Over the past few years I have been drawn to MSNBC and the manner in which they present political news and commentary. After Bernie Shaw left CNN I gravitated to MSNBC, and found a new all-news network home. The style of political coverage on MSNBC is not only informative, but also punchy and driven by the fact that politics is an edgy business, and so the coverage should match it. So when MSNBC advertises that they are the ”place for politics” they back it up by delivering every day the type of crisp reporting and analysis that most political junkies thrive on.
The fact that the network has a 46% increase in viewers from a year ago seems proof that what they do has an audience. And might I add, also an advertising base that is growing. The mix of news and opinion from the show anchors are not so much partisan, as polished analysis with an edge that bites. If it bites the ‘opponent’ viewers applaud, but if it bites ‘our’ candidate viewers tend to cry foul. And lately it is the Democrats who seen to be crying the loudest. Frankly, I had no idea there were so many fragile Democrats until this year.
I am more than perplexed by the often-nasty tirades that some Democrats and liberals have over how Chris Matthews and the MSNBC team present the day-to-day presidential campaign coverage. To try and paint Matthews as anything other than a political junkie who loves history, and is fascinated by the personalities and issues that are the central ingredients for the mix that is a presidential election, is just pure bunk. To pretend that Matthews is sexist is to play into the Clinton campaign book, and remove the facts from the political storm that was all designed to assist the New York Senator.
I prefer a passionate personality that has institutional knowledge (Chris worked for Speaker Tip O’Neil) and understands a time when honor and politics were not exclusive of each other. A time when it was OK to speak kindly of the other party and candidates even though not sharing their beliefs and philosophy. Matthews knows that it is his job to go after each political party and personality, and get the story that is separate from the spin that so many of his guests would prefer to recite. Be it the Scooter Libby issue, or the way that the Iraq War was sold to the public, Chris Matthews proves he is a pit bull. To pretend however that he is not fair with the facts is just plain wrong.
I have heard him speak about sitting at his breakfast table with all the morning newspapers, and talking over the headlines and issues with his wife each morning. I think it would be great to have a long morning conversation with Matthews at that table and drink coffee with him and better learn what makes him tick. But I know through it all he lends to his topics a boyish fascination with the political process, along with the excited fast talking of a man who has many ideas about the headlines of the day. I know exactly how he feels, and so I support him when he comes under unfair attack.
“Media Matters”seems to have created a cottage industry of beating up Chris Matthews. I have to wonder how seasoned these writers are, and how many decades of institutional memory of presidential politics they bring with them to the hatchet job they do on Chris Matthews. Everybody needs a shtick.
On one occasion this hit squad tore into Matthews about his many questions in 2007 over the Clinton marriage.
One of Matthews’ favorite topics is Clinton’s marriage. After The New York Times ran an article purporting to count the number of nights the Clintons spend together, Matthews’ imagination ran wild, and the MSNBC host couldn’t get the Clintons’ marital life out of his mind. At one point, Media Matters counted 90 separate questionsMatthews asked guests about the topic during seven separate programs; the number undoubtedly grew after we stopped counting. In the middle of one of Matthews’ bouts of obsessive speculation about how often the Clintons are “together in the same roof overnight, if you will,” Washington Post reporter Lois Romano asked him, “[W]hat is your obsession with logistics here?” In response, Matthews snapped at her: “Because I’m talking to three reporters, and I’m trying to get three straight answers, so I don’t want attitude about this. It’s a point of view — I want facts. Tell me what the facts are, Lois, if you know them. If you don’t, I don’t know what you’re arguing about.”
To read Media Matters one might think Matthews was obsessed with Hillary Clinton, or out to damage her politically. What was not mentioned of course was that the New York Times article was a long front page above the fold story on this topic, and Matthews sensed a bigger ‘understory’ and used his guests as a way to find out more on “Hardball”. Everyone should know at Media Matters that what launches a story of this type to land on page one of a major daily has a foundation which only might be fully known to the editor and journalists involved. Therefore, the object is to hunt the full story down. What propelled the story? Matthews tried to find out, and would we want less as an audience? Not me.
Perhaps one of the reasons that I find MSNBC a great place to watch politics, is that I read and watch a great deal about politics and this campaign, so I am not turning to the network for only the ‘who, what, where, and when’ of the story. I tune to MSNBC to understand the ‘why’ of the political news, and get a variety of views and perspectives. And they deliver it!
But I fear that some Democrats tune in to MSNBC just to get lathered up about something that has no foundation.
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