After the first caucus and primary and the stunning
results to the prognostications of political pundits what have we learned?
The most dominant and
controversial news media story this election season was the Comcast - MSNBC
decision to depoliticize their left-leaning, progressive liberal news slant and
attempt to compete as a real journalistic news organization.
Of course, the liberals
were shocked and denounced the move, conservative citadel Fox News probably liked
the chaos in their competitor, CNN did not like a challenge to their false claim
of being the only source of fair and balanced reporting, and the radical
mouthpieces of the old MSNBC screamed as they were ushered out the door.
Chris Matthew
Lawrence O’Donnell
In the ensuing months the
MSNBC line up went through painful shake ups at the anchor and reporting levels
and the results have been interesting to date. Unfortunately, MSNBC has continued to
over-expose the old progressive-liberal anchors, guests, and reporters.
Rachel Maddow
Chris Hayes
People like Chris Matthews,
Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Lawrence O’Donnell continue to trash
Republicans in general, Trump in particular, and anyone not agreeing with their
leftist views. The result for the New Hampshire
Overall cable news did
quite well since all the major networks were running new shows for the Sweeps
period. The Iowa
Brian Williams
More than anything else
MSNBC needs continuity. In order to
accommodate their anchor egos the election coverage is broken up between the
return of Brian Williams and the revolving door of worn out radicals trashing
the latest news developments rather than reporting the news.
A single host with
alternating partners could solve the problem but the anchor should have no
baggage and most MSNBC anchors have baggage.
The sad news is that there are rising stars at MSNBC, the next
generation of anchors and reporters, who are free of the bias in their
reporting and entertaining to watch. They
are getting lost in the constantly changing faces of election night coverage.
If I wanted to compete
with CNN and eventually Fox here are the rising stars I would push to the
forefront at MSNBC, the latest of the new journalists you should check out
because of their news sense, journalistic principles, charisma, and camera
presence.
Chuck Todd
Chuck Todd and Willie
Geist are the most underutilized of all on air personalities. However, Chuck would be a great news analyst
while Willie, effectively buried on the ego driven Morning Joe Show, could be one
of those rare anchors who do not take themselves too seriously.
Willie Geist
Potential anchors
Steve Kornaski
Gigi Stone Woods
Reporters
Hallie Jackson
Jane Timm
Kate Snow
Anderson Cooper
Of course CNN has some of
the same problem, too many old and worn out anchors and is slow to recognize
and promote those fresh voices and faces.
Continuity is also a problem but they do have some underutilized people
and new faces.
Erin Burnett
Anderson Cooper remains
one of the most unbiased and entertaining anchors on the air and Erin Burnett
brings a lot of objectivity to the desk. Between them, they have helped drive CNN closer
to Fox in the ratings. If they shared
the anchor desk throughout the election night broadcast, the results could be
interesting.
Here are the rising stars
at CNN.
Anchors
Poppy Harlow
Reporters
Brianna Keilar
As Variety Magazine
reported on the Nielsen survey of the election to date:
February 10, 2016 | 11:23AM PT
Fox News Channel finished on top in both the demo (narrowly over CNN) and total viewers Tuesday as it and the other cable news networks combined for another sizable slice of the viewership pie with coverage of the New Hampshire primary.
Despite going up against all-original sweeps
programming on the broadcast networks, Fox News Channel (4.17 million), CNN
(2.73 million) and MSNBC (1.75 million) drew 8.65 million viewers during
primetime, according to preliminary national estimates from Nielsen. Last
night’s tune-in for the cable networks was well above average for a typical
Tuesday but couldn’t quite match the record-setting tune-in eight nights earlier
for coverage of the surprising results in the Iowa
For Fox News, whose Tuesday coverage was anchored
by Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly, last night’s average audience represents the
second highest ever for a night of primary coverage, behind only its 4.46
million for the Iowa
After finishing second to CNN in the key news demo
of adults 25-54 on the night of the Iowa
CNN reported that CNN Digital’s traffic surpassed
last week’s record-setting audience on the day of the Iowa Caucuses, with more
than 7 million unique visitors and 15 million page views on CNNPolitics.com.
Nearly 3 million unique users engaged on CNN’s mobile app and there were 13
million unique visitors for CNN Digital overall.
Tuesday night proved to be a big one for Bernie Sanders
and Donald Trump,
who scored huge victories for their respective
parties. Next up on the political front are a Democratic debate on Thursday
(PBS) and a Republican debate on Saturday (CBS).
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