By Derek Hunter
Thursday, January 09, 2014
Hosting a daily talk radio show means I have to follow
the news regularly. It’s my job. Luckily it’s also what I love doing and have
been doing since high school. But lately it has seemed more like work because,
to find news, you have to sift through a lot of garbage and uninformed
opinions.
I’ve been called a lot in my life. Most is accurate if
not suitable for print. But nothing elicits a faster response from me than to
be called “journalist.” I am not a journalist, I am a columnist. It’s an
important distinction that used to exist but that seems to blur more each day –
to the detriment of a well-informed population.
That’s why I take issue with what my friend Matt Lewis
recently wrote at the Daily Caller. Lewis says conservatives should be actively
promoting young policy wonks of their own to combat what’s happening at MSNBC.
But what’s happening at MSNBC is an unmitigated disaster, not only for ratings,
but for blurring the line between journalism and simply making stuff up.
Blame this on cable news. The 24-hour news cycle means
all of the networks must do more in less time than ever before. As a result,
journalistic integrity has suffered some at all the networks, but none more so
than MSNBC.
Even MSNBC used to fill the time with politicians and
newsmakers in Washington talking about the news of the day, coupled with
participants in news stories from around the country.
More importantly, MSNBC was a place where journalists
possessed first-hand information and institutional knowledge of the organizations
they were covering. The congressional reporters, for instance, had experience
actually covering Congress. They had cultivated sources, broken stories and
earned credibility.
Over time, as their credibility accrued, they moved to
the “pundit” side of the news, where they offered insights based on experience
and an insider’s perspective of the day’s happenings.
They may have had an agenda, but they also had inside
information. And their motivation was to deliver the truth. And that enabled
them to earn respect, sources and credibility on both sides.
That day is done.
Cable news today has gone from a source of reliable
information to a pep rally for an agenda – facts be damned. Sure, it may appeal
to younger people to some degree, but that veil of lies is easily peeled back
by anyone who dares to stray from the MSNBC uniformity-of-thought plantation.
Facts remain the antidote to progressive lies, and
journalism and legitimate punditry the kryptonite of the progressive echo
chamber – regardless of the age of the person on the screen.
But MSNBC doesn’t go that route. Its airtime is occupied
not by journalists with solid credentials and impeccable integrity but by
children offering their opinions of the work of real journalists. They have no
more credibility, no more track record of integrity, no more reason to take
their opinions seriously than the weird drunk guy at the end of your local bar.
MSNBC’s “star,” as it is, is Rachel Maddow. But Maddow’s
background isn’t in journalism, it’s in public policy. She’s an activist, which
is perfectly fine. But she, at least according to both her Wikipedia page and
her NBC website bio, has no real world experience that would give her any
insight or perspective into what she advocates for other than having read books
and talked to people about it. She pontificates with the authority of the NBC
News brand without anything beyond the theoretical as a first-hand basis for
it. (Naturally, she’s been showered with awards from her fellow liberal
“journalist” types, in spite of having a record of “difficulty” with facts.)
Maddow has been doing this for a while, so she at least
has a base of knowledge from which to draw. But the “future” of MSNBC is a
kiddie pool that is a mile-wide and an inch deep.
MSNBC has a show called “The Cycle” which is hosted by a
string of unaccomplished nobodies who, taken together or separately, display a
massive lack of credibility.
Touré Neblett, who seems to a taken a tip from Madonna
and ditched his last name, has a background in privileged private school,
writing about music and working as a “cultural critic,” which seems to be
limited to crying racism with every exhale. Compelling.
Krystal Ball’s only accomplishment is an embarrassing
loss in a failed run for Congress. Honestly, that seems to be it. After that,
Ball started appearing on cable news as a “Democratic Consultant,” which is
code for “we could book them easily.” Fascinating.
Abby Huntsman is the attractive daughter of former Utah
Gov. Jon Huntsman. I’ve just listed her entire professional career before
entering the media. I wish I were joking, but I’m not. She’s the child of an
incredibly wealthy liberal Republican, she calls herself a Republican, but like
Meghan McCain, doesn’t seem to understand anything about it. Enthralling.
Ari Melber is an anomaly on the show (and the network).
He has actually worked in government and written about it for some time. That’s
why, even though I disagree with him, his insights are at least informed by
experience.
The contributors at MSNBC are a clown car’s worth of
unaccomplished, fresh-faced buffoons given credibility by proxy.
Joy-Ann Reid is managing editor of The Grio, a regular on
MSNBC and an occasional panelist on Meet the Press. The Grio bills itself as
“the first video-centric news community site devoted to providing African
Americans with stories and perspectives that appeal to them but are
underrepresented in existing national news outlets.” I didn’t realize news had
a race, but then I’m not a progressive. The Grio is also owned by NBC News,
which explains why someone with no real first hand knowledge of which she
speaks would be on Meet the Press. Cross promotion is big at NBC News now. It
also explains why Meet the Press has become the basement dweller in Sunday show
ratings.
Ronan Farrow is the son of Mia Farrow and either Woody
Allen or Frank Sinatra or someone else (when the list of possible fathers grows
past one, who can tell?). His work history involves landing a job with his
mom’s friend – it just so happens his mom is friends with Hillary Clinton.
Being born to famous parents and having worked in the State Department under
possibly the worst Secretary of State in history has qualified Farrow for his
own show on MSNBC, starting soon. You really can’t make this stuff up.
Then there’s Washington Post “wunderkind Ezra Klein.
Klein’s background includes working on Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign in Vermont
(that worked out well) and blogging at various left-wing outfits. With that on
his resume, how could he not be a star? Klein revels in lecturing people who’ve
studied their fields for decades with the arrogance found only in people who’ve
never done it, and falls on his face often.
But he’s still presented as credible by both the Post and
MSNBC because he works for them. To be clear: Ezra Klein does not work at the
Washington Post and MSNBC because he has any level of credibility, he has what
little credibility he does because he works at The Washington Post and MSNBC.
That’s the antithesis of how media used to work and the real world works
outside of media.
The same goes for all of these people and most of MSNBC’s
on-air “talent.”
The only thing they have going for them, and the only
reason any of them are on TV, is they don’t make you want to vomit when you look
at them, on mute at least. Had any of them had to work their way up through the
ranks of the news business they may well have become someone with a base of
knowledge and experience worthy of being taken seriously.
That’s why I take issue with my friend Matt Lewis and his
belief that conservatives should promote their own young wonk talent. Let them
season, let them accomplish and earn their way. It’s already happening some at
Fox News, and to a lesser degree CNN, and I hope it stops. The key to appealing
to younger Americans isn’t having an uninformed person their own age
regurgitating talking points with their own oh-so-wise-and-snarky “spin.” It’s
having people who’ve been there and know what they’re talking about tell them
in a non-stuffed-shirt way.
Cream, as the old saying goes, rises to the top. But
MSNBC and progressive punditry prove what I’ve been saying for years; Yes,
cream rises to the top, but sometimes crap floats too.
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