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<p>NEW YORK — NBC News reporter Luke Russert said he made a "dumb" misstatement on the "Today" show Wednesday when he suggested that smart people supported Barack Obama for president.</p> <p>Almost immediately, Russert took a hazing in the Web world. Wrote Tim Graham of the conservative Media Research Center on the NewsBusters blog: "Out of the mouths of young, untrained reporters come the unspoken beliefs of the liberal media."</p>

On "Morning Joe" today, Sen. John McCain accused Mika Brzezinski of being "a supporter for Obama" and ribbed her for never visiting McCain's website to research the issues.

The drama began on Sunday, Aug. 24, at a panel discussion in Denver among Sunday political talk show hosts. There Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell asserted that throughout the primaries MSNBC had favored Barack Obama over his preferred candidate Senator Hillary Clinton. Afterward, Tom Brokaw defended NBC News reporters but acknowledged feeling that certain anchor-pundits had crossed a line. “I think Keith has gone too far,” said Mr. Brokaw. “I think Chris has gone too far.”

Rachel Maddow is so Keith Olbermann's protege, she's supposedly trying to get people fired. Just like her mentor! "Maddow tried to replace all the staffers who work on the 9 p.m. time slot, which she takes over on Monday, but management refused," claims the indefatigable Page Six. This would be, of course, Dan Abrams' former team at Verdict. And ya know who Olbermann can't stand? A one Dan Abrams, who for a time played MSNBC general manager, and thus, Olbermann's boss, but the two never clicked, and neither wanted to pay mind to the other. You'd expect, then, that the...

Around midnight on July 16, New York Times chief political correspondent Adam Nagourney received a terse e-mail from Barack Obama's press office. The campaign was irked by the Times' latest poll and Nagourney and Megan Thee's accompanying front-page piece titled "Poll Finds Obama Isn't Closing Divide on Race," which was running in the morning's paper. Nagourney answered the query, the substance of which he says was minor, and went to bed, thinking the matter resolved. But, the next morning, Nagourney awoke to an e-mail from Talking Points Memo writer Greg Sargent asking him to comment on an eight-point rebuttal trashing...

Obama declared that McCain would carry out a "third Bush term"... "No matter what the costs, no matter what the consequences, John McCain seems determined to carry out a third Bush term," Obama said.

MSNBC's "pimp" flap got nastier yesterday as bloggers dug up a clip of one of the cable network's top talking heads using the prostitution analogy on-air last year. But Keith Olbermann, the network's chief left-wing Doberman, didn't suffer the same fate as suspended correspondent David Shuster when he accused President Bush last September of "pimping" the commander of US forces in Iraq. "In pimping General David Petraeus .....

NBC NEWS STATEMENT REGARDING CHELSEA CLINTON COMMENT: On Thursday's "Tucker" on MSNBC, David Shuster, who was serving as guest-host of the program, made a comment about Chelsea Clinton and the Clinton campaign that was irresponsible and inappropriate. Shuster, who apologized this morning on MSNBC and will again this evening, has been suspended from appearing on all NBC News broadcasts, other than to make his apology. He has also extended an apology to the Clinton family. NBC News takes these matters seriously, and offers our sincere regrets to the Clintons for the remarks.

Keith Olbermann and the Murder of Pat Tillman

Joe Scarborough has Bob Shrum and Pat Buchanan on and they are talking about the voting machines. FWIW, All their faces look glum so that tells me that the media knows the GOP is ahead.

Excerpts - NBC Universal is slashing its news budget and abandoning high-cost dramas in the 8 p.m. hour, paring expenses in traditional television as viewers and advertisers flock to new kinds of media. ~ snip ~ Operations for the cable-news channel MSNBC in Secaucus, N.J., will be shuttered and moved to Rockefeller Center in Manhattan and another facility in New Jersey. ~ snip ~

NEW YORK - Five weeks out from the midterm elections, MSNBC/McClatchy polls, conducted by Mason-Dixon in eight states, show Democrats are in striking distance of taking control of the Senate. The Democrats are very likely to gain several Senate seats with some races still rated as toss-ups. In the Senate, Democrats need to gain six seats to regain control of the chamber. Our polls show that this is certainly possible as five races are toss-ups, one now narrowly shows a gain for Democrats -- Pennsylvania -- and the party maintains control of Sen. Maria Cantwell’s Senate seat in Washington. In...

Sick Bed, New York— Nothing is in writing and daybreak is a long way away, but it appeared all but certain in early evening Wednesday that House Democrats had secured the support of up to half a dozen Senators to formally challenge the Electoral College slate from Ohio, when the votes are opened before a joint session of Congress tomorrow.Congressional sources tell this reporter that the house half of the written objection — which has the declared support of more than a dozen Representatives — is expected to be signed by Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio. Republican leadership expects...

You don’t have to have seen the entirety of the original movie “Frankenstein” to remember the over-the-top scene in which Colin Clive as the doctor recognizes the first twitching of his creation, and begins to rapturously repeat that line: It’s Alive! It is ungenerous, but not together inaccurate, to point out that Frankenstein’s Monster’s head was shaped not unlike that of John Kerry’s. So, after the weekend’s developments in Ohio one can almost see Colin Clive hovering over the recumbent Democrat nominee and repeating his two-word claim to fame. “John Kerry supports a full investigation” of the voting irregularities in...

A loss for true conservatism (David Shuster)• November 7, 2004 | 2:26 p.m. ETOn Tuesday, eleven different states outlawed gay marriage. The basic argument I heard was not about marriage (more on that below) but about being gay. And a majority of voters seem to believe that homosexuality is an "immoral lifestyle choice." Hmmmm. The problem is that anybody who has a relative or friend who is gay also knows it is not a "choice." It is something wired into the genes of approximately 3 or 4 percent of the human population in every single culture on the planet. Secondly,...

Keith Olbermann is now offering Andrea Mackris $99,000.'If she really wants to fight this, and only needs seed money to keep the legal challenge going, I'm willing to stand up and help her-and help history,' he writes. 'I will pay off her $99,000 in debts.'He wants a copy of the tapes of course.'I've got a check for $99,000 here as a plea from the future,' he concludes.'Save the tapes, save the tapes, save the tapes.'

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE WASHINGTON - The RNC released today a web video on GOP.com titled: “Democrat Chris Matthews’ Selective ‘Analysis’.” Click here to view the video: http://media1.streamtoyou.com/rnc/matthewsresponsefinal.wmv    

For a debate that many predicted would be de-fanged by 32 pages of rules, last night was pretty sharp. One thing that happened (to indulge in a degree of analysis) -- the President was baited, and he took that bait. Kerry's repeated charges against Bush shifted the dynamic. It was Bush on the defensive about his war record, not Kerry on the defensive about his senate record. Bush looked baited -- often appearing uncomfortable, angry, his body hunched too many times. Those cutaways -- the shots of the President while Kerry was speaking -- were cutting. By the halfway mark,...

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN DEC 07, 2003 19:51:03 ET XXXXX Freelancers and per-diems are receiving early Christmas presents at all-news cable channel MSNBC -- after layoff slips are quietly passed around the network's offices! "People are in shock over it," said one fired peacock. Cut from payroll in recent weeks have been producers, line producers, tape producers, associate producers, segment producers and writers. One insider describes the action as "rolling layoffs" as the network continues to struggle with its identity and its ratings. "Look, we are making a profit, and the numbers are going up," said a network executive...

November 26, 2003 MSNBC Is Clearing Out a Slot in Prime TimeBy JIM RUTENBERG SNBC is reshuffling its lineup again to clear the way for a star, so far unidentified, it hopes to introduce in prime time in the coming weeks, according to a memorandum made available yesterday. Erik Sorenson, the president of MSNBC, said in the memorandum to his staff that he was moving "The Abrams Report" to 6 p.m.. from 9 p.m. weekdays. It had been at the later hour since major combat in Iraq ended but that time slot was supposed to be a temporary berth. The...

<p>NEW YORK - Former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan has lost his regular perch on MSNBC.</p>

Four news networks --CNN, Headline News, MSNBC and CNBC -- lost viewership in the third quarter, but powerhouse Fox News picked up steam, according to Nielsen Media Research. In the third quarter, Atlanta-based CNN attracted an average of 440,000 -- down 15 percent from the same period last year. Sister network Headline News attracted an average of 170,000, down 25 percent. MSNBC drew an average of 203,000 viewers, a 19 percent slide. And CNBC got an average of 160,000, down 23 percent. Meanwhile, Fox increased viewership 17 percent, attracting an average of 730,000 viewers. This is the seventh straight quarter...

Bum start for CNN's 'Zahn' and 'Cooper'Best hopes for stemming slide against Fox News By Kevin Downey     CNN's hopes of reclaiming No. 1 from Fox News Channel were dealt a major setback this week with the disappointing premieres of “Anderson Cooper 360” and “Paula Zahn Now.”      The audience for “Cooper” on Monday was down 47 percent in the 7 p.m. time slot occupied last year by “Crossfire,” to 319,000 people, while “Zahn's” audience of 508,000 people was down 45 percent in the 8 p.m. time slot briefly occupied by the canceled “Connie Chung.” All figures are based...

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Fox News Channel was the only cable news service in August to grow in viewership from a year ago, gaining 20% in primetime and 29% across the entire day, according to Nielsen Media Research. By comparison, CNN fell by 9% in primetime and total day, while MSNBC lost 21% in primetime and 11% for the day. Headline News and CNBC also suffered losses greater than 20% compared with August 2002. It marked the 28th consecutive month that Fox led the news channel pack. For the month, Fox averaged 1.3 million viewers in primetime, compared with...

Dick Morris The Political Life Bias-mongers on rocks as viewers taste straight newsI am sure we were all surprised to learn in the Aug. 11 issue of The New York Times that people are " burned out on serious news." How else could the bastion of establishment journalism account for the falloff in network news viewership and, unnoted in the article, the newspaper's own decreasing circulation?Yet the evidence is all there. People don't care anymore. That must be why The Times' circulation has fallen 5 percent and 1.1 million fewer households are watching network television news compared to last...

August 11, 2003 Suffering News Burnout? The Rest of America Is, TooBy JIM RUTENBERG as the nation's television audience burned out on serious news? Kuni Takahashi/Boston Herald, via Reflex News; ReutersDespite a number of serious news events playing out this summer — like the war in Iraq, above, and the civil war in Liberia — television news programs have been drawing fewer viewers than last year. American soldiers are dying in Iraq almost daily, questions are continuing to swirl around the Bush administration's case for the March invasion and United States Marines are poised off the coast of Liberia....

MSNBC ON DECK AS CNN EXPERIENCE SUMMER COLLAPSE IN RATINGS

Blair won’t quit over Kelly’s death   BBC confirms Defense Ministry scientist was source   British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his wife Cherie, waves upon his arrival at a Seoul airbase July 20.   MSNBC NEWS SERVICES July 20 —  British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday he would accept responsibility if a probe into the suicide of a government scientist pointed to any wrongdoing by members of his government. Meanwhile, the British Broadcasting Corp. identified David Kelly as the main source for the report that the government exaggerated evidence of Iraq’s weapons.       THE PRIME...

<p>NEW YORK - MSNBC on Monday fired Michael Savage for anti-gay comments.</p> <p>The popular radio talk show host who did a weekend TV show for the cable channel referred to an unidentified caller to his show Saturday as a "sodomite" and said he should "get AIDS and die."</p>

CNN, MSNBC Falling Faster Than Fox April 30, 2003By Andrew Grossman NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - All three major cable news services have reason to boast based on their April ratings, although judging by last week's results, some networks are falling to their usual numbers faster than others as the Iraqi war winds down. And the broadcast networks also had reason to smile as its evening news viewership turned up 7% last week compared to the previous week, according to Nielsen Media Research. The Big Three's lack of gains during the Iraqi war brought a new flood of speculation about...

<p>Perhaps the high point of cable-news channel MSNBC's war coverage came when a newspaper photo depicted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld working in front of a television tuned to the network. For an outlet whose small audience until recently seemed to comprise mainly the joke writers at "Saturday Night Live," who relished poking fun at the troubled channel, it was something of a validation.</p>

April 14, 2003 Nightly News Feels Pinch of 24-Hour NewsBy BILL CARTER ith the most televised war in history winding down, executives at TV news organizations are noticing one startling detail in how Americans are watching the coverage: viewers are increasingly tuning out the broadcast networks' evening newscasts. The ratings for the nightly newscasts of Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings have surged in past crises. But early in the the war in Iraq, they did not. During previous periods of intense news interest, most recently in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, viewers have...

THE NBC CORRESPONDENTApril 1, 2003 Arnett Dismissed After Remarks on Iraqi TVBy JIM RUTENBERG eter Arnett, the longtime foreign correspondent who on Sunday criticized the allied war plan on Iraqi television, was dropped by NBC News yesterday in a move that was played out vividly on live television. Associated PressPeter Arnett giving the interview on Iraqi television that provoked NBC executives to let him go and announce it on the "Today" show. NBC executives, who had earlier defended his appearance on Iraqi state television, said Mr. Arnett, 68, had compromised his objectivity when he told an Iraqi interviewer that the...

<p>March 31 — NBC and MSNBC on Monday said they had terminated their relationship with Peter Arnett after the journalist told state-run Iraqi TV that the U.S.-led coalition’s initial war plan had failed and that reports from Baghdad about civilian casualties had helped antiwar protesters undermine the Bush administration’s strategy.</p>

<p>IRAQI TV HOST: Welcome in Baghdad, and our people know you, know your reports to CNN in 1991. Let us start with a question about the general image that you look now in Iraq.</p> <p>ARNETT: Well, I'd like to say from the beginning that the 12 years I've been coming here, I've met unfailing courtesy and cooperation. Courtesy from your people, and cooperation from the Ministry of Information, which has allowed me and many other reporters to cover 12 whole years since the Gulf War with a degree of freedom which we appreciate. And that is continuing today.</p>

<p>NEW YORK — Twelve of NBC's top executives can't take their eyes off the flat-screen monitors at each seat in the elegant boardroom on the 52nd floor of the network's headquarters in Rockefeller Center.</p> <p>NBC staff work in the Situation Room in New York.</p>

On Monday at 7:45am, MSNBC was covering the tragic deaths of 3 Jews in Israel. Apparently, in an effort to avoid the risk of bio or chem warfare, a mother had taped up the living quarters airtight. She was using a barbeque type grill to keep her and two children warm... As they broke away from the field reporter and back to the newsroom, one of the staffers could be audibly heard laughing at the incident. The MSNBC morning anchor's face went pale and had a look of shock, she seemed aware that the staffer didn't realize it was audible....

Headline says it all. Polling going on right now; tomorrow's results will show support for war over 70%. Support for war without UN support will rise substantially. President Bush support will rise substantially!

Developing. Watch "Abrams Report" on MSNBC. Steve Emerson is on.

NEW YORK (AP) -- NBC News, concerned that a war with Iraq could be imminent, plans to immediately remove its six-member television crew from Baghdad, a network spokeswoman said. The decision was prompted by recent comments from the Bush administration indicating that a military conflict could begin within days, the spokeswoman, Allison Gollust, told The New York Times in Monday editions. The administration has advised journalists to leave Baghdad, but NBC would be the first major television network to remove its staff voluntarily from the Iraqi capital. The Fox News Channel was expelled from the city last month by the...

Transcript for March 16 Guest: Vice President Dick Cheney Copyright 2003, National Broadcasting Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.        PLEASE CREDIT ANY QUOTES OR EXCERPTS FROM THIS NBC TELEVISION PROGRAM TO “NBC NEWS’ MEET THE PRESS.”        NBC News        MEET THE PRESS        Sunday, March 16, 2003        GUEST: Vice President DICK CHENEY        MODERATOR/PANELIST: Tim Russert - NBC News        This is a rush transcript provided for the information and convenience of the press. Accuracy is not guaranteed.        In case...

Fred Francis reporting live as I type this from Iraq's Northern Front. Many members of the Iraqi regular army are already coming across to surrender. They report no food. Morale near zero. Everyone from the highest commanders to the lowest privates that remain are openly discussing plans to surrender en masse the moment war starts. One commander says he has 27 tanks; only 6 work. Francis reports that US forces expect near-ZERO military response from Iraqi forces, except from the Republican Guard around Baghdad itself. The reason: They actually think they WON in 1991 because we didn't go after them....

JEREMY GAINES NAMED VICE PRESIDENT, COMMUNICATIONS FOR MSNBCPublished: March 13, 2003SECAUCUS, N.J. -- March 13, 2003 -- Jeremy Gaines has been named Vice President, Communications for MSNBC, overseeing all corporate communications and programming publicity, it was announced today by Erik Sorenson, President, MSNBC. "Jeremy has been an instrumental part of MSNBC's growth for the past several years," said Sorenson. "As we continue to achieve growth, his communications expertise, and fully integrated knowledge of MSNBC's development, is perfectly suited to help guide the overall strategic direction of the network." Gaines has worked at MSNBC for nearly five years. Prior to his...

Talk show demise keeps heat on MSNBCMon Mar 3, 2:20 AM ET By Scott Collins and Andrew Grossman LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- NBC News president Neal Shapiro traveled to Washington on Wednesday with some bad news for veteran TV newsman Sam Donaldson. For weeks, published reports indicated that No. 3 cable-news channel MSNBC, which Shapiro oversees, was about to sign a deal with Donaldson for a primetime talk show. ABC News, Donaldson's employer of 35 years, had even given him its public blessing to pursue the gig. Shapiro, who worked with Donaldson on ABC's "PrimeTime Live" from 1989-93,...

TV networks ready their arsenals for next war As military action in Iraq looms, news organizations are preparing for massive coverage and a costly battle for viewers, GAYLE MacDONALD and WILLIAM HOUSTON write GAYLE MacDONALD and WILLIAM HOUSTON Saturday, March 1, 2003 Turn on cable TV and the U.S. war with Iraq is more or less a fait accompli.On CNN, the banners scream: "Showdown: Iraq." At rival MSNBC, there's a slight twist: "Showdown with Saddam." On scrappy Fox News, it's: "Target Iraq: Disarming Saddam."Talk to network executives here or south of the border, and it's not a question of...

HEADLINE ON DRUDGE!

NEW YORK -- On the eve of a possible U.S.-led war on Iraq, MSNBC is re-branding itself yet again, this time to reemphasize its hard-news lineage. So viewers tuning to MSNBC this week -- and lately there haven't been enough of those to satisfy the channel's bosses -- will notice immediate changes. MSNBC anchors have been told to stop using the "America's News Channel" slogan, which was introduced in April and was meant to convey that the network had a broad range of opinions, and instead refer to the channel as "NBC News on Cable 24 hours a day. [...]...

[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 2/21/03 ] CNN's Peter Arnett heading to MSNBC From staff and media reports Peter Arnett, whose Baghdad reporting during the 1991 Gulf War helped put CNN on the map, is heading to MSNBC, The Los Angeles Times reports. The veteran foreign correspondent left CNN under the cloud of a retracted documentary he anchored. He will be the Baghdad correspondent for "National Geographic Explorer," which airs on Sunday nights, the newspaper reports. Arnett will also provide live reports from Baghdad for MSNBC, the newspaper reports

MSNBC on Ventura Highway Jesse's talk show will lead network on road to either riches or ruin VERNE GAY January 30, 2003 There are two ways to think about MSNBC's new prime-time show with Jesse Ventura, which will be announced any minute now. Just two ways. This will be the beginning of the beginning for MSNBC - the revitalization of a network that has been mostly ignored by viewers and left behind by the competition. Or, this will be the end. If Jesse doesn't work, then Microsoft and GE, which own NBC, will pull the plug on MSNBC. There is...

MSNBC SHAKES UP SKED; SAM DONALDSON TO ANCHOR NEW LINEUP Nothing follows........