Why is most of the MSM so cautious about how they cover DT?

[pnwmom]

Unlike some controversial tweeters and bloggers, they are afraid of losing "access" to the Trump administration.

That is why they "normalize" him and also why they can be months behind the "new media" in covering some stories. It's not worth it to them to be first if it means they lose their access to the Trump administration.

This article is about how it appears that MSNBC may be on the verge of letting Lawrence O'Donnell go, even though his show has the second highest ratings on the network.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lawrence-odonnell-msnbc-future_us_59162d8ce4b00f308cf5534a?bw6&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

According to three sources, Trump has pressured MSNBC President Phil Griffin to fire O’Donnell on multiple occasions. Griffin alluded to Trump’s push for O’Donnell’s ouster in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter last month, saying, “[Trump] started calling me all the time in 2011 to say Lawrence O’Donnell was a ‘third-rate’ anchor.” Griffin and O’Donnell enjoy a cordial relationship but Griffin’s power as the President of MSNBC has been diminished by Lack since he returned in 2015. As a result, Lack will be the one to decide whether O’Donnell stays and under what terms.

There is a fear, among some at MSNBC, that Lack is making programming decisions in an effort to appease the Trump administration (an accusation that has been made of CNN and Fox News), which may lead to more access to the White House and in turn, conservative viewers.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/17/louise-mensch-trump-russia-ties-media-scoop

Two months later, however, the BBC put out a story echoing Mensch’s original report about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) court warrant issued in October to allow the justice department to look into transfers and communications between the Russian banks and Trump associate – and that US intelligence agencies were investigating the link.

The Guardian separately confirmed the original request for a Fisa warrant, which had been turned down earlier in the summer, and former officials said they believed that the Mensch and BBC account of the Fisa warrants was correct.

In mid-January, the McClatchy news agency said one of its sources had also confirmed the report, and the New York Times’ public editor, Liz Spayd, published an assessment of its coverage of the Trump-Moscow link on 20 January, arguing that it had been “too timid”. The Times, Spayd argued, “knew several critical facts: the FBI had a sophisticated investigation under way on Trump’s organization, possibly including Fisa warrants”.

The full facts about the connections between the Trump camp and the Kremlin are not yet known. . . . However, it seems increasingly clear that Mensch landed an extraordinary scoop that had eluded the best investigative journalists in the US. Her explanation is that her vocal advocacy on behalf of UK and US intelligence agencies since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations about mass surveillance led her sources to trust her.

[Boomerproud]

1. Cowards.

Just like it's party/power over country for the Goppers, it's $$$$ over the truth for the MSM.

[dhol82]

2. Now there's an idiot

If they swing right they will lose a shit load of progressive viewers and the conservatives will never watch anyway.

It would be a lose-lose situation.

[jaysunb]

3. Think Dan Rather or the swift boaters

The RW echo chamber lays in the cut for one mistake so they can pound it and make everything Germain to the subject invalid. I don't think it has anything to do w/ access. Just my 2 cent.

[virtualobserver]

4. memba' Dan Rather?

If they screw up once, they are royally screwed.

[pnwmom]

5. But Lawrence O'Donnell hasn't screwed up. He's been doing his job, and that's why

DT is pushing the network to get rid of him.

[virtualobserver]

6. yes, but I was responding to the title of your post

[pnwmom]

10. But you may have missed the point of my post. The real answer is they want access.

And they are afraid that strong reporting will make them lose it.

[virtualobserver]

11. I don't know that I agree with the last part

Who would want "access" to a filthy portable toilet?

They just don't like being yelled at by the powerful.

[pnwmom]

14. They want interviews, they want quotes, they want to be at the pressers.

And they're afraid that if they're too tough on DT, if they don't normalize him, then they'll be excluded.

[virtualobserver]

15. in a normal Presidency I would believe that

but not this one

[virtualobserver]

17. I withdraw my previous opinion...you are right

Andy Lack really is that pathetic.....he really does long to televise Trump's ridiculous lies.

Of all the things to blame for a Trump "Presidency".....the nonstop coverage of Trump throughout the election by the networks has to rank at the very top.

[murielm99]

7. They could get rid of O'Donnell,

and 45 would restrict access anyway. He has threatened to end press briefings altogether, and to issue written statements.

If MSNBC thinks 45 is going to keep his word on anything, they have not been paying attention to their own reporting.

[Kingofalldems]

8. They want access.

[Afromania]

9. What's sad is that access to Trump will get them ratings but will bring be a loss for the country.

Trump offers nothing worth listening to which is a travesty beyond words for an alleged president.

[thucythucy]

12. Because at the end of the day the same billionaires

and millionaires who club with the Trumps own controlling stock in the various networks that provide our "news."

O'Donnell is a "gadfly" (the term goes all the way back to Socrates) and an irritant to the folks who share drinks and whores with the Trumps. Hence, he has to go.

[Scruffy1]

13. It's simple.

They rely on advertising, not on being good. Trump voters are the best possible market for any product: dumb and gullible.

[spanone]

16. it's in their financial interest to keep the ball rolling...intrigue.

the crazier donald is, the more viewers they have.