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Joe Scarborough and the Morning Joe panel expressed ubiquitous shock and outrage at George Zimmerman’s tour of a factory that made the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin, arguing that the action should cause those lionizing Zimmerman as a “hero” to think twice from now on. “There’s a certain faction of the American political system that has embraced George Zimmerman as a hero,” Scarborough said Monday morning. “I said from day one, during the trial, that it was going to be hard to convict this man. That doesn’t mean that many on the far right need to embrace this...

Despite a heavy period of news that included the Boston Marathon bombings and the Jodi Arias trial, MSNBC's second-quarter ratings plunged to their lowest level since 2007. In primetime, MSNBC drew an average of 584,000 total viewers and 196,000 viewers in the key 25-54 age demographic. Those numbers were down 16% and 12%, respectively, from the second quarter of 2012. And they accounted for quarter lows not seen since the fourth and second quarters of 2007, respectively. The network had seen signs of this coming in some dreadful monthly ratings, particularly in May. The same factors contributed to the network's...

The narrative. Two words we hear often in cable news. What’s the narrative (insert network) is pushing today? This week? This month? So as breaking news, big news—Boston bombings, Cleveland kidnapping, Oklahoma tornado—subsided as May turned to June, the narrative (outside of the scandal of the week) is now about an event that actually appears on a schedule ahead of time…as all the cable networks are now counting the hours down to tip-off of the Trayvon Martin trial. Headline News (HLN) showed producers and execs alike that owning coverage of one trial can be the difference between 2nd (behind Fox)...

Via NRO and John Ekdahl, Matthews has made this point many times before, usually with references to Horatio Alger, but it feels extra special after a long week of President Perfect completely betraying the Hopenchange ethos of his first presidential campaign. It’s not the cheap racial demagoguery that gets me here; that’s par for the course both for him and his network, where you’ll find far dumber examples of it than this. What gets me is that a guy who’s spent his adult life in politics reacts to the dynamics of ideological differences and partisanship like a college student would....

Like a zombie that just won't stay dead, pretentious left-wing talking head Keith Olbermann has somehow managed to find a way to befoul Americans' living rooms once more. Thankfully, unless you are a baseball junkie, you won't have to witness his bloviations since Olbermann is scheduled to serve as a host for the Turner Broadcasting System's coverage of post-season Major League Baseball playoff games. The move is a logical one for Olbermann, who began his television career as a sportscaster for almost 20 years before venting his venom on politics for the liberal MSNBC and Current TV channels. According to...

If you have any lingering doubts about which way MSNBC “leans,” you don’t need to look any farther than the cable channel’s coverage of President Obama’s speech on Thursday regarding foreign relations and national security. At times, it seemed that each MSNBC host or contributor was trying to outdo the other with fawning cheers over the latest address from the Democratic occupant of the White House, ranging from “momentous” to “remarkable.” …

They say the truth often comes out in humor. At Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, President Obama said: … “Some of my former advisers have switched over to the dark side. For example, David Axelrod now works for MSNBC—which is a nice change of pace since MSNBC used to work for David Axelrod.” …

On the eve of the dedication of George W. Bush's presidential library, NBC's Meet the Press moderator David Gregory appeared on Wednesday's Nightly News to tear down the former president's legacy, beginning the report by remarking that it was "difficult to remember" Bush's popularity after the September 11th attacks. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Gregory described how Iraq War intelligence failures "formed the backdrop to criticism that the President underestimated the challenges he faced....And grew stubborn in the face of mounting setbacks." Gregory further proclaimed: "What grew into a reputation for incompetence stained the...

Can you imagine the firestorm that would happen if a conservative talker called President Obama a “SOB?” On Wednesday’s Hardball, host Chris Matthews called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that:I don’t know why it is, because I’m not always partisan. But I really do have a problem with Mitch McConnell. I would like to see him get stung hard on this one. So, why do I think like that? (laughter) Because he tends to be a SOB generally? Does anybody like that guy? …

You can call Chris Matthews anything you want — “dimwitted political hack” would be entirely appropriate — but please don’t insult an entire profession by calling Chris Matthews a “journalist.” On March 30, Kaufman County, Texas, district attorney Mike McLelland and his wife were shot to death at their home. Five days later, Chris Matthews invited Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center onto MSNBC to promote speculation that McLelland’s murder was committed by the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. In other words, the important thing about this crime — the thing that made it worth eight minutes of national...

Politico’s Mike Allen reported this morning that MSNBC has hired the Democratic National Committee’s director of video production to become a producer for one of the cable network’s weekend political talk shows. DNC video production director Anne Thompson was reportedly given a farewell party at the DNC, replete with ice cream and refreshments, as she sets out to become segment producer on Up with Steve Kornacki, MSNBC’s new weekend show. As Politico reported, Thompson was behind dozens of the DNC’s 2012 election videos and ads, notably including the parodic song, “Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan:

Via Newsbusters, something to tide you over on a news day that started out fast and has slowed considerably. Give Harris-Perry credit, at least, for fine-tuning her messaging. You’re not going to sell swing voters on far-left liberalism by telling them their kids don’t really belong to them, but tell them that they have a right “at all times” to things they need and you’re golden. If you polled the public on whether people should have a right to all of this, where would the numbers top out? Seventy percent? Eighty? The American public loves, loves, loves government spending, partly...

I’ll say this much: At least in this example it’s her own kid instead of a room full of other people’s children (and I’m assuming the audience watching the segment at the time consisted of fewer people than the average kindergarten classroom). From The Blaze: Regardless of where you stand on the issue of gay marriage, few will likely agree with MSNBC host Krystal Ball’s decision to use her young daughter to promote gay marriage during a segment titled “Political Playground” on Thursday. “What if you were in love with a girl? Would you marry a girl?” Balls asks her...

MSNBC’s blatant promotion of gay marriage appears to have taken a bizarre and sad turn. Krystal Ball, co-host of The Cycle, has taken to using her four-year-old daughter Ella as a prop in a pro-same-sex marriage video. In the 3-minute video, Ball asks her young daughter a series of questions about who she is allowed to marry, eventually asking her what happens if she loves another girl. Ball’s daughter, who is clearly taking cues from her mom, says that because she lives in New York she can marry another girl if she loves her. [Video} Such blatant and disgusting use...

NBC News president Steve Capus announced today that he is leaving the network. "It has been a privilege to have spent two decades here, but it is now time to head in a new direction," he wrote in a memo to staff, obtained by POLITICO. "I have informed Pat Fili-Krushel that I will be leaving NBC News in the coming weeks." "It is impossible to fully express how much I respect the people of NBC News," he wrote. "To call everyone "colleagues" has been a true honor ... but to call so many of you dear friends has been a...

It’s not enough that liberals sought to destroy a good man’s reputation when he was nominated to the Supreme Court. Their efforts at character assassination continue after his passing. One of the most contemptible examples of this came from Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show Dec. 19 in talking about the death of Robert Bork and his influence on American jurisprudence and politics over the last four decades. As to be expected, Maddow focused on Bork’s thwarted nomination to the Supreme Court in the fall of 1987, the opening salvo in our decades-long culture war. …

Leno: 'The Economy Is So Bad MSNBC Had To Lay Off 300 Obama Spokesmen' By Noel Sheppard Created 11/16/2012 - 9:40am NBC Tonight Show host Jay Leno took a swipe at his own sister network and the President Thursday. During his opening monologue, Leno said, "The economy is so bad MSNBC had to lay off 300 Obama spokesmen" (video follows with transcript and commentary): JAY LENO: I tell you, Rickey, the economy is not good. It's not good at all. RICKEY MINOR: How bad is it, Jay? LENO: The stock market is going down faster than a general's biographer. It...

In writing about the Pew study released today, I was struck by the big story of how negative coverage on several levels of presidential politics had become. I think this is big trouble for democracy, especially the hostile level of discourse in social media. And that it's something the media need to address collectively after the election. But here's one of several fascinating smaller findings of the study that are kind of stunning -- even if they seem obvious and ho-hum to some of my more jaded, postmodern, aren't-we-cleverly-ironic colleagues: ON MSNBC, the ratio of negative to positive stories on...

MSNBC president Phil Griffin spoke to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Marisa Guthrie about his network, and the state of the cable news competition. Griffin was candid, saying that there is a certain Fox News personality he would love to poach: THR: Is there an on-air personality on another network that you would like to have? Griffin: Yes. I don’t know if I should say this. [Fox News anchor] Shep Smith. I just like his way. I like everything about him.

In an effort to downplay Romney's support at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, MSNBC used an edited video to make it appear as though the crowd was screaming "Ryan, Ryan," Joel B. Pollack reported at Breitbart.com on Friday. But a closer look at the actual unedited footage from CSPAN tells a much different story. MSNBC first aired the video on Wednesday, "prompting an embarrassed Joe Scarborough to mutter 'Oh, sweet Jesus' and a purse-lipped Mika Brzezinski to ask 'What’s wrong with those people,'” The Blaze reported on Thursday. Video: MSNBC caught doctoring clip from Romney/Ryan rally Beckett Adams wrote that...