One theme in the coverage of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords concerns whether the tone of the political debate will change. That's probably going to happen in the short-term. A long-term shift is unlikely. There have been frequent allusions to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the national discussion that ensued at the time about violent rhetoric on right-wing talk shows. See Extra!'s 1995 article "AM Armies" for more background.

Roughly 10 years later, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough convened a panel (4/27/05) to discuss talk radio extremism, in the wake of incendiary comments made by Air America's Randi Rhodes. As FAIR noted at the time, one of Scarborough's guests was Watergate criminal-turned-talk show host G. Gordon Liddy--a purveyor of violent talk:

On MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough turned to Liddy for his response to this incident, asking: "G. Gordon Liddy, are conservatives guilty of similar hate speech on their shows?"

Liddy's response: "Well, if they are, I certainly haven't heard of it."

That would mean that Liddy has not listened to his own program. On August 26, 1994, Liddy told his radio listeners: "Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests." Liddy's advice that day was explicit: "They've got a big target on there, ATF. Don't shoot at that, because they've got a vest on underneath that. Head shots, head shots.... Kill the sons of bitches."

This was far from an isolated incident. On September 15, 1994, for example, Liddy told his listeners: "If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight. Just remember, they're wearing flak jackets and you're better off shooting for the head." The theme was repeated so often that Liddy's callers began to exclaim "head shots!" to express their agreement with the host, the way Rush Limbaugh's callers say "megadittos."

To his credit, Scarborough responded to FAIR, explaining that he had no awareness of Liddy's history.

Let's hope that when someone convenes a civility in media discussion in 2020, they don't ask Glenn Beck to weigh in.

MSNBC has suspended host Keith Olbermann for making political contributions--even though GE/NBC executives and fellow MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has made similar donations. If you'd like to urge MSNBC to follow a consistent standard, see FAIR's Action Alert (11/5/10). And please post copies of your messages, and/or comments on the alert, to the comments thread here.

Gabriel Sherman's New York magazine piece on cable news (10/3/10) has an important insight into the Fox News' success:

Fox's rightward flanking maneuver, capturing a disenfranchised part of the audience, was only part of its strategy. The news, especially political news, wasn’t something that happened. It was something that you shaped out of the raw data, brought out of the clay of zhlubby, boring politics, reborn with heroes and villains, triumphs and reverses, never-ending story lines--what TV executives call "flow." And the beauty of it was that the viewers--the voters--were the protagonists, victims of evil Kenyan socialist overlords, or rebels, coming to take the government back. There was none of the on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand relativity crossfire that mirrors the journalism-school ideal of objectivity. All the fire went one way. The viewers, on their couches, were flattered as the most important participants, the foot soldiers in Fox's army; some of them even voted.

I sense in New York's account the traditional corporate media assumption that politics is an activity best left to the professionals--that there's something untoward about journalists encouraging citizens to take an active role in their nation's decision-making. That, of course, is exactly what they should be doing.  The problem with Fox News is the story that it's telling is naturally a conspiratorial one: The way to present the corporate powers-that-be that Fox speaks for as being on the same side as the middle class is to invent a conspiratorial elite in league with a sinister underclass that is the enemy of both top and middle. Tides Foundation, meet the New Black Panther Party.

The New York article presents MSNBC as having grasped the essence of Fox's model of journalism, while CNN hasn't gotten it yet. "Fox figured it out that you have to stand for something in cable," the piece quotes MSNBC president Phil Griffin. But, really, MSNBC doesn't get it either. If it's all about "targeting an audience" and "brand is everything," as various NBC brass say, then why does MSNBC start its day with Morning Joe, hosted by moderate conservative (and former Republican congressmember) Joe Scarborough? Fox puts Fox & Friends in that timeslot to launch the stories that will dominate the channel's "straight news" and "opinion" shows all day long.

MSNBC doesn't do that, ultimately, because its owner General Electric doesn't want it to do that--because the natural storyline for a progressive media outlet is corporate power vs. the rest of us, and in that narrative GE is a major villain. GE would much rather be telling the story that Fox is telling--"We have to be more conservative then they are," NBC CEO Robert Wright told NBC News chief Neal Shapiro after September 11, New York reports. In fact, MSNBC tried to outflank Fox on the right long before 9/11--and didn't give up on the idea until it had repeatedly failed. Eventually the cable channel realized that Fox had dibs on the right-wing sector of the audience--but GE's corporate interests prevent it from really going after the progressive slice of the pie.

The website Gawker (6/9/09) caught Newsweek making some sneaky changes in an online article--changes that were ordered by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, and which just happened to favor the host of a show that Meacham appears on regularly.

On the afternoon of Friday, June 5, Newsweek's website put up an interview with Joe Scarborough, the conservative host of MSNBC's Morning Joe program.  The introduction pointed out that Scarborough had once been the defense attorney for an anti-abortion terrorist who murdered a doctor, and noted that the host had been criticized for giving insufficient attention to the murder of Dr. George Tiller, which occurred less than a week before the interview appeared.

By Friday night, though, the introduction to the interview had been completely rewritten.  Gone was any reference in the lead to abortion shootings, replaced instead by rather bland observations about "the rise of partisan media outlets" and "how conservatives lost their way."  What happened?  Jon Meacham happened, that's what. The Newsweek editor, a frequent guest on Morning Joe, told Gawker he was contacted about the interview by "a member of Scarborough's team," and after looking at the item he decided that "it was better to include that material in the flow of the interview."

Journalists don't usually think it's "better" to make the lead of a story less newsworthy by taking out references to current events.  But then newsworthiness might not be the first thing you think of when you're editing a story about your friend--especially a friend who routinely gives you valuable national TV exposure.  Which is why the better thing to do would have been for Meacham to tell the member of Scarborough's team that he couldn't second-guess the Web editor's decision-making.

MSNBC's Morning Joe program seems to have turned its conspicuous consumption of Starbucks drinks into a paid commercial for the coffee chain, according to this morning's New York Times (6/1/09). As Brian Stelter put it, Joe Scarborough "sips Frappuccinos on camera so often that some viewers have wondered whether it is a form of product placement, paid for by the coffee company. Starting Monday, it will be."

The deal is worth over $10 million, and will include "Starbucks graphics and mentions during each hour of the 6 to 9 a.m. program." The show might even broadcast from Starbucks locations from time to time.

Conflict of interest? MSNBC president Phil Griffins says no way:

Mr. Griffin said Morning Joe would continue to cover Starbucks as a news item if warranted. "They understand that we have standards," he said.

Standards indeed.