Current TV’s Cenk Uygur gives a wide-ranging interview to Talking Points Memo, offering his thoughts on everything from the future of Current TV to CNN host Erin Burnett, who he calls “the best representative of the 1 percent in the media.” He also reflects on the differences between his old job and his new one:
There is a clear independence at Current. There is no interfering with what we do on the show. There’s no subtle hints. At MSNBC, you felt the machine in the room everyday. As you know, I did my damnedest to avoid the machine, for which I was treated appropriately, let’s put it that way. I don’t want anybody to get me wrong, the people who worked there, the producers, the hosts, they’re not bad people, they’re great people. But the machine is in the room. They do their best at fighting past it, getting beyond it, sneaking around it, but the machine wants you to be mainstream, meaning don’t stray from the beaten path of Democrats and Republicans and the partisan games that we play. Whereas at Current, there is no beaten path, there is no machine, you just blaze your own trail.