Baltimore Sun Critic: 'MSNBC Paying For Its Olbermann Sins'

Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik argued on his blog at the Sun website on September 8 that MSNBC was "paying for its Olbermann sins." Zurawik wrote that while CNN was earning a reputation for middle-of-the-road hard-news journalism, MSNBC was undermining the reputation of NBC News with Keith's "propaganda and ideological bombast." Conservative complaints don't stick against CNN:

But the attacks on CNN have largely failed, because Jon Klein, the cable channel's president, has insisted that his reporters and anchors report stories and do interviews by "playing it straight down the middle," as he has termed it in recent interviews with me.

MSNBC, on the other hand, has all but abandoned a journalism of facts and verification in favor of propaganda and ideological bombast with Olbermann -- and now, Air America's Rachel Maddow. And the cable channel has become no better than Fox News on the right with Bill O'Reilly.

The great danger is that MSNBC's move to the left has already done damage to the NBC News brand it shares by nature of such first-rate and balanced journalists as David Gregory appearing there on a regular basis.

This Presidential election is a once-in-lifetime political event with audiences measured in the tens of millions, and it looks like MSNBC has blown its chance to be a credible and trusted source of news and information by letting Olbermann rule the roost.

I think the cable channel executives have made a big mistake -- and one that is ultimately going to hurt NBC in the corporate pocketbook. Replacing Olbermann and Matthews with Gregory was an excellent choice, but it might be too late.

The first commenter was upset: "I have to object with comparing Olbermann and Maddow to the Fox team. Olbermann and Maddow may have their opinions, but they don't stretch or manipulate the truth, and they certainly don't lie." That's apparently a Fox News specialty.  

Zurawik followed that with a post suggesting PBS omnipresence Bill Moyers is the "Olbermann of PBS," not someone who should be associated with straight-news figures like Jim Lehrer:

I have been troubled during the year by PBS promotional messages for its election coverage that groups Moyers with Jim Lehrer, Gwen Ifil and other PBS journalists.

Lehrer is the dean of network anchors, and he personifies the best of a journalism built on presenting verified facts along with informed and balanced discussion to viewers in hopes that they will be able to make solid decisions about their lives. Ditto for Ifill.

Like Olbermann and Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, Moyers is a political ideologue and propagandist. He is not a journalist. I spent a lot of time with him when I profiled him for Esquire magazine in 1989, and in 19 years, he has only become more political.

That's okay, but PBS of all news organizations should not be presenting him as a journalist -- especially at this time when the nation is coming to public television for information on the most important vote many of us will cast in our lifetimes.

I know the PBS ombudsman has been wrestling with complaints about Moyers, but it is time for PBS to go beyond handwringing and make the distinction clear to its audience in the way that MSNBC is trying to do.

One commenter took issue form the right, suggesting why is it "okay" for Moyers to be a propagandist on public television? "Isn't it against their charter or something?" Yes, it would seem opposed to the original language of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which expressed the need for objectivity and balance "in all programming of a controversial nature," but the spirit behind that provision has never been seriously followed inside PBS over the last 40 years.

I would suggest that there is greater difference in tone between Moyers and Lehrer than there is between Olbermann and say, David Gregory shouting  in the White House briefing room. Lehrer and his show (and his debate moderating) is liberal in its news judgment, but without any self-indulgent editorializing.