The Corsair
MSNBC Wants Its Hosts To Be “Opinionated But Not Edgy." And: On the Eve of Election Day
MSNBC Wants Its Hosts To Be “Opinionated But Not Edgy”
Comcast, which owns MSNBC’s parent company NBCUniversal, has got to get its head in the game for the existential battle that Progressives are waging against the right over the democracy that allows their company to make some good money. The problem is that Comcast Corporation is a global media and technology company, which tend to eschew edgy content in favor of an easy relationship with advertisers. More yacht rock; less hip-hop.
Global media and technology companies tend to be allergic to “edge.” Tiffany Cross is more than a little edgy in that she is not above using adult language in the gladiatorial fundament against an enemy — the far-right — that might just break our democracy. Semafor’s Max Tani notes:
Cross’s involuntary departure from the liberal network reflects a deep tension that has become more pronounced without President Donald Trump to serve as a unifying programming force.
MSNBC’s ratings depend on its delivering a progressive point of view to its liberal audience, which has for years boosted primetime hosts like Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell.
But the network also has another less explicit expectation for its hosts: Be nice.
The rule at the network since Trump’s departure from office has been to avoid snark and bombast — much less the combination of the two that conservatives respond to from Tucker Carlson.
Comcast executives have never been completely comfortable with some of the network’s more pugnacious hosts. A prominent executive at Comcast, which owns MSNBC’s parent company NBCUniversal, said privately recently that they saw MSNBC’s goal as cultivating an “opinionated but not edgy” stable of on-air personalities.
That wasn’t Cross. Just hours before she was fired by MSNBC, the host called Florida the “dick of the country” and said it should be “castrated.” That comment did not sit well with Jones, according to one person familiar with her thinking. But Cross isn’t the only host in recent years to make executives nervous. Network higher-ups expressed discomfort with hosts Mehdi Hassan and Ayman Mohyeldin for their coverage of an outbreak of violence between Israel and Palestine in May of 2021.
“Opinionated but not edgy”? That sounds, to be quite frank, like a disturbingly corporate approach in the hour of the wolf. With all due respect to Stephanie Rhule, Brian Williams and Nicole Wallace, the rise of the far-right — as philosophically disturbing as it is to that trio of perfectly wonderful on-air personalities — has far graver consequences for hosts like Tiffany Cross or Mehdi Hassan. The rise of the far right is an existential battle for African-Americans and to practicing Muslims. This is not a fight with Marquess of Queensberry Rules, Comcast. As the President said in Union Station, democracy is on the ballot! Especially so for hosts like Tiffany and Mehdi.
If Comcast wants to counter the encroaching authoritarian threat to communities of color with “opinionated but not edgy” programming, perhaps they should consider poaching Chris Licht, who appears to have excised all aspects of “edge” since leaving the Colbert show. Let the viewers know, Comcast, if you are going to go the CNN route of essentially “political yacht rock,” so that we can find alternative, more combative sources in the coming days for the battle for the heart and soul of America.
Thank you!
On The Eve of Election Day
So — here we are.
At last.
On the cusp of an Election Day in which our Democracy is in jeopardy, things are, still, too close to call. In many of the most crucial Senate, House and Gubernatorial races, the difference is within the statistical margin of error.
That it is this close on the day before is more than a little scary. Also, that fact that the Democrats have been ceding an increasing percentage of the non-college working class vote — particularly white — since the ascendance of Trump to the Republican Party is alarming. Is the Democrat Party becoming the party of college graduates? Because the majority of Americans do not have a college degree.
Of course I know that the Democrat Party is the party of cheaper hearing aids, of protecting Social Security and Medicare, of capping out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 a month and setting higher standards under Medicare for nursing homes. I know these are the legislative priorities of the Democrat Party. But the hideous strength of the other side, to divert the attention of the working class to culture issues is just astonishing. That it is this close still is breathtaking.
The Spanberger-Vega race in Blue(ish) Virginia is a good example of how close things are. Virginia’s new 7th District is about as competitive a Congressional bellwether as there is out on the campaign trail. “One of the more closely contested races in the country is taking place in this historic colonial town about an hour south of Washington, D.C. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), the centrist former CIA agent who in 2018 flipped Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District, which had been run by the GOP for all of the 21st century, is facing a strong challenge from Yesli Vega, a police officer and sheriff’s deputy for Prince William County who is the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants,” writes Jarod Facundo in The American Prospect. The constituents are as educated and wealthy as any district in America; they are largely government workers with great pensions that should be immune to the party of January 6th — and yet. The race, dead center in Youngkin’s Virginia, had a five point spread in August in favor of the Democrat, and now it is a statistical dead heat.
Ron Brownstein in The Atlantic does a good job explaining what we have to lose, in Education, on Abortion, on Guns, on Election Integrity and on LGBTQ issues, if the GOP wins state houses, the House and Senate:
Over the past two years, the 23 states where Republicans hold unified control of the governorship and state legislature have approved the most aggressive wave of socially conservative legislation in modern times. In highly polarizing battles across the country, GOP-controlled states have passed laws imposing new restrictions on voting, banning or limiting access to abortion, retrenching LGBTQ rights, removing licensing and training requirements for concealed carry of firearms, and censoring how public-school teachers (and in some cases university professors and even private employers) can talk about race, gender, and sexual orientation.
With much less attention, Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate have introduced legislation to write each of these red-state initiatives into federal law. The practical effect of these proposals would be to require blue states to live under the restrictive social policies that have burned through red states since President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. “I think the days of fealty [to states’ rights] are nearing an end, and we are going to see the national Republicans in Congress adopting maximalist policy approaches,” Peter Ambler, the executive director of Giffords, a group that advocates for stricter gun control, told me.
It is late in the day. In the last week, Democrats have done an admirable job in steering the Titanic away from focusing on the Fate of Democracy, which is of infinite importance, but has less visceral impact on the working class, who are being hammered by Inflation. Former President Obama was a good surrogate in Wisconsin and Georgia; Hillary was a good surrogate in embattled New York. It is time now for the last pitch of closing arguments and then the big wait ...
In these last hours of campaigning, aside from the necessary stressing which party is better for the working class on Guns and the Economy, it would probably be a smart strategy for Democrats to mention — as much as possible — the many GOP candidates that have NOT committed to accepting the election results (Kari Lake, anyone?). I've not focus tested it, but it seems to me that candidates that will not commit to accepting the results of the election tomorrow might particularly turn off suburban moms, who have an acute sense of fair play and will probably determine the outcome of these elections.
-Jen Psaki’s next chapter: Cable talking head. (VF)
Whoopi Goldberg quits the “grotty, libertarian hellscape.” (THR)
Affirmative Action, The Supreme Court and Asian-Americans. (TNY)
Five Statehouses where Democrats maye take control. (TNR)
Twitter’s ex-Election Chief is worried about the elections. (WIRED)
Pollsters have no F*ing idea what is going to happen this election. (TDB)
-Is it anti-democratic to defend democracy? (Osita Nwanevu)
Africa moves towards trade block with the Caribbean. (SEMAFOR)