Olbermann and Matthews Will Not Be Anchoring MSNBC Election Coverage

Strangely, none of the clearly partisan Fox News anchors are going anywhere.

Damn it. There goes my dream of a fistfight breaking out live.

Olbermann was a disaster, and I also agree that Matthews shouldn't *the* anchor, he's a great political commentator and analyst but too emotional for this role. Matthews should be available for commentary during debate and election night coverage. Olbermann should be constrained to his own show, he doesn't really provide any insight to political analysis.

This whole thing has been very embarassing, Olbermann's hot mike comments to Scarborough and Murphy have been very unprofessional.

There goes my only reason to watch MSNBC. Watching the on-air meltdowns and bickering was pretty entertaining TV.

Matthews is a dumb shit. Pure and simple. I can't believe some of the crap that man spews on national TV.

I also can't believe GE (owners of NBC/MSNBC/CNBC) didn't like him. I can understand WHY they didn't like Olbermann. However, I can't for the life of me understand how any see's Matthews as "liberal"; especially in how he fauns over guys like Bush and Thompson (aqua velva, anyone?).

Ew.

*anyways, I also am tiring of this "liberal media" bullshit as it is and has been for the last decade, NOT. Just a glance of Sunday talking head shows, for example show more conservative folks (like, William Kristol who for some reason, still gets a national stage for his always incorrect statements), spouting out opinions.

C'mon we ALL know "liberal media" is merely a ruse. It doesn't exist. This country basically no longer has a fourth estate.

I think Matthews was included in this as a concession to Olbermann, who does have the higher ratings.

People who don't think the media leans at least slightly left are in such deep denial. I wish the media were more unbias but that's the way it's been and will be. I think both MSNBC and Fox are disgusting for how much they slant.

Chris Matthews is a hotheaded basketcase who has no business being anywhere near an anchor's chair on election night.

How is implying, on more than one occasion, that being white = being regular "failing to introduce a liberal 'frame'?" And what does consistent misogyny have to do with liberalism or conservatism? I couldn't care less what the guy's politics are - he's a jackass.

First off, Palin isn't presenting herself that way; Matthews came up with the analogy. Second, it's a terrible, flawed comparison that shows that Matthews has no idea what Norma Rae is about, who Crystal Lee Jordan is, or how hilarious it is that he'd compare a conservative who has mocked another candidate's participating in grassroots organizing to a leftist and a union organizer. Matthews is prone to these weird, aggrandizing statements. It's very unprofessional.

This, really, was my point. We seem to disagree on the implications of it.

No, these flaws don't completely cancel out his work as a journalist, but they do seriously undermine his credibility.

Again, I think it's just a simple disagreement that we have - I find that his tendency toward hyperbole and his buffoonery on the air completely negate any faith I have in his intelligence or insight. As a result, I can't stand to watch the man. Moreover, I would imagine that a lot of his appeal to the regular viewer is that distinct possibility of some nice car-wreck tv before the evening's out. That's not journalism, it's sensationalism.

I get exhausted watching Matthews. Not only does he talk and talk and talk, the way he steps all over his guests' answers is annoying.

Journalists often lean left.

The corporations which run the newspapers often lean right.

The corporate bosses hire the editors.

Which of the above do you think has the most impact on the news?

If you think your national media is left wing, test it. Read some news written in Britain or Australia or Canada, and compare.

Honestly, I didn't know Chris Matthews was left until this election. Before he seemed to be such a blowhard I just assumed he was a righty.

This whole "librul media" thing is a sham. It's Sun Tzu's "make your enemies think your greatest strength is your greatest weakness."

There are somewhere around 1000 right wing radio programs on-air, opposed to 60-something progressive shows. Clear Channel, owned by Mitt Romney's company, owns a lot of both.

I think we're talking mainly about MSNBC here ...

If you're not constantly fellating the Right, you're automatically qualified as part of the liberal media. Matthews is pretty centrist and he does know how to hammer away at a guest if he thinks they're just reciting empty talking points. That being said, he gets caught up way too much in image politics. I wish I could find the clip of him saying that Fred Thompson smells terrific.

Or calling Buchanan and all the Republicans accusing people questioning Palin's qualifications as "charlatans" and "political cross-dressers".

I think he's centrist-leaning-left. But to liberals he's a conservative mouthpiece, and to Republicans he's a conservative hating liberal. Funny how people really can't step out of their beliefs and look at the bigger picture.

The bigger picture is that he comes off like an asshole, regardless of whether he's a conservative or liberal. Even if I agree with your politics, I'm not going to be all that interested in listening to you if you're an asshole. It's the great political equalizer.

As with Nordling, I always assumed he was a righty until this election. In everyday life, there are assholes on the left and the right, but the liberal assholes don't usually make it on TV. So kudos to Matthews, in that respect. He broke new ground there.

Matthews was a Carter speechwriter and worked on Tip O'Neill's staff during the Reagan years. I think he also ran for Congress as a Democrat many years ago. So he's definitely left-of-center, although not outrageously so (like, say, Olbermann). The biggest problem I have with him is same that Dave and Zooey do -- he's just a blowhard prick.

Dumb.

Dumb dumb dumb.

Dumb.

I don't find Matthews to be as asshole so much as I find him to be fucking nuts. I suppose it's six one way, half a dozen the other, though.

I agree with most of what Olbermann says, but he's got a self-obsessed quality that bothers me and his hamfisted efforts to make himself the new Edward R. Murrow leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I haven't watched as much Olbermann as Matthews, but, yeah, I'd say he's a blowhard, too.

I believe the friction with Matthews and Olbermann had little if anything to do with politics. Olbermann just got sick of constantly being cut off and shouted over every time he tried to speak and finally snapped on air. The talking over Scarborough stunt, however, was very unprofessional of Olbermann. I love Countdown and I'm thankful for it and the left leaning edge it proudly flaunts in counter to the far right batshit we get from O'Reilly, Hannity and the rest of FOX. We need a show like Countdown out there to be some margin of equal time. But Keith Olbermann should never have been tagged a political reporter and given the duties he's had on MSNBC this election year. Countdown draws big numbers for the network and they thought they could get likewise for the conventions if they used him. It backfired and now everybody has been embarrassed.

Great reasons.

Okay, here's another: the adjective form of the word is "biased," not "bias." "Bias" is a noun. You can't be bias (unless you're a metaphorical anthropomorphic representation of an abstract concept). You can express a bias. If you do so, you are biased. The same goes for "unbias"/"unbiased."

Also, "media" is always, always, always plural, so it should be "the media lean," not "the media leans."

As for whether the American media have a left-leaning bias, it's all a matter of context. To much of Europe, our media probably appear to lean very far right. Similarly, the direction of the lean all depends on what you consider the center to be, and that's pretty subjective.

This is complete non-news . They'll still appear on the broadcast, they'll still give their opinions, they just won't be tossing it to Andrea Mitchell or the other correspondents.