Tag Archive: MSNBC

NBC’s Chuck Todd creates Obamacare controversy

Written on September 19, 2013 by in Democratic Messaging, Republican Messaging

 

Chuck Todd of NBC News caused a media firestorm yesterday when he stated on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program that the Republicans’ false talking points about the Affordable Care Act a/k/a “Obamacare” were “more importantly, … stuff that the Republicans have successfully messaged.” Todd went on to say that that it’s not the fault of “folks in the media” like Todd that Republicans are getting away with their Affordable Care Act lies, but rather, “it’s the President of the United States’ fault for not selling it.”

On Twitter, users expressed their anger at Chuck Todd, starting a hashtag called #chucktoddexcuses and posting messages such as “If people like me called out politicians on lies, we wouldn’t have had all that fun in Iraq.” Sites like politicsusa.com also pointed out the flaws in Todd’s thinking:

Todd’s logic falls apart, because he is missing the point of what people are trying to tell him. People aren’t saying to the mainstream media that they want them to support Democrats. The message is that the media should be interested first and only in facts. People get frustrated with the media, because they give lies the same weight as facts.

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Lawrence O’Donnell makes Anthony Weiner look good

Written on September 12, 2013 by in Messaging Maxims

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVSOe-sx2gw

This past Monday, Anthony Weiner scheduled some 13 televised interviews in a last-ditch effort to improve his flagging campaign chances in the New York Mayoral primary that took place the next day. The last of these scheduled interviews was with Lawrence O’Donnell, host of MSNBC‘s “The Last Word.” Viewers should have gotten a hint that the interview would not go well when O’Donnell tweeted earlier in the day that:

For his last TV appearance before election Anthony Weiner will grace at 10pm. But I just can’t think of anything to ask him.

Sure enough, as seen in the video above, when Weiner appeared on “The Last Word,” O’Donnell said, “I have really just one question for you…: What’s wrong with you?” The interview devolved from there into what Weiner accurately characterized as a “split screen harrangue” by O’Donnell, who seemed obsessed not with Weiner’s sexting, but with the ex-Congressman’s years of public service and failure somehow to work for free after resigning from the U.S. Congress. It was beyond rude and bizarre. It was poor journalism. By the end, Weiner came off as a completely sympathetic figure and O’Donnell, ironically, was the picture of an ass.

This “interview” should be shown in journalism school with the caveat: If you’re being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to be a “journalist” and you schedule a tv interview with a public figure, either ask real questions or, if you admittedly can’t come up with any, cancel the interview.

 

 

 

 

 

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The media are dead; long live the media

Written on April 22, 2013 by in Fox "News" Watch

The Boston Marathon bombings showed America and the world once and for all that the 24-hour cable news network model is dead. Here are some of the cable coverage lowlights of the week:

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Messaging Maxim #4: Feed the Narrative

Written on March 15, 2013 by in Messaging Maxims

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz solved a 2012 election mystery on Wednesday, by featuring the man who shot the infamous Willard Mitt Romney “47% video” in a one-on-one interview. What made the video by bartender Scott Prouty so devastating to Romney’s presidential campaign was that Romney’s controversial “47%” remarks, as well as other statements, such as those regarding a brutal Chinese sweatshop that Romney visited with the purpose of purchasing for Bain Capital, fed into a narrative that already existed about Romney as:

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On Payroll Tax Cut, Democrats Find their Message

Written on December 25, 2011 by in Democratic Messaging

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Analysts on all sides of the political spectrum are calling the payroll tax cut extension a clear win for the Democrats and a significant political loss for the Republicans and their House Speaker, John Boehner. During the debate over extending the payroll tax cut, it appeared that Democrats finally hit their communications stride. For example, check out the above video featuring Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who appeared on December 22 on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” with host Ed Schultz. Here’s what Schumer, who appears at about 2:40, said:

  • “What they (the Republicans) have done this whole year is play brinksmanship and paralysis.”
  • “The American people have pretty good sniffers, and they’re beginning to smell that this Tea Party is extreme, and not really interested in what’s good for America…. They’re basically trying to paralyze government and get nothing done.”
  • “It is true that people are upset with government. But it’s not because it’s doing too much, it’s because it’s doing too little to help them.”
  • The Republicans’ flip-flop over the payroll tax cut, being against it before they were for it, “doesn’t pass the laugh test, and again, the American people sort of saw through that”.
  • “Since September, we (the Democrats) have done a lot better. Why? Well, we have focused on the economy, jobs, and income inequality.”
  • On tax policy, the Democrats “separated the middle class from the millionaires.”
  • “The American people are with us, not with the Republicans, on those issues” (jobs, the economy, and income inequality).

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During the Political Discussion Next Thanksgiving Dinner, Go on Offense

Written on December 4, 2011 by in Democratic Messaging, Messaging Maxims, Republican Messaging

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Before the past few Thanksgivings, some media outlets have run pieces advising readers or viewers on how to respond to right-wing, Fox-concocted talking points that one or more relatives might regurgitate at the dinner table. As the above video from this past November 23 indicates, Ed Schultz invited Occupy Wall Street hero Jesse LaGreca on MSNBC’s “Ed Show” to do just that. Jesse does a good job using logic, facts, and figures to respond to the right-wing talking points raised by Ed. However, if you’re simply being reactive rather than proactive in these situations, you’ve already lost the political argument.

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That Loaded Term “Illegal”

Written on October 24, 2011 by in Popular Political Phrases, Republican Messaging

One of the clearest examples of how characterizing something slightly differently gives it a very different meaning occurs with the labeling of illegal immigrants. In a recent episode of MSNBC‘s “Hardball”, host Chris Matthews discusses the most popular ways of describing illegal immigrants, and the political ramifications of each. Matthews says:

When do you think, John, it becomes an ethnic slur? I mean, I try to be proper. Some people say ‘undocumented workers’, that’s very pro, I would think, a person here illegally. Some people say ‘illegal aliens’, which is pretty strong language, as [Michele] Bachmann does. That sort of doubles it down. They’re already illegal, let’s call them ‘aliens’. The others just call them, not even people, call them ‘illegals’. I watched that [Republican presidential primary] debate the other night, and I thought, they’re just trying to put these people down. ‘Illegals.’ That’s not even a person.

Matthews did a good job of encapsulating the most popular descriptions of illegal immigrants, and the very loaded, very different ways of classifying them for political effect. Presumably Matthews uses the term “illegal immigrant”, which is arguably the most accurate and neutral way to describe someone who moves to the U.S. illegally.

Next time you hear a discussion of illegal immigration, listen closely to the terminology used. It will likely give away the biases of the people using the terms, or at least the biases of those who are influencing them.

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The Power of the Echo Chamber

Written on September 12, 2011 by in Messaging Maxims, Popular Political Phrases, Republican Messaging

The Republican communications machine includes a powerful echo chamber, comprised of Fox “News”, right wing talk radio (Rush Limbaugh, etc.), Republican elected officials and their surrogates, and others. Almost all of them are on the same page with the same talking points on a daily basis. Thus, Republican words and phrases, carefully crafted to benefit Republicans (e.g., “job creators”, “Obamacare”, etc.), get repeated through the right wing echo chamber and get absorbed into the mainstream. As a result, these words and phrases often become the basis for our political debate, giving the Republicans a huge home field advantage.

The Democratic echo chamber, in contrast, is tiny. There is little apparent effort, from the Obama White House or elsewhere, to coordinate a daily message using simple talking points, or, if there is, it has been a miserable failure. Likewise, there isn’t much of a discernible communications machine through which to echo that message through television and radio hosts, and then through viewers and listeners themselves.

That’s why a recent example of a Democratic talking point repeated by someone in the mainstream media was a pleasant surprise. President Obama said on the Tom Joyner Morning Show radio program on August 30 regarding anticipated negative reaction to his jobs plan by Congressional Republicans:

If Congress does not act, then I’m going to be going on the road and talking to folks, and this next election very well may end up being a referendum on whose vision of America is better.

Then, just a few hours later, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson said on MSNBC‘s “Hardball”, on the same subject:

Well, I think for the next 15 months, both sides can take their case to the American people and let them decide.

While Robinson’s language was not identical to Obama’s, it was very close, and the idea was exactly the same. Thus, it appears that Robinson heard President Obama on Tom Joyner a few hours earlier and sought to echo the President’s sentiment. If Democrats want to compete with Republicans, they will have to create a messaging echo chamber, and do much more of this.

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