Moyers On PBS

Well, then you're going to have to account for how MSNBC shuffled a rising star like Ashleigh Banfield off to oblivion after she gave a speech at Kansas State questioning (correctly, as it happens) whether the press was jumping on the bandwagon recklessly.
Look, we're arguing in a circle on Donahue. His bad ratings were an excuse, but it was an excuse available to MSNBC execs as regards every show on their network. (His salary was inflated, especially by MSNBC standards, I will grant you that). But his quick hook, plus the direction of the new hosts they hired, plus the defenestration of a rising star like Banfield, makes it hard to argue that MSNBC wasn't groping desperately for a seat on the bandwagon.

 

I'm not here to defend MSNBC. It's very possible Banfield was axed for her Kansas State speech. I'm just telling you that Donahue was doomed regardless of what his views were. He could have been waving the flag all day long and he would not have lasted with those ratings and that salary.

Banfield was poorly assigned, however. She had correspondent written all over her and never should have been given her own show on MSNBC, which was pretty much a death sentence, especially back then. Today, the network seems a bit more willing to give on-air talent more time to succeed.

 

Jack --
You pretty plainly know your onions here -- My grandfather used to say that. I didn't know what it meant then, either. Maybe I should ask Raftery. -- and I don't expect you to defend MSNBC, and I don't think you have been.
We don't differ on the "why" of Donahue's departure. Just, I guess, on the "why" of the "why."

 

Wait - I'm confused. JackS - who Fenian says clearly knows what he's talking about regarding NBC and MSNBC - likens this memo to utter fiction (Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy). Yet - Fenian who is incapable of being fooled - puts lots of credence into it. Is this because the memo reinforces Fenians predisposition? Taking information at face value because it matches up with what you want to believe - isn't that how the problem started in the first place? If the memo is questionable - why did Bill Moyers spend so much time on it? Probably a quarter of that Bill Moyers' show was spent on Donahue, his guest Scott Ritter (who will probably next be on TV in a special episode of To Catch a Predator) and that 100,000 person protest in Washington (that was sponsored by the Workers World Party - A.N.S.W.E.R. - but Moyers somehow glosses over that). Another quarter of the show was spent with Dan Rather who tried to pass off some fake documents to the public weeks before the election in an effort to smear the President (Rather still hasn't acknowledged that the documents were utter fakes). I'm starting to think that the Moyers show wasn't the beacon of unvarnished truth some say it was.

Thinking this over - my faith in Fenian and his Pope-like infallibility has been shaken. And the more I think of it - wasn't Fenian the guy who said the Marines at Haditha were guilty of a worse massacre than Mai Lai without having any of the information?

 

Hop, skip, and jump.
A quarter of the show on Donahue? Beinart and Russert got more face time. Dan Rather can;t be interviewed about how the press rolled over because of something that happened concerning George Bush's military records? Scott Ritter, who was right, gets smeared (again). Somehow, 100K people in the street, who were right about the war when you and your toy soldiers in your basement were wrong, are all about ANSWER? I disagree with Jack on the NBC study -- it wasn't a memo -- and on the provenance of the website to which it was leaked. He and I were just discussing that when you came in from the playground with mud on your face.
I am sorry your pet war went so wrong.
Where have you been, selling your synapses on the street for food?

 

The blogger who wants credit for breaking the story calls it both a study and a memo.

http://allyourtv.com/mediablog/?p=33

And if you read the original story, it sounds to me like this "study" was compiled by an *outside* consultant. So maybe it isn't fiction. Maybe it's just some consultant's opinion.

 

Seems that Shales is calling it a memo. (Interesting that the NYT seems to have seen it, too.) This guy's agreeing and just pissed he didn't get credit.

 

According to Shales, that is. The blogger seems to suggest Shales is wrong about any NYT connection. Regardless, the Times didn't report it.

 

Fenian - here is what you said:

Now whether the memo was real has been called into question and if it was ever real was a question that was asked at the time Donahue was fired. You positioned the memo as if it was Gospel truth. Isn't that sort of positioning the very sort of thing you are pillorying the Bush Adminstration for? I'm just asking because it seems you are trying to mislead people here in the same manner. I must say that seems hypocritical to me.

I also must say that on this forum you often make fun of "blogs" but here you were holding up a blogger's info as your proof. Wouldn't you say that your opinion of blogs seems to sway in the breeze depending on if you agree with the bloggers viewpoint?

JackS obviously knows what he's talking about and he has shown what you have been promoting as evidence is very questionable (to be charitable). Why are you trying to mislead people with questionable material? Shouldn't the truth and facts about your position be enough to validate your beliefs? Thank goodness that JackS chimed in and slowed your steamrolling of the truth.

I must say - I'm very disappointed in you.

 

But Jack - Moyers said the memo was in the NYT and Donahue said he read it first there. Why would Moyers and Donahue lie to us like that?

 

Actually, Moyers just said "the press" picked it up. Donahue did say he read it in the NYT, but it could have been an innocent mistake. The WaPo is one of the few that did pick it up and maybe he just confused the two four years later. I assume he reads both.

 

But Jack if the producers of the show knew that it was "the Press" and not the NYT - wouldn't they have also known that its origins was questionable? And if they knew that the NYT didn't publish it - couldn't they have put some footnote at the bottom of the screen so that the viewer wasn't mislead into believing something that wasn't true when Donahue misspoke? Was Moyers guilty of the very sort of shoddy journalism that the show was supposed to be about?