Is Rachel Maddow “all in” for Hillary?
As a primetime cable news watcher, it’s sad to see loyal viewers (like me) lose respect for The Rachel Maddow Show. The decline hastened since the acquisition of MSNBC by Comcast. The channel was never very progressive overall — it’s daytime line-up is a cavalcade of establishment bobbleheads chasing the same predictable headlines-du-jour.
But MSNBC did hire some legit progressive stars. Maddow, Chris Hayes and Steve Kornacki all made their bones reporting what no one else would. Lawrence O’Donnell has moments too, an impressive on air presence. These anchors are cable TV’s “liberal” voices, but what makes them most valuable is when they do actual journalism in the public interest and get stuff on the air.
HIJACKED MEDIA: Along with the NY Times, Huffington Post and most major media, MSNBC began selling “branded content” in 2013. Hired by natural gas and GMO producers, MSNBC started blurring the lines between news, advocacy, corporate partnerships and paid advertising. Noticeably, Rachel stopped mentioning fracking and never discussed GMOs on TV, even when it was “news” on her own MaddowBlog. They’re also allergic to mentioning the TPP, which former host Ed Schultz knows all about.
You could almost see the gears spinning as Rachel would work around a corporate muzzle, doing other big stories about other fossil fuel polluters, or write a book on the side to practice actual journalism.
But then, primary season arrived. Almost instantly, Melissa Harris-Perry was out, or in her words “disappeared”, as senior executive staff assumed control of her programming. Harris-Perry left with head held high, revealing to Amy Goodman how her bosses only wanted “horse race” reporting.
Maddow, on the other hand, was promoted — she was already the election night QB calling the horse race, but now she was a prominent debate and town hall moderator, with multiple exclusive Hillary, Obama and Bernie interviews. Did she ever do a segment on the pros and cons of single payer healthcare? How about a comparison of Hillary and Bernie’s tax plans?
As the primaries unfolded, Maddow started to editorialize on the air. But was it her, or is it coming from the earpiece? We’ll never know — the typical media contract imposes a lifetime gag on any behind-the-scenes intrigue. Dan Rather knows how tough it is to tell the truth to the public once the networks haul you into court.
Democracy suffers as connected media manipulators shape elections for pre-anointed candidates. Specifically, MSNBC squelches mention of election fraud or improprieties going back years. They blacked-out Bernie coverage for months, until his crowds became too enormous to ignore. Just this week, they cut off a live Bernie speech just as he was mentioning the media and “corporate greed”.
I picture Maddow, Hayes or Steve Kornacki in the back office pitching stories they know are crucial to the public interest, only to be censored and redirected, reminded who they work for and the binding terms of their non-disclosure agreements. Harris-Perry argued for “hours” over a story idea in her last days, saying an MSNBC heavy named Chris Peña ultimately vetoed her.
These sharp, wonky journalists were “captured” by MSNBC. They are not bad people either. It’s because they were effective muckrakers that they were hired — to make sure that they DON’T report on certain stories.
NBC, MSNBC owned by Comcast mega-conglomerate
Having your own news agency means you can sculpt your own reality. As you sell ads and hire “contributors”, you can decide what’s in or out of “the news” based on corporate whim. You have dark money PACs buying time, guests straight out of astroturf shops, and major DC lobbyist influence all going into the soup.
THE LURE: Who could turn down the prestige, the money and the visibility of a primetime cable anchor spot? These MSNBC “wonks” became powerful on-air voices at a time when rational, unbought discourse is rare. But not powerful enough to save us from a rigged economy, rigged elections, and deception in media. This sweet spot is just where Comcast, the biggest player in cable TV, wants them. They want to be the left-most channel on the dial to neutralize progressive threats to austerity, disparity or corporate media dominance.
Like talk radio, the reason cable “news” punditry survives, often at a loss, is to disseminate legal domestic propaganda. In the days before cable, TV and radio channels operated only over public airwaves. Thus, they were answerable to the FCC, with public comment a part of license renewals.
Since 1934, Communications law required “news” broadcasters to serve the public interest. In the 1980s, Reagan gutted the Fairness Doctrine, which eventually legalized deliberate lying and overt bias on the air. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton deregulated the media industry, leading to massive consolidation. In sum, this made free speech a commodity, which fewer and fewer could afford.
The FCC today barely answers to the public. Online complaints certainly don’t get replies, but an airtight legal petition asking the FCC to enforce regulations on equal time and community responsiveness during election periods got “lost” and then denied, without notification in 2014. This, in effect struck down a critical postwar anti-propaganda broadcasting statute called the Zapple Doctrine. See ya.
Broadcast TV and radio is bad, but cable is even worse.
Because cable TV is privately purchased, there is even less driving stations to broadcast in the public interest. Hence Fox News, the “GOP TV” idea dreamt up by Nixon flunky Roger Ailes. The worst of the worst, neocon pundits stole the 2000 election, aided the commission of war crimes and papered over massive corruption. Only slightly better, MSNBC portrays itself as the liberal counterbalance, but limits wholesale what actually gets airtime.
This was highlighted bravely by Cenk Uygur, who hosted a successful trial run in a daily MSNBC slot. But he was attracting too many viewers, so they tellingly offered Uygur a weekend spot at twice the money, to keep him off the air five days a week. Cenk refused MSNBC’s restrictive contract and outed the suits upstairs who said he needed to “tone it down” because they were the “establishment”. [See update below]
Maddow’s Better Days
I recall when Rachel hosted improbable guests, such as Army Lieutenant Dan Choi, who dared to say “I am gay” on TV. She stood up to Obama on his useless Afghanistan policy, she challenged top administration advisors on the air. Once, they even let her air a special on the sale of faked Iraq war intel. I’ll bet she worked long and hard for that story to finally see air.
During Occupy Wall Street, Maddow gave an average protester a segment, imagine that. Another time, Maddow led off a show talking about her bosses’ gag when Brian Williams was released from NBC. These between-the-cracks glimpses suggest Rachel was fighting to do “reality-based” news, then.
LOW POINT: This month, Rachel Maddow “world premiered” not one but two ads made by Hillary’s biggest SuperPAC, followed by an interview of the director. She called it “the bright side of dark money”. Without disclosing that Comcast also funds Hillary, it was the equivalent of an infomercial. Perhaps Rachel would say NewsCorp does the same, but that would be like a race to the bottom, right?
Worst of all, Maddow falsely reported that Bernie supporters got violent at the Nevada Democratic convention. Snopes, NPR and eyewitnesses debunked that anyone “threw chairs” after her broadcast. Maddow aired death-threats to the NV party chair without showing why people got mad at her, a contested voice vote caught on tape. Wikileaks would later prove that the DNC and Hillary campaign asked reporters to lie about Nevada.
Shark Jumped?
More than a few former Maddow viewers now call her “sellout”. I think back to her first rant advising Bernie to drop out, electioneering on the air. I know there must be executive pressure on her “newsroom”, but Maddow didn’t choose right in this progressive election-of-a-lifetime.
ORWELL WINS: In this prophetic 2005 interview, Bernie Sanders actually predicted that corporate media would consolidate to hurt democracy. He believed they would hijack and suppress important issues to make the masses “drop out” of the political process and disengage. This was borne out.
Apparently no one foresaw the disruptive Trump candidacy generating mass paranoia, after he was given billions in free airtime. It’s left most Democrats so paralyzed by fear, they went “all in” for Hillary, even as poll after poll says Bernie matches up better against Trump, alienating the decisive independents who tell pollsters they will vote Trump.
Denying this objective data, Comcast (a gigantic Hillary donor) makes their prized progressive property into a less trusted newscast, perhaps forever.
Had Rachel been a leading voice for progressivism every night on MSNBC, many say Bernie — or at least his ideas — could have won.
See also: Maddow sides with corporate America in class war
UPDATE (Feb. 2017): Filmmaker Josh Fox reveals how MSNBC blacklisted him for supporting Sanders, suggesting Maddow and Chris Hayes are forced to censor news and guests.