"Pick any Orwellian nickname you want: the Ministry of Truth, the Department of Agitation and Propaganda, but don’t dare call MSNBC a news organization," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell snarked in a statement released this morning. "No legitimate news outlet spends 85 percent of its airtime pushing leftist commentary. Pravda would be proud."
The Media Research Center founder was reacting to a new Pew survey showing that the "Lean Forward" network devotes just 15 percent of its air time actually reporting news. The rest is far-left-leaning commentary. The network is "deeply unserious" and doesn't deserve to be listed in any cable systems "news" category. "They’ve Lean[ed] Forward right off the cliff of credibility. What a farce," Bozell concluded.
Also of note is that a separate survey by Forbes found that MSNBC spends the least among its competitors on hard news reporting, shelling out a measly $240 million in 2012 to produce news while CNN spent $682 million and Fox outspent both by committing $820 million to its straight news coverage.
