielded questions about a story linking profit motives of private prisons to Arizona's new immigration crackdown. It was the sixth time Grijalva had appeared on "Countdown" in a little more than the past six months.

Grijalva not only opposed the immigration law — known as S.B. 1070 — but inadvertently put himself in electoral jeopardy by calling for an economic boycott of his own home state in response, a move that didn't go over so well with cash-strapped Arizonans.

"It's almost extraordinary to believe that once we got past the original phony reason for it, which was security at the border, when obviously it didn't pertain to that whatsoever, that the real reason behind that was well, this is to intimidate people of Hispanic descent. Well, it turns out there's an even more base, cynical reason behind it. Am I wrong about this?" Olbermann asked. "Is there anything you can tell us about the relationship between these private prisons and the lawmakers who supported this monstrosity of a bill?”

Grijalva responded: "It is a wonderful I-told-you-so moment."





Olbermann Suspended For Dem Contributions

Keith Olbermann, MSNBC's primetime firebrand host, has been suspended indefinitely for violating the ethics policies of his employer earlier this year when he donated to three Democrats seeking federal office, MSNBC announced Friday.

"I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay," MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement.

First reported by Politico and confirmed by Federal Election Commission filings, the primetime television host gave $2,400 – the maximum individual amount allowed – to each of the campaigns of Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway, and Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. (View PDF's of FEC filings for Conway, Grijalva, and Giffords)

Conway lost his bid to Republican Rand Paul while Grijalva eked out a win over Tea Party-backed candidate Ruth McClung for a fifth term. Grijalva found himself in an increasingly competitive race after he announced his support of a boycott of Arizona businesses in response to the state's controversial new immigration law and often appeared on Olbermann's show where he found a sympathetic audience. CNN, meanwhile, has yet to declare a winner in Giffords' race, but the Democrat currently holds about a 3,000-vote lead with all precincts reporting.

The contributions may have violated an NBC policy that requires employers of the news organization to obtain permission ahead of any political donations or activities that could be deemed as a conflict of interest. CNN institutes a similar policy.

In a statement to Politico before the suspension was announced, Olbermann defended the contributions:

"One week ago, on the night of Thursday October 28 2010, after a discussion with a friend about the state of politics in Arizona, I donated $2,400 each to the re-election campaigns of Democratic Representatives Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords," he said in the statement. "I also donated the same amount to the campaign of Democratic Senatorial candidate Jack Conway in Kentucky."

Olbermann, as well as MSNBC executives, was a vocal critic of the $1 million donation by Fox News' parent News Corp. to the Republican Governor's Association earlier this year, saying at the time, "We now have another million reasons Fox News is the Republican news channel."

In a subsequent show, Olbermann also pressed House Majority Whip James Clyburn if there was a "legislative response" to a networks that "starts to shill for partisan causes."

A News Corp. spokesman defended the donation when it was first reported in August.

"News Corporation believes in the power of free markets, and the RGA's pro-business agenda supports our priorities at this most critical time for our economy," the spokesman said.




Keith Olbermann Suspended Over Political Donations To Democrats


MSNBC TV host Keith Olbermann was suspended indefinitely on Friday for making campaign donations to three Democratic congressional candidates, apparently in violation of NBC News ethics policy.

The announcement came in a one-sentence statement from msnbc TV President Phil Griffin: “I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay.”

The donations were first reported by the Politico website earlier in the day.

Olbermann acknowledged the donations in a statement to Politico, saying he gave the maximum legal donation of $2,400 to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords and Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, who waged an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate against Tea Party standard-bearer Rand Paul.

Like most news organizations, NBC News, parent of msnbc TV, prohibits political contributions by its journalists without prior approval of the president. (Msnbc.com, a joint venture of NBC News and Microsoft, also has a policy against its journalists contributing to political campaigns.)

"Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest,” it reads. “Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the president of NBC News or his designee."

Politico noted that the donations to Grijalva and Giffords were made on Oct. 28, the same day that Grijalva appeared on Olbermann’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” show. Grijalva won re-election on Tuesday, while Giffords on Friday was clinging to a narrow lead over Republican Jesse Kelly in a race that the Associated Press has not yet called.

In his statement to Politico, Olbermann said he did not encourage his viewers or other staff members to donate to the candidates.

“I did not privately or publicly encourage anyone else to donate to these campaigns, nor to any others in this election or any previous ones, nor have I previously donated to any political campaign at any level,” he was quoted as saying.





Olbermann Suspended From MSNBC For Campaign Donations

Keith Olbermann, the top anchor on MSNBC, was suspended on Friday after the channel discovered that he had made campaign contributions to three Democrats.

The MSNBC president, Phil Griffin, issued a statement saying, “I became aware of Keith’s political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay.”

No one at NBC News would speculate about what this might mean for Mr. Olbermann’s future, though one NBC executive suggested this was not a step toward firing him.

Politico had reported Friday morning that Mr. Olbermann’s contributions were in apparent violation of MSNBC policy.

Mr. Olbermann hosts the most popular program on MSNBC, “Countdown.” He worked at MSNBC in the late 1990s and re-joined the channel in 2003.

He has long been a volatile figure inside MSNBC, in part for his polarizing points of view. He has sometimes clashed with Mr. Griffin and other managers over editorial decisions, and he has been publicly critical of some of his former bosses.

Mr. Olbermann did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the suspension was announced Friday afternoon.

MSNBC has a number of hosts who could fill in for Mr. Olbermann, including Lawrence O’Donnell, who recently started to host a 10 p.m. program on the channel; and Cenk Uygur, who recently was signed as a contributor.


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Sources: CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, Politico, Google Maps

Alvin Greene Won Because He's Black? Who Knows? (Interview Video)

Now Alvin Greene's critics claim he won because he's
Black. Wait a minute! Could this be true? Are Black Voters really that gullible? Perhaps in some regions.

If not what else explains why he won the S.C. Dem. Primary?

After watching Keith Olbermann's interview with Mr. Greene I'm convinced something about this situation
is not quite right.

What say you fine folks?

Check out the video and article below than reach your own conclusions about this crazy political faux pas.










Alvin Greene, being there


Alvin Greene, the unknown, unheralded, un-everything U.S. Senate primary winner in South Carolina, kept reminding me of something -- and somebody. Finally figured it out.

If you've seen Greene on TV, you learn two things: One, his interviews set the Guinness record for awkward pauses, and two, it's clear he doesn't have a clue what's going on. All he does is repeat the same lines about "Sixty percent of the vote is no accident" and "I just conducted a simple old-fashioned campaign," which is especially funny because I'm still not aware of anyone in South Carolina who went to an Alvin Greene rally, or had Alvin Greene come to their house, or even saw him on the side of a road waving a campaign sign like those kids doing a car wash for the glee club.

He might have won the S.C. Democratic primary because he's Black, or he might have won because he was the first candidate alphabetically, or he might be a Republican plant, but one thing is clear -- he didn't win because the people of South Carolina deeply desire to put him in Congress. Although they've probably done worse.

If you watch him on TV, you think, what a disaster. But when I figured out who he reminded me of, it started to make sense.

The 1979 movie "Being There" is about Chance (Peter Sellers), a gardener born with "rice pudding between the ears." All he can talk about is gardening. All he likes to do is watch TV. But through a series of events, he ends up in the home (played by the Biltmore House!) of a rich businessman with political connections. And so Chance the gardener becomes Chauncey Gardiner, whose empty-headed homilies about the weather sound like Zen in a different context.


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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, MSNBC, WCNC, Youtube, Google Maps

Graham, Rove, Rubio & Jeb Bush Slam Arizona's Immigration Law (Unconstitutional)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ariz. Immigration Law Draws GOP Criticism


When Arizona’s governor signed the country’s toughest immigration enforcement rules into law last week, Democrats — including President Barack Obama — immediately denounced it as a poorly-conceived bill that could threaten Americans’ civil liberties.

Now several national Republicans, many of them hailing from states with large Latino populations, are echoing some of those concerns.

"While I don't believe Arizona's policy was based on anything other than trying to get a handle on our broken borders, I think aspects of the law, especially that dealing with 'reasonable suspicion,' are going to put our law enforcement officers in an incredibly difficult position,” said Florida GOP Senate candidate Marco Rubio in a statement Tuesday, adding that the law could “unreasonably single out people who are here legally, including many American citizens."

Another Floridian, former governor Jeb Bush, agreed with Rubio’s assessment in an interview with POLITICO, saying that the Arizona law is not “the proper approach” to solving the problem of illegal immigration.

Republican Meg Whitman, the front-runner in California's gubernatorial primary, declined to say whether the law is "racist" — as some critics allege — but told The Associated Press that Arizona's law does not offer the most effective strategy. "I think there's just better ways to solve this problem," she said.

The bill signed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer gives local police broad authority to stop and request documents from anyone they suspect is an illegal immigrant.

Attorney General Eric Holder said earlier this week that the law could face a constitutional challenge.

That forecast was echoed by GOP strategist Karl Rove, who told an audience at a senior center in Florida that the bill could face "constitutional problems."

"I wish they hadn't passed it, in a way," Rove said, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Using his sharpest language to date while speaking in Iowa Tuesday, Obama again said that the Arizona law could encourage racial profiling by law enforcement officials.

“You can imagine if you are an Hispanic American in Arizona — your great grandparents may have been there before Arizona was a state — but now suddenly if you don't have your papers and if you took your kid for ice cream, you're going to be harassed,” he said. “That's not the right way to go.”

Former Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin called Obama’s warning a “myth” during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday.

“It's shameful, too, that the Obama administration has allowed this to become more of a racial issue by perpetuating this myth that racial profiling is a part of this law,” she said.


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Sources: Countdown with Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, Politico, Google Maps

Left Wing vs Right Wing Journalism: Media Matters & Biased Reporting

Left Wing Gears Up To Fight Media Wars with Right Wing


From a glitzy new office in downtown Washington, the ideological war over the media is fully engaged.

Six years after its founding to counter what it said was “conservative misinformation,” Media Matters for America employs a staff of 70 that spends 19 hours a day monitoring newspapers, magazines, broadcast and cable television, talk radio, and the Internet to counter reporting or commentary it deems to be inaccurate or biased.

Lou Dobbs recently described the group as part of “the vast left wing conspiracy,” an ironic twist on Hillary Clinton’s famous description of the conservative infrastructure arrayed against her husband when he was president and fighting off attempts to impeach him.

In fact, just a few miles away and across the Potomac, in Alexandria, Va., one of the groups Clinton was talking about, the Media Research Center, founded in 1987 by L. Bent Brozell III, is engaged in a longer-running attack on the media from the right.

Shortly after launching Media Matters, founder David Brock said he hoped his group would some day be as influential as Bozell’s and that day appears to have arrived. They have roughly the same budget ($10 million) and staff, and are equally adept at provoking the other side.

The MRC, as a rule, doesn’t comment on Media Matters. Not so Conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart. “I’m 100 percent at war with those people,” he recently told POLITICO.

One of the bloodiest battles in that war occurred last fall, when Kevin Jennings, an openly-gay educator hired by the Department of Education to run an anti-bullying campaign, became a conservative cause.

Jennings was under fire from critics because of once describing how as a 24-year-old teacher he counseled a student having a sexual relationship with an “older man.” Several conservative outlets and commentators said that by law Jennings had to report the incident, claiming the student was only 15 years old at the time, and it constituted statutory rape.

Media Matters obtained the student’s driver’s license and proved he was 16 at the time, the age of consent in Massachusetts. While some may still question Jennings’ judgment, he didn’t break any law.

"This should put to rest claims made by Fox News and other conservatives that Jennings covered up 'statutory rape' or 'molestation,'” wrote Media Matters senior fellow Karl Frisch. “To continue reporting such reckless speculation is at best willful disregard for the facts and at worst journalistic malpractice."

The battle over Jennings convinced Media Matters that it needed to not only monitor other media but to do its own original reporting. On Monday, Joe Strupp, who covered the press for 11 years with Editor & Publisher magazine, will launch a new media blog after signing on as the group’s first investigative reporter.

Joining a partisan organization is a change for Strupp, given that his press coverage with E&P, or in appearances on “Fox News Watch,” was solidly non-partisan. However, Media Matters, he says, didn’t ask about his political beliefs when it hired him, and his goal remains to do “straight ahead reporting.” Still, Strupp acknowledges that he represents a “new sort of wing for their organization.”

Ari Rabin-Havt, vice president for research and communication at Media Matters, confirms that ideology was not discussed before he was hired. But don’t expect Strupp to be investigating “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” or Talking Points Memo.

More likely, he’ll focus on programs and outlets on the other side ideologically from Media Matters, or on hot-button issues the organization is interested in. “Joe knows where we’re coming from,” Rabin-Havt said.

“We never change the truth in what we’re covering,” Rabin-Havt said. “We do make choices here on what to cover. Every newspaper has editors that make choices about what they care about, which is why Fox News has very different stories than CNN, even in their daytime coverage.”

So while Media Matters may increasingly hire journalists with more traditional news backgrounds, the reporting and writing still fits in with the organization’s goals. Unlike a newspaper, Media Matters is not in the business of selling advertising, subscriptions or competing on a variety of beats. It also has a clear political agenda.

For instance, Media Matters hired Will Bunch, a veteran Philadelphia Daily News reporter and blogger, as a senior fellow last month. Bunch plains on remaining at the Daily News while also working on a book that seems well-suited for the Media Matters audience:“The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, Hi-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama.”

Media Matters was launched with about $2 million in seed money from wealthy liberal donors that shared Brock’s vision of combating of he called in a book “The Republican Noise Machine.”

Assistance also came from the John Podesta-led Center for American Progress, a liberal policy and advocacy organization which includes billionaire George Soros as a major backer. The National Democratic Network, a think tank and advocacy organization, and progressive activist organization MoveOn.org, have also helped fund Media Matters. The New York Observer reported in December that last year it “received grants of at least $100,000 from more than a dozen foundations.”

While Media Matters president Eric Burns and senior fellow Eric Boehlert are more visible presences on cable news and talk radio, founder David Brock remains chief executive and major presence in the organization.

He plays a key role in strategy and fundraising, which supports the entire non-profit apparatus, and is typically at the office each day. "He guides us, gives vision,” Rabin-Havt said.

That Brock has anything to do with the organization at all is more than a little ironic given his own role as part of the right-wing conspiracy. Two of Brock’s notable contributions were his book “The Real Anita Hill,” and a 1994 American Spectator article that spawned “Troopergate,” leading to allegations that Bill Clinton, while Governor of Arkansas, used state troopers to arrange liaisons with women.

Brock later confessed that much of the Anita Hill book was false, apologized to the Clintons for the Troopergate article, broke with the right officially in a 1997 Esquire piece, and four years later explained his conversion in greater detail with his memoir, “Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative.”

At the time Brock started Media Matters, the main counter to conservative media groups such as MRC and the even more established Accuracy in Media, founded in 1969, was Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a Liberal watchdog group that launched in 1986 to target media bias and censorship. While FAIR offers some analysis online each day, it doesn’t do so as comprehensively as the better-funded Media Matters, which has researchers posting clips of video and audio throughout the day along with frequently updated online content.

For the working reporters who often are targets of Media Matters as much as conservative talkers Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly, scrutiny from the Left is just as meddlesome as scrutiny from the Right, particularly when the group fixates on a single word in an article, which could be the result more of newsroom haste or simple carelessness than evidence of any greater conservative conspiracy.

For instance, in a blog item last week entitled: “New York Times, please define ‘splits,’” Boehert took issue with a Times headline that said the GOP “splits” over Senator Jim Bunning’s recent attempt to block an extension of unemployment benefits.

“But has the GOP really split?” he wrote. “In fact, couldn't the argument be made that the real news is that the GOP hasn't split, and that very few GOP voices are complaining about Bunning's increasingly odd behavior?”

Rabin-Havt, who like other Media Matters’ executives arrived at the organization after working for a number of groups affiliated with liberal advocacy and the Democratic Party, said he thinks Media Matters has been somewhat misunderstood by mainstream reporters.

“The culture here, in this office, and I think reporters would be surprised by this, isn’t one of sniping or disrespect towards the media,” Rabin Havt said, adding that “being a reporter is such an incredibly honored profession, and plays such a role in our society and our debate, and we want people to do the best job they can.”

Sources: Politico, Media Matters, Big Government, Youtube

Keith Olbermann's Show Being Cancelled? He's Too Liberal

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Keith Olbermann Defends 'Countdown' Ratings, Claims Right Wing Smear Campaign


Keith Olbermann defended his show Thursday against reports that it is in danger of being canceled over declining ratings.

Several recent reports, from outlets including Daily Finance, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Post's Page Six have focused on Olbermann's January demo rating, which dropped 44% from January 2009 (the month of Barack Obama's inauguration).

From Daily Finance:

Ratings for Olbermann's Countdown have been soft recently, and the 8 p.m. shows on CNN and HLN have narrowed the gap. In the important demographic of adults 25 to 54 -- the group advertisers are looking to reach -- Countdown was down 44% year-over-year in January. It averaged 268,000 viewers in that demo, only 3,000 more than Nancy Grace's show on HLN, and 12,000 more than CNN's Campbell Brown. Fox News's O'Reilly Factor dominated the hour with 964,000 viewers age 25 to 54, and was the only cable news show in the time period to increase its audience, by 55%.

Olbermann branded Daily Finance a "right-wing site" after that report — an allegation that was batted down by the writer, Jeff Bercovici — but it was used as the basis for the LAT commentary "Countdown begins for end of Keith Olbermann's 'Countdown'?" and the Page Six item, "Olbermann's sinking ship." Both of those items hinted strongly that Olbermann's run as MSNBC's leading man in primetime may soon come to an end, even though MSNBC president Phil Griffin said in the original ratings post that he is "pleased with where we are" at 8PM.

Thursday night, Olbermann responded to the rumor that his show is in jeopardy on both his show and on Daily Kos.

"The show isn't about to be cancelled," he wrote. "It isn't slumping. MSNBC isn't worried about it. NBC isn't worried about it. It is making them a ---damned fortune, in fact (and they'd owe me a ---damned fortune if they did cancel it, which they aren't going to)."

Olbermann blamed the storyline on a right-wing smear campaign, noting that the New York Post is "Rupert Murdoch's vanity newspaper" and that the Los Angeles Times writer, Andrew Malcolm, was once Laura Bush's press secretary:

It's the route by which the thing got seized by the sleaze blogs like Breitbart and NewsCorp and the like that so beautifully, almost diagrammatically, illustrates how Conservatives come to believe the crazy, nonsensical, totally fact-free things they believe, how they transform discernible, provable lies, into their wishful-thinking version of the truth.

Olbermann also accused Bercovici of cherry-picking his data and described the longtime media writer as "Daily Finance's extremely thin-skinned media writer, always hostile, and snickered at behind his back by his rivals."

Olbermann claimed his ratings actually grew in January, citing month-to-month figures showing that "Countdown" grew 5% over December 2009 (though year-over-year numbers are much more standard than month-to-month).

"And yet the right wing believes that Countdown is about to be cancelled, because it so desperately wants it to be cancelled, that the facts, and the ratings, and the profits, become irrelevant," he wrote. "And it is better for them to pretend they are getting their way, than to acknowledge that they are not."






Is America Getting Over Keith Olbermann?


Keith Olbermann was already a renowned sportscaster when he rose to prominence as a political commentator. This was during the Bush Administration, when the left was badly in need of a forceful voice to rally around. Such was his popularity that MSNBC reoriented its entire primetime lineup around it.

But now the Democrats control Congress and the White House, and there are creeping indications that the world may not have quite as much need of -- or patience for -- Olbermann and his shtick as it once did.

Ratings for Olbermann's Countdown have been soft recently, and the 8 p.m. shows on CNN and HLN have narrowed the gap. In the important demographic of adults 25 to 54 -- the group advertisers are looking to reach -- Countdown was down 44% year-over-year in January. It averaged 268,000 viewers in that demo, only 3,000 more than Nancy Grace's show on HLN, and 12,000 more than CNN's Campbell Brown. Fox News's O'Reilly Factor dominated the hour with 964,000 viewers age 25 to 54, and was the only cable news show in the time period to increase its audience, by 55%.

But there are also more subjective signs that Olbermann's stridency and lack of proportion are alienating some of his natural allies. Quite a few eyebrows elevated last week when Jon Stewart, in a parody of one of Olbermann's "Special Comment" segments, called out the newsman for going way over the top in his denunciations of Republican Senator-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts. The criticism was all the more remarkable, given that Stewart and Olbermann usually take the same side on most issues, especially when it comes to Fox News and the Republicans.

Olbermann's overheated rhetoric also drew a sharp response from Joe Scarborough, MSNBC's house conservative, who called his fellow host's attack on Brown "reckless" and "sad." The exchange (and a few earlier, similar incidents) inspired network president Phil Griffin to issue a stern memo admonishing his charges: "We do not publicly criticize our colleagues. This kind of behavior is unprofessional and will not be tolerated."

Griffin, not surprisingly, says he doesn't believe Olbermann's recent hiccups are part of any larger trend. "Keith has been our tentpole," he says. "I watch the show every night. It's a great show. It's as smart and clever and fun as any out there, and I'm pleased with where we are."

He attributes Olbermann's January ratings slip to a news cycle in which international news, rather than domestic politics, was the No. 1 story. "On big, breaking international news, CNN tends to do better than us. They did a great job in Haiti, and I tip my hat to them," he says. "We're the place for politics, and there are times when politics does great, and there are times when it doesn't." With primaries in the midterm elections already looming, he says, "I think we'll get our momentum back."

As for the flank attack by Stewart, Griffin points out that Olbermann took the comedian's criticism to heart and acknowledged that he had gone overboard in demonizing Brown. "I thought Keith handled that very well," he says. "That's something to be commended, not just piled on."







Anatomy Of A Right Wing Wish

I know many who read this will fall into two neat rows: A) Why, dumb-dumb, do you even pay attention to this?; and B) We don't care, stop whining, go take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile.

But nearly 30 years ago I began to have the singular experience of being written about and found it instantly valuable for any journalist or writer, because you get to watch in real-time as other journalists and writers make mistakes, flub facts, mishear quotes, or, often, deliberately lie, leave out inconvenient facts, or throw the ones they do use completely out of proportion. Only you know the literal truth (if you're lucky), and thus only you can fully measure how goldarned wrong the other guy is. It would make me shudder to think that I might be trampling over as many sweet tulips of accuracy in my own work.

Today, of course, there is the added dimension of political character assassination, which turns the game of mistakes and/or misdirections into three-dimensional Star Trek chess. And this is one of those stories.

Keith Olbermann's Diary:


Forgive me for using a script from tonight's show as a base from which to expand my point. But over the last few days I have watched as a pretty shoddily researched "purpose pitch" of a web piece on my show's ratings has been converted by the rampant right wing bias of the media into actual published reports that the program is facing imminent cancellation.

Let me cut to the chase (since this is besides the point, except insomuch as it contradicts the meme): the show isn't about to be cancelled. It isn't slumping. MSNBC isn't worried about it. NBC isn't worried about it. It is making them a ---damned fortune, in fact (and they'd owe me a ---damned fortune if they did cancel it, which they aren't going to).

It's the route by which the thing got seized by the sleaze blogs like Breitbart and NewsCorp and the like that so beautifully, almost diagrammatically, illustrates how Conservatives come to believe the crazy, nonsensical, totally fact-free things they believe, how they transform discernible, provable lies, into their wishful-thinking version of the truth.

Rupert Murdoch's vanity newspaper, the New York Post, put out one of its typical pieces of crap in its gossip section. I always thought there was a Freudian clue in the fact that "Page Six" is almost never actually printed on the literal page six. But I digress: "Has the countdown begun for the end of 'Countdown'?" Murdoch's minion continued: "even Olbermann's former supporters on the left are tuning out." The Post got this, it writes, from blogs at National Public Radio and the Los Angeles Times, and, quite knee-jerkily, it assumes the reader will be convinced that 100 percent of the content therein is southpaw stuff straight from The Kremlin. It is thus using those organizations as if they are evidence of the supposed 'tune out on the left.'

The NPR blog, it turns out, cites as a source the L.A. Times blog, which it authenticates with the seemingly decisive description "hardly a partisan forum." Except the L.A. Times blog post was written by Andrew Malcolm, a former Press Secretary to Laura Bush, a washed-up political operative, and absolutely the last person on the continent to earn the praise "hardly a partisan." I once had the audacity to call out Mr. Malcolm on one of his most egregious lies, and he has since missed no opportunity to report the slightest glimmer of information that might both cast me in a poor light and not get him or the paper sued. The Times, even in its flush days before the Tribune and the implosion of newspapers set in, was edited with remarkable casualness, and as it manages to snooze away a monopoly in the second largest market in the country, it still is.

Anyway, Mr. Malcolm managed to write a column titled "Countdown begins for the end of Keith Olbermann's Countdown?" which he predicated on the relative ratings last month of my program to CNN, as had been reported in yet another blog from a site called Daily Finance. Daily Finance's extremely thin-skinned media writer, always hostile, and snickered at behind his back by his rivals, had himself cherry-picked the January ratings to report that "the 8 p.m. shows on CNN and HLN have narrowed the gap."

So the New York Post lifted from an NPR blog which lifted from Laura Bush's Ex-Press Secretary's Blog which lifted from Daily-Finance's Blog which left out details that makes the whole meme nonsensical.

Namely: my show's ratings actually grew from December to last month, by five percent at 8 O'Clock and six percent at 10. Grew in a month in which CNN did exceptional, almost continuous coverage from Haiti. Grew to 27 percent ahead of CNN and 24 percent ahead of Headline News. Grew from the end of a year in which MSNBC replaced CNN as the number two rated news network among younger viewers in prime-time. Grew in the past week, too, even as the blog TV Newser reported CNN had dropped in that same demographic to fifth place behind Fox, us, Headline News, and CNBC. One night they were behind The Weather Channel.

And yet the right wing believes that Countdown is about to be cancelled, because it so desperately wants it to be cancelled, that the facts, and the ratings, and the profits, become irrelevant. And it is better for them to pretend they are getting their way, than to acknowledge that they are not.


Sources: MSNBC, Countdown, Huffington Post, Daily Finance, Daily Kos

MSNBC's Liberal Reporters Are Out Of Control!

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Judd Gregg Lectures MSNBC: "Irresponsible"


Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) attacked MSNBC hosts Contessa Brewer and Melissa Francis on Thursday, questioning their “integrity” as journalists and calling them “irresponsible.”

The scuffle started with Francis asking Gregg to name specific areas of the budget he would cut after he criticized the White House’s proposed freeze on nondefense discretionary spending, saying President Barack Obama has done little to reduce the size of government.

“That’s good in theory,” Francis started to say before Gregg cut her off.

“It’s not a theory,” Gregg said. “Don't tell me it's good in theory. What are you? How do you get off saying something like that?”

Francis then jumped in to offer Gregg a chance “to tell us how to practically put it to work.”

Gregg then launched into an attack of the administration for increasing spending and the federal debt, quickly getting interrupted by Brewer.

“My partner Melissa, Sen. Gregg, is really asking for specifics,” Brewer said. “If you don't believe we should have a $1.3 trillion budget, which programs are you willing to cut?”

“Are you willing to tell schools, no money for you?” Brewer asked.

“Nobody is saying ‘no money for schools,’” Gregg responded. “What an absurd statement to make, a dishonest statement to make.”

“Sen. Gregg, what we're both asking is which programs to cut?” Brewer said. “Senator, you're going to be asked to cut certain programs if you're on the senate Banking Committee — just tell us which one you'll cut?”

Gregg said he’d ‘eliminate’ the money for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, cut stimulus spending and reform entitlement programs. But after being given his chance to outline his proposals, Gregg still clearly had an ax to grind with the two hosts.

“I've made very specific proposals and I'm willing to stand by them. The problem is that this administration’s view of governance is economic prosperity created by growing the government dramatically,” he said. “Then it gets misrepresented by people like yourself that say if you do this you're going to end up not funding education. That's the most irresponsible question.”

“You can't be duplicitous about this,” he added. “You can't make a representation and then claim you didn't make it. You know, it just shouldn't work that way. You've got to have some integrity on your side of this camera, too.”






MSNBC: Shuster Tweets "Inappropriate"



MSNBC may be obsessed with the four men arrested for trying to tamper with Sen. Mary Landrieu’s telephones, but the network says reporter David Shuster crossed the line when he attacked one of them via Twitter.

Just before leaving for New Orleans to cover the story, Shuster used a Twitter message to tell Conservative Filmmaker James O’Keefe — one of the four men arrested by the FBI — that he’s “not a journalist,” that he “intended to tap phones” and that he “will go to prison.”

“The comments were inappropriate,” an MSNBC spokesperson told POLITICO Thursday. “We have talked to David about them.”

Still, Shuster continues to cover the story for MSNBC. At 3 p.m. Thursday, he’s expected to interview Andrew Breitbart, who pays O’Keefe a salary and published his undercover anti-ACORN videos on his website Big Government.

MSNBC has been all over the arrests at Landrieu’s New Orleans office, dubbing the alleged attempt to tamper with the phones of the Democratic senator “PhoneGate” and “Bayou Break-In.”

On Wednesday night — when other news networks were focused on President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address — MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann devoted the first 20 minutes of “Countdown” to the Landrieu case.

In addition to speaking with Shuster from New Orleans, Olbermann talked with analyst Richard Wolffe and former Nixon counsel John Dean, famous for his role in the Watergate coverup.

Fox News, by contrast, has spent relatively little time on the story.

Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group, reports that Fox devoted roughly 4½-half minutes on O’Keefe’s arrest Tuesday during its evening and prime-time shows, while spending over an hour on the ACORN tapes when that story broke on Sept. 10.

It’s quite a contrast from last fall, when Fox gave loads of airtime to the undercover videos in which O’Keefe pretended to be a pimp seeking help from ACORN. The 25-year-old activist appeared on “Glenn Beck,” “Hannity” and “Fox & Friends” and was named the “Power Player of the Week” by Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

A Fox spokesperson did not return a request for comment.

Ari Rabin-Havt, vice president of research and communication for Media Matters, said that in addition to the airtime Fox gave the ACORN story, the network also allowed O’Keefe, Hannah Giles — who appeared as the prostitute in the undercover tapes — and Breitbart to talk up their legal defense fund.

Rabin-Havt said that given the amount of time Fox provided for what he considers an “unethical piece of journalism,” the network has “some culpability” for whatever O’Keefe may have done next.

But while Media Matters sees Fox as overhyping the first O’Keefe-related story, those on the other end of the political spectrum now see MSNBC giving too much play to the second.

Seton Motley, director of communications for the Media Research Center, said that MSNBC is “hyperventilating in their coverage” and that O’Keefe’s been “convicted in the court of Twitter by David Shuster.”

“I think what the MSNBCs of the world are trying to do is to undo what [O’Keefe] did to ACORN with this,” Motley said.

Breitbart also thinks the media have gone overboard.

“For those in the mainstream media committed to report the false and libelous narrative of ‘Watergate Jr.,’ ‘wiretapping’ and ‘bugging,’ I predict much egg on your J-school grad faces,” Breitbart wrote on his Big Journalism site.

Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, noted that the different levels of coverage between the ACORN story — presumably bad for liberals — and the O’Keefe arrest — presumably bad for conservatives — is just par for the course.

“One thing we’ve seen repeatedly on ideologically oriented shows, in cable and radio, is not only the ideology evident in how a subject is treated but whether a subject is covered,” he said.

During the campaign, Jurkowitz pointed out that Fox hosts Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity focused more on issues such as the controversy over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, while MSNBC hosts Olbermann and Rachel Maddow offered more coverage of issues relating to Sen. John McCain’s campaign tactics.

“If you were watching the Fox hosts or the MSNBC hosts, you’d be getting different subjects of the campaign covered,” Jurkowitz said. “You are getting in some ways a different world.”





Ed Schultz Curses Robert Gibbs: "Full Of Sh*t"


MSNBC host Ed Schultz is tearing into Robert Gibbs and the rest of President Barack Obama’s team, telling the White House press secretary that he is “full of sh—.”

Speaking at the progressive Blue State Bash event at the Minneapolis Convention Center on Saturday, Schultz relayed a combative exchange he had off the air with Gibbs, who last appeared on his program “The Ed Show” on Thursday.

“I know it’s being recorded, but I wasn’t told it was off the record,” Schultz said in a video posted on theuptake.org. “Mr. Gibbs and I had quite the conversation off the air the other night. I’m gonna tell ya, I told him he was full of sh—.”

“I did,” Schultz continued. “And then he gave me the Dick Cheney f-bomb the same way Sen. Leahy got it on the Senate floor. I told Robert Gibbs, I said: ‘And I’m sorry you’re swearing at me, but I’m just trying to help you out. I’m telling you you’re losing your base. Do you understand you’re losing your base?’”

Schultz set a fiery tone in the nearly 20-minute speech that eviscerated the Democratic Party for not listening to its progressive wing.

“We have to get these people who have infiltrated the Democratic progressive movement and get them the hell out,” Schultz boomed. “We are still in an ideological fight for this country.”

The liberal talk show host — who was asked by North Dakota Democrats to run for the Senate seat vacated by Sen. Byron Dorgan’s retirement — implored the audience to hold the Obama administration’s feet to the fire.

“We have to make sure President Obama gets the message: We’re with you, but you have to be with us,” he said. “If we don’t speak up and tell the White House they’re wrong right now, who will do it?”

Schultz also said that despite turning down an opportunity to run for the Senate, he would have used the same aggressive tone on the campaign trail.

“I want all of you to know that I am not running for the United States Senate,” he said. “But I also want you to know that if I did, I’d kick their ass.”

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.


Sources: MSNBC, Politico, Twitter, NY Mag.