The "S" in MSNBC is for "Shill"

William Haskins · Aug 4, 2009

Richard Wolffe used to be a Newsweek reporter, but now he's a strategist at PR firm Public Strategies. On Friday he guest-hosted MSNBC's Countdown. His first topic: how awesome healthcare reform is. Guess what his clients think of healthcare reform?

Glenn Greenwald, Talking Points Memo, and others have taken MSNBC to task for giving Wolffe a platform as a regular "analyst"—and on Friday as guest host—when his day job is as a paid shill for Public Strategies, a lobbying and public relations firm run by former Bush flack Dan Bartlett that "manages public perceptions" for corporate clients.

But the complaints are vague unless you can catch Wolffe talking about issues—and therefore managing perceptions—on MSNBC's air that Public Strategies' clients are actually invested in. And it looks to us like he did just that on Friday, when he opened his guest-host gig with a segment on healthcare reform that included a softball interview with White House senior adviser David Axelrod and a segment with the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson. Here's a sample question Wolffe lobbed at Robinson:
"f more Americans understood that Medicare was government-run, government-sponsored, socialized, quote-unquote, "health care," could the whole debate look pretty different about now?

http://gawker.com/5329103/msnbc-the-place-for-publicists

Diana Hignutt · Aug 4, 2009

The more I learn about how interconnected the gov, the media, the lobbiests, big business, and fundamental religion are, the more it seems the answer is to start over.

Don · Aug 4, 2009

Welcome to the dark side, Diana.

dclary · Aug 4, 2009

Your headline is hardly news, Haskins.

Welcome to the revolution, Diana. Get a gun while you still can.

lucidzfl · Aug 4, 2009

Diana Hignutt said:
The more I learn about how interconnected the gov, the media, the lobbiests, big business, and fundamental religion are, the more it seems the answer is to start over.

of all of those, fundamentalist religion is the only one which truly scares me.

no place in govt at all.

BenPanced · Aug 4, 2009

Remember the glory days when MSNBC was first on the air and being touted as the alternative to both CNN and Faux News?

Yeah, me, neither.

Diana Hignutt · Aug 4, 2009

dclary said:
Welcome to the revolution, Diana. Get a gun while you still can.

What do you recommend? Something semi-automatic, I presume?

lucidzfl · Aug 4, 2009

Diana Hignutt said:
What do you recommend? Something semi-automatic, I presume?

You can still apply for fully automatic if you register it with the atf. At least until obama says u cant

Don · Aug 4, 2009

Unless you'll be practicing regularly, a revolver is better than a semi-auto. For CQB, a Mossberg is also handy, and if you need to reach out and touch someone, an AK/SKS would be a worthwhile addition.

Plus points accrue if you can find ones that aren't in the registry.

lucidzfl · Aug 4, 2009

Don said:
Unless you'll be practicing regularly, a revolver is better than a semi-auto. For CQB, a Mossberg is also handy, and if you need to reach out and touch someone, an AK/SKS would be a worthwhile addition.

Plus points accrue if you can find ones that aren't in the registry.

When I buy guns ,I always do person to person purchases.

I have never bought a weapon from a licensed store.

Roger J Carlson · Aug 4, 2009

Diana Hignutt said:
The more I learn about how interconnected the gov, the media, the lobbiests, big business, and fundamental religion are, the more it seems the answer is to start over.

You missed labor unions and advocacy groups.

Diana Hignutt · Aug 4, 2009

lucidzfl said:
When I buy guns ,I always do person to person purchases.

I have never bought a weapon from a licensed store.

Now we're talkin!

Diana Hignutt · Aug 4, 2009

Roger J Carlson said:
You missed labor unions and advocacy groups.

You're absolutely correct. My mistake. They're in the cabal of evil too.

lucidzfl · Aug 4, 2009

Diana Hignutt said:
Now we're talkin!

I don't know how it is in other states, but in Florida, you can legally purchase a weapon from another individual as long as you record their social security number, copy down their drivers license info, and they give you a reciept detailing the purchase of the weapon and sign it.

All of this can be handwritten mind you.

That makes it very easy to get a gun. Of course if you found out it was used in a crime, thats bad, but they'd go after the seller. Worst the buyer would face is a subpoena to testify if something was really bad.

I do not like the idea of the government tracking what weapons I have.

The freaking criminals get the guns even easier. The laws ONLY make it hard for law abiding citizens to acquire.

ColoradoGuy · Aug 4, 2009

No surprises there. He's already published a pretty gushy book about Obama and his interviews on Olbermann have always been more advocacy than reporting.

lucidzfl · Aug 4, 2009

ColoradoGuy said:
No surprises there. He's already published a pretty gushy book about Obama and his interviews on Olbermann have always been more advocacy than reporting.

This just in.

Facts bore. Opinion sells.

whistlelock · Aug 4, 2009

Is this better or worse than Fox News during the Bush administration?

Roger J Carlson · Aug 4, 2009

whistlelock said:
Is this better or worse than Fox News during the Bush administration?

Yes.

Romantic Heretic · Aug 4, 2009

As I said in another forum today, television journalism was doomed the second it was changed from a service provided to the public into a profit center for the networks.

Bird of Prey · Aug 4, 2009

Wow. Since when did the media acting as an agent for a liberal or conservative agenda become news? Is this any more radical than O'Reilly? Am I missing something?

The networks do this and there's nothing we can do to stop it other than shut down free speech, so uh, why is this particular episode so important?

MacAllister · Aug 4, 2009

May I just bookmark this thread as an example to point at, when next I'm accused of ruthlessly quashing political opinions that run contrary to my own?

Heh. "Buy a gun while you still can" indeed.

mscelina · Aug 4, 2009

*hands Mac a tomahawk*

here, hon. Maybe this will work better.

By the way, folks--this isn't television journalism. There is no journalism involved. This is precisely what it appears to be (and which every other major media outlet has)--op ed for the purposes of pushing a specific platform(s). In journalism there is no profit; there are only facts. Profit is all in the op ed--and it makes it so much easier for people who are unaware of the differences to cite an op ed as 'fact' and thus swallow it unthinkingly when it is presented under a format that most people would, at first glance, consider to be journalism.

dclary · Aug 4, 2009

MacAllister said:
May I just bookmark this thread as an example to point at, when next I'm accused of ruthlessly quashing political opinions that run contrary to my own?

Heh. "Buy a gun while you still can" indeed.

I suppose renting's an option too.

MacAllister · Aug 4, 2009

in the interest of full disclosure I feel obligated to point out that, no matter how much damage it might do my image here, this is me:

errr....

And so is this:

But neither weapon belongs to me, if it helps any...?

William Haskins · Aug 4, 2009

Bird of Prey said:
The networks do this and there's nothing we can do to stop it other than shut down free speech, so uh, why is this particular episode so important?

so it's shut down free speech or nothing?

no. market forces and public disapproval should be leveraged to force news networks to either not hire as hosts people gainfully employed in lobbying for an agenda that they will be discussing on the show, or disclose such relationships as part of the program.

if a guest is an "expert" from the heritage foundation or a lobbyist for the AARP, it will be right there in text, across the screen as they speak.

that's not shutting down free speech. that's mitigating the deception of a lobbyist tossing softballs and controlling the conversation about an issue that they are actively engaged in promotion.

The "S" in MSNBC is for "Shill"

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