Tag: Chris Matthews

25 years later, looking back at the horror of 9/11 — and my unfulfilled hopes for a better media

Firefighters at Ground Zero on Sept. 19, 2001. Photo (cc) by Loco Steve.

Twenty-five years ago today, I stayed up most of the night writing a long essay for The Boston Phoenix called “The End of Decadence,” a first reaction to the terrorist attacks that had just taken place. I recalled what that was like for GBH News on the 20th anniversary. Below is my original Phoenix piece, brought to you by the Northeastern University Library, which now holds the copyright.

Sadly, what stands out in rereading this is that the media did not fulfill our hopes that they would hold the powerful to account. It was Chris Matthews, of all people, who was the most prescient in the moment, telling his viewers, “The problem with retaliation is that you play into your enemy’s hands. You radicalize your enemies. Retaliation is part of the terrorism.” Within a year, news organizations were cheering on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as they built their recklessly flawed case for going to war in Iraq, a foreign-policy disaster we are living with to this day.

The end of decadence

Can the media — and the rest of us — adjust to a frightening new world?

By Dan Kennedy | The Boston Phoenix | Sept. 13, 2001

It’s over. The easiest, sleaziest, richest, most meaningless decade we’ve yet known has come to an end, buried beneath the rubble and ashes and dust of the World Trade Center.

Officially, the 1990s died at 8:45 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower — thereby setting off a day of horror unlike anything we have seen before. In truth, though, the patient had been sick for some time.

Continue reading “25 years later, looking back at the horror of 9/11 — and my unfulfilled hopes for a better media”

What’s next in the cable news wars

Rachel Maddow

Three quick hits on the continued fallout over Keith Olbermann’s departure from MSNBC:

1. It looks like MSNBC’s response has been to give promotions to everyone rather than consider what might work best. The network is feeding Lawrence O’Donnell to the wolf (i.e., Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly) at 8 p.m. And Ed Schultz at 10? Really? Aren’t all his viewers in bed by then?

If I were MSNBC honcho Phil Griffin, I’d move Chris Matthews to 8. Matthews is much maligned (I’ve maligned him myself), but he’s still weirdly compelling after all these years. His energy and passion are likely to hold Olbermann’s losses to a minimum. Let Schultz have the 7 o’clock hour and see what he can do with it.

I agree with Griffin’s decision to keep Rachel Maddow at 9. I realize she would do better against O’Reilly than anyone else, but she’s now the franchise, and protecting the franchise is important. If her ratings were to drop below Olbermann’s, it would demoralize the whole operation. And I’d keep O’Donnell at 10, too.

2. CNN, which has slipped behind MSNBC in the prime-time ratings, has an opportunity to take advantage of the Olbermann mess. I’ll confess I haven’t seen Piers Morgan’s new talk show yet, but the clips look very promising — a huge step up from Larry King.

I’ve always liked Anderson Cooper better than “Anderson Cooper 360.” Whatever’s wrong with the show can be fixed. And here’s what’s wrong: inconsistency (you never know whether you’re going to get a solid newscast or tabloid trash) and the two-hour length, which has led CNN to use much of the 10 o’clock hour to flog what’s coming at 11.

The solutions are fairly simple. Cut the newscast to an hour, rebroadcasting Piers Morgan at 11; and up the intelligence quotient.

CNN executives will still need to deal with the toxic-waste pit that is “Parker Spitzer” at 8. I’d move John King’s politically oriented newscast to that slot and cross my fingers.

3. Barring any unexpected bombshells, Bill Carter and Brian Stelter’s take on why Olbermann left seems pretty definitive. But though Comcast, the incoming owner of NBC Universal, appears to have its corporate hands clean, my expectation is that at some point the company will blow up MSNBC.

Maybe it will happen soon. Maybe it won’t happen until Comcast wants to curry favor with a new Republican administration in the White House. But it will happen.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

MSNBC’s news-opinion dilemma

It looks like the political cross-dressing act at MSNBC has reached its limit. According to Brian Stelter of the New York Times, talk-show hosts Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews will not anchor the cable network’s coverage of the upcoming debates or on election night, which should tone down the battle between NBC’s journalists and MSNBC’s opinionators.

I have quibbles about this, but overall I think it was the right move. Barack Obama has no bigger advocates in the mainstream media than Olbermann and Matthews, and it has looked strange all year to have serious journalists like Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams, Andrea Mitchell and, before his death, Tim Russert seeming to answer to them. Recently, it all boiled over on the air.

Olbermann and Matthews reportedly will continue to appear as analysts, while David Gregory will serve as the anchor. That’s all fine. My larger concern is that in addition to being moved out of the anchor slots, they will also be expected to tone down their opinions, lest they run afoul of the Republicans’ current war against the media. Olbermann was exactly right in his revulsion at Republican efforts to stamp their brand on the terrorist attacks of 9/11, even if it was unseemly for him to do it from the anchor desk.

The problem, of course, is that there are no such scruples about the dividing line between news and opinion at Fox News. Stelter, for instance, does not question the fiction that Bill O’Reilly is not allowed to anchor Fox’s convention coverage, a piece of information that would be a surprise to anyone tuning in between 8 and 9 p.m. the last two weeks. Fox’s signature news personality, Brit Hume, is a good journalist, but he also leans noticeably to the right.

MSNBC this year is experiencing the first semi-success of its benighted existence by loading up on liberal political talk shows. Today Rachel Maddow debuts at 9 p.m., extending that trend. I don’t know how long it can last, since the network is still firmly ensconced in last place. But as long as network executives can find a way to keep the journalists and the talkers from ripping each other’s throats out, MSNBC has become a refreshing alternative to Fox News.

I just hope it’s Williams and Brokaw who are driving the anchor-desk shift — and not Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt.

After Russert, the deluge

How thin is the NBC News bench? The Los Angeles Times reports that the top three contenders for Tim Russert’s “Meet the Press” perch are David Gregory, Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough. Good grief. I’m adding “Face the Nation” to my podcast subscriptions right now. (Via Romenesko.)

Media Nation’s top two (and extremely unlikely) contenders: Gwen Ifill and Aaron Brown.

Chris Matthews chills out

In my latest for the Guardian, I describe my evening with in front of the TV set with Chris Matthews, the MSNBC blowhard who jumped the shark with his over-the-top anti-Hillary Clinton tirades following Iowa and New Hampshire. The new Matthews seems slightly diminished, but his political knowledge and enthusiasm are unflagging.