I agree with Keith Olbermann (11/15/10) about the dubious value of "objectivity" as a journalistic value; he makes a telling point about how journalistic icons like Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow are most honored for the moments when they reached conclusions and asserted values.

And I think he's right that the U.S. media establishment's failure to see through the lies that sold the Iraq War is a singular failure of our journalistic system--one that does indeed suggest that we need an entirely different system that better serves our democracy.

Olbermann's MSNBC forerunner, Phil Donahue, was fired in the run up to the war not because he wasn't neutral enough, after all, but because he would hamper the network's ability to be "waving the flag" like its competitors (All Your TV, 2/25/03). What NBC and its corporate parent GE were looking for was not objectivity but the right kind of bias.

Which is to say, Olbermann is right that it's necessary to have journalists who express values and draw conclusions--but not sufficient.  We also need to talk about which values our corporate-dominated media system is likely to tolerate, and which conclusions are allowed to be drawn.

Gabriel Sherman's piece in New York magazine (10/3/10) on the cable news wars includes a bit of history on MSNBC's firing of progressive host Phil Donahue in 2003; an internal memo at the time worried that the show would be  "a home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity." Sherman focuses on MSNBC personality Chris Matthews--who sometimes claims he was opposed to the Iraq War--and his desire to get Donahue fired:

Donahue's problems only increased when Chris Matthews let it be known that he wanted Donahue off the air. Matthews was a rising force at the network, with a reported salary of $5 million. He cultivated former GE CEO Jack Welch and had the ear of NBC CEO Bob Wright. (The two summered together on Nantucket.) Matthews saw himself as MSNBC's biggest star, and he was upset that the network was pumping significant resources into Donahue's show. In the fall of 2002, U.S. News & World Report ran a gossip item that had Matthews saying over lunch in Washington that if Donahue stays on the air, he could bring down the network.

After the item was published, Matthews showed up at Donahue's office and apologized. "He didn’t deny it," Donahue remembers. With the war looming, Sorenson and Griffin decided to take him off the air to make way for 24/7 war coverage.

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, doing press for his new TV show on "conspiracy theories," made got some attention from (among others) Eric Roper at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Roper alludes to a "curious comment Ventura made in the Los Angeles Times this weekend"-- that MSNBC canceled his short-lived show when they found out that he opposed the Iraq War:

I was basically silenced. When I came out of office, I was the hottest commodity out there. There was a bidding war between CNN, Fox and MSNBC to get my services. MSNBC ultimately won. I was being groomed for a five-day-a-week TV show by them. Then, all of a sudden, weird phone calls started happening: "Is it true Jesse doesn't support the war in Iraq?"

Roper writes that MSNBC's decision would be an "odd one since they are considered liberal." Except for the fact that the same cable channel canceled its highest-rated program for the same reason, as FAIR noted in 2003:

MSNBC canceled Phil Donahue's talkshow after an internal memo (leaked to the All Your TV website, 2/25/03) argued that he would be a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.... He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The report warned that the Donahue show could be "a home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."