MSNBC hurts the liberal/progressive cause [View all]

[MellowDem]

I know many on here like some of the shows on MSNBC. Heck, I even like to watch Rachel every now and again, she is pretty much the only one that I can kind of stand. But MSNBC, like all corporations, wants to make profit. That is its priority.

In this country, 40% of people identify as conservative. Fox saw this and saw a business opportunity. Corner the conservative 24/7 news market with biased entertainment reporting. Done. MSNBC came later to the game, and saw the untapped (though relatively smaller market) of liberals (only 20% of the country identifies themselves as such). Well, they have cornered it, and with a lot of success. Indeed, as their viewership has risen, it has driven them to take a more biased tone.

Is it quite as biased or partisan as Fox? No, but then again, the left in this country is relatively moderate and small, so it doesn't need to be. But MSNBC isn't doing this out of the goodness of its heart. It is doing it for profit, pure and simple.

Increasingly, I find myself having to battle false equivalencies with others. They are everywhere of course, that the Democrats are just the same as Republicans, that Fox is the same as MSNBC, etc. The thing is, I kind of agree (to a point) with this argument anymore. No, Democrats aren't just the same as Republicans, but they aren't far apart on a lot of issues, and in terms of tactics and strategy, well, Obama just got a Super PAC. And I don't want corporations like MSNBC to represent liberals, because their motives are wrong as are their tactics. I don't want to be the flip side of Fox News, even if it's not quite as heavy handed about it.

I don't want entertainment/opinion shows that stretch and bend the truth to fit a partisan bias to represent liberals. Or that have bombastic/rude hosts that appeal to emotion to win out over logic and facts. And some MSNBC hosts do this quite a lot now, even my beloved Rachel at times. The fact that it is all motivated by profit really underlines it for me as well. That this is a corporate strategy to pay shareholders, pure and simple.

Yes, MSNBC hosts do tell the truth as well, and some might say it is best to fight fire with fire in a sense. In our broken political and media system, they may be right from a purely tactical viewpoint. But in the process MSNBC is doing a lot of harm to liberal causes by supposedly representing them. It breeds cynicism if you ask me.