MSNBC reassigns liberal-biased 'reporters'

Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 9/10/2008 6:00:00 AM

A conservative media analyst says the decision by MSNBC to drop Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as co-anchors of its political night coverage is an effort to regain some of the credibility that the network lost when the liberal bias of the two hosts was challenged on the air by their colleagues.

Veteran reporter David Gregory will now anchor MSNBC's coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates, along with election night. Olbermann and Matthews will remain as commentators on the cable news network's coverage. During the Republican and Democratic conventions, Olbermann, Matthews, and MSNBC pundits engaged in a series of spats.

Bob Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute, believes MSNBC did not make the move sooner because it had risen in the ratings.

"There is a segment of the population out there that likes to hear Keith Olbermann rant against any conservative, but you can only do that so much and still have credibility," Knight contends. "Over the last couple of weeks, obviously Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann unleashed so much venom toward Sarah Palin and other Republicans that they felt that the reputation of the network was at stake, so they finally made the move."

According to Knight, it is yet another reminder that the major television networks are suffering from liberal bias.

"It's not just MSNBC. There've been two revealing polls in recent days. One of them was of uncommitted voters, and 50 percent of them believe that the media were trying to elect Barack Obama – they saw that much bias," Knight adds. "And then another poll that just came out said that a large number of people thought the media were being very unfair to Sarah Palin. And then when you have US Weekly losing 10,000 subscribers [who were] furious at how they treated her on their cover, you can see the public rising up and saying 'enough is enough.'"

Knight says it hurts a network's credibility any time the objectivity of an anchor is being questioned on the air by his own colleagues, as was the case with MSNBC. He recommends that if the networks really wanted to stop their declining ratings, they would employ more conservative commentators because they "speak more to the heart of America."