Dylan Ratigan Protests 'Since When Is It My Job to Be a Democrat or a Republican?'
In a discussion with The Atlantic last week about "What I Read," Dylan Ratigan claimed he's unfairly typecast as a lefty just because he's on MSNBC:
One of my great frustrations with working in cable news is that the entire cable news infrastructure has been branded through partisan political lenses and so people assume that if you're on MSNBC you're left and if you're on Fox News you're right. There's no question that I'm painted as left because of the network I'm on. The branding precedes the talent in cable networking. Since when is it my job to be a Democrat or Republican? I recognize that both political parties are bought by six industries: energy, banking, health care, defense, agribusiness and communications.
So he sounds like Bill Moyers, but wants to be recognized as nonpartisan and objective. Welcome to the land of Major Media Poseurs, Mr. Ratigan! But too many remember gems like Ratigan tagging the Tea Party as pyromaniacs who want to "burn the whole town down" and then turned around and promoting Ted Rall on the need for a radical-left revolution, "perhaps even through violence." (Ratigan had a rough time with the 2010 electoral results.)
He should also open a few eyes with this line: "I don’t subscribe to any print media. I wouldn’t read a newspaper now unless you put a gun to my head and even then I would really try to negotiate with you. It’s not that I reject the content, it’s that I reject the format." He means that he reads papers like the New York Times online, but wouldn't dirty his fingertips with the On Dead Tree stuff.
Greg Pollowitz of National Review's Media Blog replied:
He rejects the format. Gotcha. And therein lies the problem, since it’s the format that pays for the way Ratigan and others like him consume their information. It also doesn’t help a newspaper such as the New York Times, which it still hasn’t figured out a way to keep people from accessing their online content for free, with its Maginot Line paywall.
I hope he realizes the format we will reject next is cable news. Personally, I haven’t found anything on any cable news channel helpful for years now. If I had Ratigan’s proverbial gun to my head and I had to choose between the New York Times and cable news as my source of information, I’d pick the Times, with all its faults.
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Comments
Oh Stop Whining!
Submitted by Bourbeau on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 11:44am.
You're an over priced talking head who decided he wanted to escape CNBC and is now part of one of the more sleazier cable networks. Grow-up Dylnan! When you sleep with dogs, don't complain about the fleas.
Your Problem Rati-dem......
Submitted by OldJarhead77 on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 1:59pm.
Is not the "Label" that anyone put on you its the Label that you put on yourself EVERYTIME you open your pie-hole. Thinking people Immediately know that your a WHINY PANTS WETTING LIBERAL!
it should not be your job
Submitted by ohio granny on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 11:52am.
But because it should not be your job does not mean you are not a partisan hack for the democrat party. It only takes listening to you for two minutes to know which side you are on. EVERYONE knows MSNBC is just another arm of the democrat party.
If you were indeed doing your job properly, it would not be so obvious that you are a democrat. Wonder why no one except the ignorant watch you. Wonder no more.
democrats = liars, cheats, crooks and hypocrites. Thugs and bullies too.
Dylan, buddy......
Submitted by adamsmith on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 11:52am.
I've seen you a couple of times on the Obamavision Channel, and you're another Commie or at best one of Lenin's useful idiots. There's nothing to the right of Communist about you, and your IQ looks to be around cretin level......
Well, Mr. Ratigan.....
Submitted by almostacowboy on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 11:57am.
When you say things like the TEA Party includes people who want "to kill blacks and Jews" and accuse the American justice system of being more abusive than the Chinese Communists we kind of put that together with the fact that you appear on the same network as other 'deep thinkers' on the Left like Tingles, Rick Maddow and Keith Obermann and some how we just come to the conclusion that while you may not be a Democrat, you certainly are not a 'little r' republican nor a conservative. Nor a very clear thinker, for that matter.
You'll just have to excuse us for associating you with the Progressive Liberal (Democrat) Party.
Since your parrot every talking point from Jay Carney's office..
Submitted by drsamherman on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 12:04pm.
...you are a Democrat, or at least a useful idiot for them. Do your level best to maintain the illusion of independence, Dylan, but at the end of the day it is not difficult to see where your loyalties are.
Well put, Tim
Submitted by Galvanic on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 12:07pm.
"So he sounds like Bill Moyers, but wants to be recognized as nonpartisan and objective."
It seems to be common with the MSNBCers. Not long ago, Rachel Maddow ran promotional advertisements with her voice over declaring that it was not her goal to push an agenda, "but as an activist," it was her role to make sense of a complex world.
If you were not a partisan...
Submitted by USMC8411 on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 12:06pm.
o'bama flack, you would not be working at msdnc! Has Ratigan presented "fast and furious" to his viewers? No? Hmmm...
Has he kept up the anti Murdoch charge his left wing partisan network push to avoid fast and furious? Yup. Hmmm...
Has he called out mahr for that vulgar attack on Bachmann and Santorum? Yeah, right.
Right down the middle, just like o'bama throwing out a first pitch!!!
Ratigan, you're just another
Submitted by Beukeboom on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 12:21pm.
Ratigan, you're just another uber-lib. You can't hide it.
Why
Submitted by grammajane on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 12:23pm.
Why is it that Libs don't want to admit to who they really are?? Why don't they admit how they praise and fawn over a president who is trying to take America down? Does one ever see these libs saying anything positive....no, all they do is bash American's who don't go along with their radical agendas. They remain mean, make fun of American's and are always angry and negative. A bunch of ugly faces and mean spirited blabber mouths. Guess, I wouldn't want to admit I am a lib either.
Actually, I agree with Ratigan, as he is doing a fine job of...
Submitted by Dave. on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 12:25pm.
...being a communist.
He probably doesn't have time for anything else.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
Does Ratigan personally know of anyone...
Submitted by USMC8411 on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 12:33pm.
Who voted for Nixon?
Dylan: When you swim in a cesspool of dung, you smell like dung. You are free to try and convince the world that you smell like a rose, but "at the end of the day" you are known by the turds that you swim with.
It's a duck thing
Submitted by dreamsincolor on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 2:24pm.
quacks, walks, talks, works with, works for, votes for and sides with...
He's a duck. Oh, and a self deluded DA.
Ratigan did have some interesting points:
Submitted by Red Jeep on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 3:08pm.
Ratigan wrote that what he reads/watches "...puts me in a situation where I can differentiate between what's actually happening and the blowhard news cycle of fear-monger manipulation and self-indulgent garbage. For instance, you hear a lot of talk on the debt ceiling about how disastrous it's going to be. The nice thing about having access to the financial markets is you can see how full of crap the political media is. If America was not going to pay its debts then the yield on the ten-year bond rate would be 14 percent. It's under 3 percent now. It's a joke. The whole thing's a charade. The debt limit itself is invented. It's like a really strict curfew your parents can and will remove at any time, which is not to say that America's debt is insignificant.
Outside of the financial markets, there's very little penalty for having false information. Whereas in the financial universe, the punishment for false information is severe and irrevocable: you lose all your money. Good information matters and bad information is dangerous. So when a politician or political journalist asserts anything it's always a good idea to check the asset prices that would be affected. "Oh my God, we're going to default on our debt? That must mean America's ten-year bond must be out of whack!" Oh it's not? Then I guess they're full of fucking shit.
Bold. mine.
You can put a gun to my head
Submitted by jessieH on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 3:23pm.
You can put a gun to my head &n pull the trigger, before I will believe any "journalist" isn't on the take, a sellout to the Nation they live in.
?
Submitted by mawendt on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 3:35pm.
Dylan who...?
I like most of his songs....
Submitted by bigdaddy on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 4:10pm.
...but his voice is like chalkboard fingernails...
What?....Oh....Nevermind....
Check out Ratigan's interview
Submitted by Jer on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 5:13pm.
Check out Ratigan's interview with Tom Coburn yesterday [there's an accompanying transcript]. It's hard to evision a Sean Hannity, for example, being as solicitous toward and as open to the suggestions of a Nancy Pelosi.
Jer
Alan Colmes---
Submitted by matthewdean on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 5:55pm.
strikes again.
MD
More brilliant insight from NB's own
Submitted by Jer on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 6:00pm.
Michael Savage.
Jer
Yeah, well, Jer---
Submitted by matthewdean on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 6:44pm.
I ain't a liberal Democrat on a conservative site who is posting in the 99% percentile range of supporting and defending liberal BS.
Alan Colmes may indeed make you nauseous, Jer, but describe to me, exactly, how you and Colmes differ in your presentations?
MD
I don't have my head wedged
Submitted by Jer on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 6:59pm.
I don't have my head wedged half way up Hannity's rear end.
Jer
Gee Jer--
Submitted by Redrowan2000 on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 7:13pm.
I just can't "evision" that. Unless it's something your really looking forward to.
"Don't let the bastards grind you down."
All together now, boys and girls---
Submitted by matthewdean on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 7:16pm.
can you say, "Uncle Jer dodged the question"? :o)
MD