Eric Alterman's been fired by MSNBC, for whom he's written the "Altercation" blog and been associated with in various capacities for a long time now. Media Matters is apparently going to host the blog in the future, and good for them. One keeps hoping that the "no liberals allowed on television" rule is going to get relaxed, but it seems to be growing more entrenched.
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Alterman Sacked
11 Sep 2006 12:39 pm
Comments (34)
Agree with dj.
No liberals allowed on television? What television are you watching?
"Part of the problem may be that, in addition to being a heckuva good liberal and a smart guy, Alterman is kind of a dick."
It not that I entirely disagree with this but its not known if that had anything to do with him being fired. If it were really true they'd have given him his own show.
In a previous era, this would have been bad news indeed. But score another one for the internet. I mean, it makes no difference to me which URL shortcut I click everyday to get to Altercation. Did Dr. Alterman enjoy some degree of greater 'visiblity', for lack of a better term, by being part of the web portion of MSNBC than he will at Media Matters? Maybe the perks at MSNBC are in some way better, but I don't imagine that will make much difference. So, MSNBC's loss, no difference to the readers.
As for his sometimes being a dick: you mean, as opposed to, say, Hannety, or O'Reilly, or Colter, or Rush, or Tucker Carlson, or that guy who got the gig on CNN Headline, or Jonah Goldberg getting a regular column in the LA Times, or Max Boot, or Hitchins, or Krauthammer, or....on and on (and on and on and on)?
Hey, Matt oughta be on TV!
He's the e-Donahue!
i second the "what TV are you watching?" comment. you can't be serious.
Re: "liberals on TV"
DJ, Brandon - name some names.
Keith Olbermann
Katie Couric
Tom Brokaw
Dan Rather
Chris Matthews
Bill Maher
Jon Stewart
Rosie ODonnell
need more?
Katie Couric isn't a liberal. Tom Brokaw (who isn't a liberal) and Dan Rather have some obscure cable shows. Chris Matthews is a conservative. Bill Maher is a libertarian and Rosie O'Donell has 1/4 of a daytime talk show.
What planet are you living on? Just because those guys don't slavishly follow the Republican line of the day 100% of the time doesn't make them liberals. (Or maybe by contemporary conservative standards, it does?) You have to have been quite thoroughly propagandized, to the point of being genuinely unable to think for yourself, to call Katie Couric or Chris Matthews or Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather a liberal. Jon Stewart is a hero to liberals, but he's first and foremost a comedian. And Rosie O'Donnell is indeed a plump hairy lesbian (thus fitting neatly into the conservative beastiary) but her job on daytime network TV is to giggle about Tom Cruise and gossip about makeup tips.
Probably Brandon is thinking about all those liberals who don't say or do anything on TV that would let you know they're liberals, while Yglesias is clearly talking about partisan political pundits, of which Brandon could only list two, who are on non-news cable stations.
Olbermann and Stewart - that's two.
Parphrasing something I wrote (that Dr. Alterman printed): Has it really come to this? The only two liberal voices on TV news today are a sportscaster and a comedian?
Okay, I didn't understand that you guys don't think cable counts as television.
George Stephanopoulos
Eleanor Clift
Katrina vanden Heuvel (or does being a guest not count either)
Matt Lauer
The only two liberal voices on TV news today are a sportscaster and a comedian?
and they aren't even very liberal. they're outspoken critics of BushCo (making fun of politicos is The Daily Show's mission statement), but they don't advocate many liberal policies.
and frankly, making fun of politicos is The Daily Show's mission statement - they get plenty of digs in at the Democrat's expense, too, but since the GOP is in the driver's seat these days, they get the most attention.
Eleanor Clift, Katrina vanden Heuvel - frequent guests on other people's shows - usually split screen with some conservative for a 30 second shouting match. do either of them have their own shows ?
Brandon, I'm confused.
If you "don't think cable counts", then why did you include Olbermann and Stewart (not to mention Chris Mathews and Bill Mahar) in your first list? Do these people have some network show that I'm not aware of? Please send details ASAP, so I can start watching!
Ignore last - I misread what Brandon had written. Sorry.
All that Matt said that I questioned was, "no liberals on television." I got asked to provide names. When I provide names, I get "They're not very liberal" or "They don't have their own show." In Stewart's case, I got "he makes fun of Democrats too."
I give up.
I was wondeing if the firing was Abrams' doing? But Alterman makes a murky reference to NBC and GE being involved. Any theories here?
it's hard to know exactly what Matt meant by his original comment, because it's odd to think he meant that there Aren't Any Liberals anywhere on TV - obviously they do end up as guests in shouting matches, or on Comedy Central, or on a-political talkshows. but as far as actual full-throated liberals pushing liberal ideals on their own show (as compared to the dozens of conservative examples) ... ? count em in the single digits, probably. on a single hand, maybe.
One keeps hoping that the "no liberals allowed on television" rule is going to get relaxed, but it seems to be growing more entrenched.
I'm confused. (No jokes, please.)
Was the Alterman program on MSNBC, the cable television station? Or did he just write for MSNBC DOT COM? I thought the latter, but I confess I don't watch MSNBC.
Al, Alterman just wrote. On the MSNBC/Newsweek site.
Further to my musings at 4:45, did Newsweek have any role here?
Brandon: you provided names, but almost none were liberals, and those that were didn't have a political show. Good to see you giving up, though.
houston, we have a definitional problem (which i don't find very interesting). but the notion that TV isn't sufficiently liberal (see what i did -- i cheated by switching from the noun to the adjective) seems a little silly given the political persuasion of most broadcast journalists (i may be wrong, but recall records of donations and surveys in which said journos are just about as lefty as college profs and what not). if those journalists nonetheless don't meet your definition of a liberal, godspeed.
Bill Maher is not a libertarian.
The problem I see is that the Right has swung so far to the extreme of the pendulum's range that anybody to the left of Atilla the Hun is now perceived as a Liberal, if not a radical Leftist (yes, Virginia, there is a difference). It is instructive to note that Barry Goldwater, who in the '60s was labeled "Mr. Conservative," and the most Conservative person in Congress, appeals more today to Liberals than Conservatives. Going back and rereading some of his speeches and writings, one realizes that he's arguably closer to Noam Chomsky than to modern "Conservative" pundits like Limbaugh or O'Reilly.
Goldwater's style of Conservatism was all about individual liberty. He made it possible for a generation to question the legitimacy of all-powerful federal government - a claim that today would get you branded as a Left wing extremist and an appeaser of terrorism by the neoconservative Right, who worship at the altar of an all-powerful (neocon) "Unitary Executive" (a marvelous euphemism that would have made Orwell kvell).
Goldwater was pro-choice and accepting of homosexuality. About gays in the military, he remarked, "They don't have to be straight, just shoot straight."
He also was adamantly against the mixing of religion and politics - of Church and State. As the Christian right grew in political power, he and they virtually went to war with each other.
Science Fiction author and acute social critic Robert A. Heinlein once wrote:
"Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."
On both the Right and Left, there are strains of authoritarianism and of libertarianism (with a lower-case "l"). Today on the political Right, the authoritarians of the Neoconservative ideology are dominant, and libertarians are relegated to posting bitter screeds denouncing the neocons' abuses of power on the Cato Institute's site.
To make a learned borrowing from Thomas Jefferson, the sickly, weak and timid man fears the people, and is an authoritarian by nature. The healthy, strong, and bold cherishes them; and is formed a libertarian by nature.
Olbermann's days are numbered.
>the political persuasion of most broadcast journalists
who cares what they do off the air ?
Katrina vanden Heuvel (or does being a guest not count either)
She's Token Liberal every six weeks on panels that usually include George Will, Fareed Zakaria and Journalist To Be Named Later.
This really isn't controversial, and Media Matters has the numbers. In your typical four-person This Week panel, you'll have Will (conservatve), a National Review movement conservative and a couple of straight journalists for the conventional wisdom.
And this is the problem: when Brandon sees Kate O'Beirne every single week on some discussion show, he doesn't see a conservative. He certainly doesn't see George Will as a conservative. He does, however, see every Washington Post journalist as a liberal. And you can't deal with people who'd call a panel containing Jonah Goldberg, Tony Blankley, David Gergen and David Broder 'liberal'.
As for Alterman: he isn't good on television, mainly because he does come across as a bit of a dick. But that's mainly a perception thing shaped by the Carnival of Wingnuttery, because compared to Ann Coulter he's the Dalai Lama. Alterman doesn't tolerate dumbfucks lightly.
ahem,
Strawman well whacked. I wasn't talking about conservatives at all.
And you can't deal with people who'd call a panel containing Jonah Goldberg, Tony Blankley, David Gergen and David Broder 'liberal'.
Who said that? Besides you I mean.
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Comments closed September 25, 2006.
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Heads in the Sand
Part of the problem may be that, in addition to being a heckuva good liberal and a smart guy, Alterman is kind of a dick.
Posted by dj moonbat | September 11, 2006 12:45 PM