The NYTimes‘ Jacques Steinberg follows up on his story about MSNBC being in “serious discussions” with Rosie O’Donnell about a primetime show on the network.
Rosie would fit the roster, Steinberg writes, because “[T]he cable channel believes there is ratings gold in shows that criticize the [Bush] administration with the same vigor with which Fox News’s hosts often champion it.” Countdown with Keith Olbermann being the standout.
“Officials at MSNBC emphasize that they never set out to create a liberal version of Fox News,” Steinberg writes, quoting NBC SVP Phil Griffin the former Hardball EP who now runs the network. “It happened naturally,” said Griffin, “There isn’t a dogma we’re putting through. There is a ‘Go for it.'”
Two notable exceptions to the left is right strategy: MSNBC hosts Tucker Carlson, whose show, Steinberg writes “is in real danger of being canceled” and Joe Scarborough now hosting three hours in the morning.
“I’m just as conservative as I was in 1994, when everyone was calling me a right-wing nut,” Scarborough says. “I think the difference is the Republican Party leaders, a lot of them, have run a bloated government, have been corrupt, and have gone a very, very long way from what we were trying to do in 1994. Also, the Republican Party has just been incompetent.”