"The problem with the mainstream media is they're desperate to get access . . . they don't challenge power" (Cenk Uygur)

Why Cenk Uygur Left MSNBC, Part 1

"I'm holding onto the story that I've been talking about the whole time on The Young Turks, about how the problem with the mainstream media is they're desperate to get access, they don't challenge the government, they don't challenge power. . . .

"If I take the money, and I get a reduced role, and I just do whatever I do with it, and maybe I even rise up in the ranks again, what's the point? The point of this show was truth-telling. That's what we're supposed to do. And we're supposed to challenge the government. That's the role of the media."

-- Cenk Uygur, explaining his decision not to accept MSNBC's offer of twice the money for a much-reduced role as a power-respecting "insider"

by Ken

Look again at the short version of Cenk's quote that I've made the title of this post, or better the fuller version I've pulled out in the quote above. Then ask yourself how many professional media people would say "amen," as opposed to how many would sidle away until it's safe to break into an open trot. Of course right-wing media have no trouble challenging government when it's not being right-wing enough for their tastes, but that doesn't count. One thing that certainly isn't about is "challenging power."

In my other life as a scribbler about music, a quote I carried in my head was one from composer Virgil Thomson concerning his long service as a daily music critic for the New York Herald-Tribune, in which he described criticism as "our only antidote to paid publicity." Again, this isn't how most, or even many, practitioners see their role. I think back to my most important editorial job covering the classical music business, when my boss had to explain to me that "we're part of the music business." And at this remove, I have to own that he was right, and maybe if we had been a more enthusiastically energetic part of the music business, the magazine would still be around. (Not really, but we can have that discussion some other time.) The question would be whether the magazine would have any reason for continuing to exist.

Think about it: our only antidote to paid publicity.

Shift the discussion to general news and public affairs, and the stakes become starker. It's not just "paid publicity" we have to be concerned with, it's the crushing weight of the political and financial establishment, where it's now understood that the role of "news" media is to serve it. Central to the whole concept of "the Village," or the "Inside the Beltway" mentality, is that politicos and journos are really all in it together, that they are one industry, or one something.

And again, this seamless alliance seems to me one of the issues that's most truly troubling about the News International scandal: the extent to which Master Murdoch's Minions, in this case at his four British newspapers (now only three, of course, with the shuttering of the embattled News of the World) have been intertwined in successive British governments. It's important to note that while the arrangement may be more open and egregious with a Conservative prime minister, it's far from exclusive. The former Labour government and the News International swells courted each other pretty assiduously, and the early years of the cover-up of the News of the World phone-hacking allegations were overseen by that Labour government.

The video clips at the top and bottom of this post have been popping up all over the Internet, and rightly so: In his characteristically bluntly eloquent way, Cenk takes us through his view of what happened to him at MSNBC: basically, that he had to be yanked from that evening time slot because "people in Washington" were complaining to his boss, "the head of MSNBC" (Phil Griffin, whom he doesn't bother to name), as he was informed in a meeting he describes pretty vividly in Part 1, that they "were concerned about his tone."

Here's how Glenn Greenwald interprets the objection in an excellent Salon piece, "Cenk Uygur and the ethos of corporate-owned media":

Uygur often refused to treat members of the political and media establishment with deference and respect. He didn't politely imply with disguised subtleties when he thought a politician or media figure was lying or corrupt, but instead said it outright. In interviews, he was sometimes unusually aggressive with leading Washington figures, subjecting them to civil though hostile treatment to which they were plainly unaccustomed.

In case you were assuming, when you heard about Cenk being canned as interim host of the MSNBC 6pm show, that the problem was ratings, it turns out: not at all. Cenk goes into the numbers in some detail in Part 1. In fact, as of April, when (a) the crush of world breaking-news stories, which draw viewers to CNN, subsided, and (b) especially when Cenk decided to ignore the notes he'd been getting from his superiors and do the show his way, his ratings were fine and growing steadily.

JUST TO BE CLEAR, CENK ISN'T NECESSARILY
KNOCKING OTHERS ON THE MSNBC LINEUP

In the Part 2 clip, he stresses that the circumstances are different for everyone, in terms of contract (he didn't even have one) and the things that give an individual the kind of clout you can stare down even a cable network with. He makes it clear how much he admires the job Rachel Maddow has done, explaining that she has shrewdly marshaled the clout she has built up by doing the show her way and leveraging the terrific ratings she's developed. It probably helped too that when her show went on the air she enjoyed the enthusiastic support of Keith Olbermann, who still had lots of clout of his own at MSNBC.

Glenn Greenwald recollects an interview Rachel did last week with Bill Moyers,

who for years -- based on experience -- has been explaining that the corporate climate that preveails at large media companies significantly restricts and constrains what can be said. In response, Maddow said:

I mean, I work at a big corporate conglomerate controlled media outlet. And I feel like the way to handle this as an individual journalist for me is that I have carved out a sphere here of editorial independence.

And on MSNBC, my deal with the company is I will do shows on MSNBC, and you will not tell me what to say. And they are very comfortable with that. And I think a lot of individual journalists find ways to do that.

Glenn notes too Moyers' stress on the factor of self-censorship that develops in the corporate media cauldron.

I served time at CBS News, enjoyed it, seven years in all. I was here at MSNBC for the launch of it 15 years ago. I worked at NBC.

But I saw in every one of those environments the growth of the shadow of self censorship when -- I mean, I happen to know that when I was here, Newt Gingrich and Henry Kissinger did their best to mute my influence on "The Nightly News" because of the freedom and independence Andy Lack, who was then the president of NBC News, had given me. It's up there all the time, like gathering storm clouds.

You do a terrific job of maintaining your independence. And I must say out of the Murdoch scandal has come a reminder of the importance of a free and independent press.

Bill and Rachel then point out that the story was finally broken by the Guardian, which is run by, as Rachel explains it, "a public trust, set up by the founding family to make sure that 'The Guardian' would always be commercially and editorially independent."

Tim Karr did an excellent summary of what he billed as "Cenk Uygur vs. 'The Club,'" and in response to a commenter who noted that Cenk is to be a guest tonight on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, another refugee from MSNBC, Tim muses: "Curious about the level of Comcast involvement in this decision. MSNBC's new owner is deeply embedded among the 'Corporate Democrats' in Washington. Cenk's braver brand of journalism would no doubt put them on the defensive."

Do watch Cenk's clips. You'll especially want to hear him talking about the money MSNBC offered him to be a good soldier in the army of the establishment -- not to mention the "perks" with which infotainment noozers are customarily seduced from any sense of journalistic mission. Right now I'm going to watch Cenk on Countdown -- and you may still be able to catch one of the rebroadcasts. I'm sure there will soon be clips up. But Cenk has already laid out the basic structure of the situation.

Why Cenk Uygur Left MSNBC, Part 2

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