New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley has a piece (8/31/11) about Al Sharpton's debut as an MSNBC host. It seems his show, like others on the channel, could use more of a debate:

On Monday Mr. Sharpton followed the patented formula, bringing in two experts who agreed with him that recent efforts in North Carolina and other states to stiffen voter-identity requirements and restrict early voting would mostly affect the minorities and younger voters who turned out in record numbers for Barack Obama in 2008. Mr. Sharpton called it a "poll tax by another name." It’s an interesting issue, and not one that other MSNBC talkshows have addressed with the same degree of passion, but it would also have been helpful to viewers to learn how proponents of voting restrictions justify the legislation.

While diversity of viewpoints is a nice goal, this is one of those issues where the "other side" doesn't have much of a case. Voter ID laws are, in theory, supposed to protect against voter fraud--which is an almost completely nonexistent problem. Stanley's paper has written a couple of  editorials about this, citing the Brennan Center's excellent work on the issue.

There are obviously plenty of things you can say about Al Sharpton or MSNBC. Wishing that his show would feature more guests spewing misinformation is hardly "helpful."

New York Times TV reporter Alessandra Stanley (2/2/11) had a piece discussing why you can't watch Al Jazeera English on your television. After noting that "demand was pretty low" for the channel until recently (unlike, I don't know, Fox Business Channel, which must have dozens of die-hard fans), Stanley warned that

zeal sometimes outstrips the thirst for accuracy. The channel reported on Tuesday that 2 million protesters defied a curfew to gather in Tahrir Square; most Western news organizations put the number in the hundreds of thousands.

Seriously--the New York Times is going to lecture other media outlets on the proper way to report on the size of the crowd at a massive demonstration? And the person to do this is Alessandra Stanley, a reporter whose record of inaccuracy led Gawker to wonder, "How Many Corrections Does It Take to Get Fired at the Times?"

Come on now.