Phil Griffin, MSNBC President: We Want To Be Like Fox News

[DearAbby]

MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal that he hopes MSNBC can grow to be more like Fox News, but that he won't be putting any "hard-right shows" on his network.

Griffin praised Fox News chief Roger Ailes for the television phenomenon he's created.

"He's changed media," Griffin said of Ailes. "Everybody does news differently because Roger's changed the world. Roger early on figured it out and was brilliant."

To Griffin, developing a successful cable news network means creating a place for "like-minded" viewers to come for the network's hosts' takes on the news.

"We're talking about the actions and passions of today, which tend to be political," he said.

"I don't think we have quite the passionate support that Fox does," he said. "Some shows do, but as a network we don't. Our prime time is getting there. But that's what we want to get."

But despite the desire to emulate Fox, Griffin insists he would not put on a hardcore conservative news show

More:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/03/phil-griffin-msnbc-presid_n_560746.html

[Nite Owl]

1. Well hardcore centrist, moderate

shows just won't have a draw so leaves the left and he really f@@@@d up big time today with that idea. Keith was the wrong one to chose to take a stand on whatever it is he is trying to take a stand on because I can't figure that one out.

[EFerrari]

6. He's a right wing whack job.

He probably does want to compete with Fox rightwing @ssholery.

[virtualobserver]

2. If the same quality existed in other time slots beyond prime time

I would watch. Scarborough is unbearable.

[BarbaRosa]

3. Right now they are just like faux..

I don't watch.

[mzmolly]

5. .... except they care about the truth.

I do watch. I'll watch every host except the person filling in for Olbermann, until he returns.

[BurtWorm]

4. He's basically saying it doesn't matter if it's hard right or leftish as long

as it draws a passionate audience, sort of like any commodity might draw a passionate audience. In other words, what Roger and Phil have figured out is that fact is for suckers and losers. The people want opinion. Their own opinion spoken by someone else.

Give the people what they want and you can sell them anything.

[denem]

7. He's saying he wants a Propaganda channel with welded on left-ditto heads.

The content is not important, it's the outcome. The presenters can be as left as they like as long as they provide an alternative reality that viewers can't live without.

[EFerrari]

8. He's a big Bush donor. I don't think that's what he has in mind. n/t

[BurtWorm]

10. If it makes him money, it will do.

Don't you think so? He's not doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Or out of a sense of social responsibility.

[EFerrari]

13. Imo, people are getting caught up in the false equivalency thingy.

The left doesn't go for lockstep like the right does. So even if he wanted to put on a leftwing Fox, it wouldn't work.

Second, he doesn't want to do that. He's a rich hard right winger.

[denem]

11. I don't care what he has in mind, I dont want another Propaganda

service of any complexion.

[EFerrari]

12. You may not have noticed this, but propaganda is the art form of the right.

The left is noisy and diverse and much less organized. You will never see a Faux News from the left. It's not what we do and it doesn't hold our audience.

[denem]

15. I understand that. I would add thoughtful to noisy and diverse.

I'm not saying it's possible, but it's my interpretation of what it's about. When that fails Griffter will move right.

[walldude]

9. This is exactly what Jon Stewart was talking about.

Fox is what news channels aspire to be? The word NEWS should not be associated with any of them. I can watch BBC news for 2 hours and get more real news than in a week of Fox or MSNBC. These channels aren't presenting the news... they are the news

[EFerrari]

14. The thing that Jon misses (imo) is the bigger frame where

all the big media outlets are owned by right wingers so of course, they aspire to be like Faux.

The playing field he's talking about doesn't start out in some neutral Journalistic Heaven. It's an industry that the right captured decades ago.

[Quantess]

16. Forgive my language, but,

FUCK THAT!

Just wait until everyone ditches cable and gets all their viewing from streaming and internet. Hello, Netflix. Goodbye dinosaurs MSNBC and FOX!

[bliss_eternal]

17. It's already begun...

...I get more of my news from here (on-line), occasionally from huffpo and front pages of places like yahoo (which liberally utilizes news outlets from overseas--thank goodness).

I haven't watched MSNBC since 2004. I saw all of 5 mins. of Fox, once. Found it vulgar, offensive and immediately turned it off. I won't pollute my mind with that garbage. I refuse. Really don't understand how other progressives stomach it (Fox). :puke:

[Quantess]

19. But maybe MSNBC is anticipating losing a big chunk of their audience.

They are losing the more tech-savvy crowd. That means all cable news channels would have to fight with each other, for the same leftover audience.

[bliss_eternal]

20. Sure, definitely possible....

...:)

[arthritisR_US]

18. what an absolute obtuse asshole Griffin is. n/t