What’s Hot/What’s Not: 08/02/09

What’s Hot:

Muzzled – There were a lot of hot stories this week involving cable news talking heads but the biggest of them all was Brian Stelter’s expose of the deal between News Corp. and GE to cut back in the 8pm crossfire between MSNBC and FNC. This was just Part 1 “The story breaks”. Part 2 “The Fallout” happens next week. Maybe. Or maybe not.

CNN and Birthers – While MSNBC and FNC deal with a story they don’t want to deal with (see above), CNN is dealing with its own story that won’t go away. Between Jon Klein publicly backtracking on comments regarding alleged spiking of the “birther” story and then word leaking out about CNN allegedly putting a stop to Lou Dobbs appearing on O’Reilly’s show to talk about birthers, CNN must be somewhat happy that this will take a back seat to the GE/News Corp. deal for at least one day; Monday, when eyes will be glued to Countdown and The Factor to see if the shows’ respective hosts will dare to comment. If they don’t, the story will fade and CNN will again be front and center.

Racist? – Not to be outdone, Glenn Beck put his own foot in it…some would argue the “it” was his own mouth…when he made the assertion that Barack Obama was a racist on Fox and Friends. FNC gave a hands off style explanation to TVNewser, which now rings rather hollow after the News Corp./GE deal story broke. Apparently some things can be restrained at FNC after all.

What’s Not:

Beer Summit Coverage – Talk about pandering to a story. All the networks went off the deep end covering Barack Obama’s overhyped “Beer Summit”.

Remedial Geography – Confusing Iraq with Egypt makes a network look stupid. Hopefully someone got their walking papers over this inexcusable mistake.

Declining Numbers – It was a negative leak to a blog that revealed CNBC’s bad numbers for July, but the numbers speak for themselves.

Not buying it?

The Kansas City Star’s Aaron Barhnart doesn’t buy the “feud is over” story…

Anyway, Stelter now reports that the feud is over. With all due respect to Brian, who does a terrific job and is a great guy … I’m not buying it.

I don’t think Brian got the facts wrong. The central nugget of the story is juicy and, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out today in Salon, makes Charlie Rose look like an even bigger tool than before. I just think the conclusion Brian drew from the facts was a wild miss.

Sure, the titans of the two respective conglomerates sat down and tried to hammer out a truce. But there is no linkage between that meeting and subsequent actions at MSNBC. It’s equally plausible that when they caught wind of the CEO summit, they chose to ignore it, or told the big boss, “Keith said he’s stopped attacking Billo,” which is technically true (as we’ll get to in a moment), but which also leaves the door open for those attacks to resume. Yeah, yeah, a GE spokesman said something on the record to Stelter but (a) that looks to me like one of those if-you-say-it’s-true reaction quotes that we’ve all run in our stories occasionally and, more to the point, (b) Olbermann denied it. “I am party to no deal,” KO emailed Stelter. And if he is party to no deal, then … no deal. Right?

Wrong. Barnhart is getting caught up in semantics. As I already said, Olbermann doesn’t have to be a part of a deal for there to be a deal. He doesn’t have to be in on the negotiations for the story story to be accurate. There was a deal. Orders were given. Olbermann may not have liked said orders but he took one for the team. Now he’s sort of twisting in the wind. As is everyone involved.

These types of deals only work in the long term if nobody knows there was a deal. Now that the deal has been exposed all bets are off. Though I hope cooler heads prevail. We don’t need a return to the feud.

In Depth: Olbermann/O’Reilly: What’s Next?

The Orlando Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker looks at what what it all could mean for MSNBC and FNC now that the “feud cease fire” genie is out of the bottle…

Are Olbermann and O’Reilly merely well-compensated entertainers and spinmeisters? Or do they perform a valuable function in speaking truth to power? How do they see themselves?

If the corporations are dictating what these hosts can say about the competition, what else have G.E. and News Corp. demanded that these hosts and their colleagues avoid?

Love him or hate him, Olbermann led the way on television in criticizing the George W. Bush and his administration. G.E. evidently never asked Olbermann to pull back on that, but now it wants Olbermann to quit O’Reilly. Ah, the corporate thin skins! These nitwits would put a price tag on the First Amendment.

Do Olbermann and O’Reilly see any danger in what’s happening? Something sacred it at stake. People have died for the right to say what they think. Is delivering an opinion on cable news these days just theater or what you truly believe?

Will Olbermann go along with the pact? A friend said this week it’s about time for Olbermann, who has history of leaving jobs, to get fed up and move on.

Boedeker is being a tad melodramatic here. A cease fire isn’t the end of the world or a free press. And don’t conflate the end of taking shots at your competition with the end of a free press either. All news organizations have standards and practices…things you can and cannot say on the air. Each news channel has its own customized version of that. So from the very beginning the “free press” is not really free. It’s only as free as the organization will allow itself to be.

In that regard, a change in how MSNBC and FNC treat each other over the air is just another example of the evolving world of standards and practices. It’s not some defining moment in the history of the American Media.

All that said, Boedeker has a point in regards to how Olbermann and O’Reilly are impacted by this deal. The downside is worse for Olbermann, though not as much as it would have been like a year and a half ago; back before Olbermann came out of his liberal closet. Before that he was more known as the thorn in O’Reilly’s side. Now he’s more known for being one of the “stars” of the progressive movement in the media. He’s changed one title for another.

But both Olbermann and O’Reilly have built reputations on being known for speaking their minds. Now that reputation has been negated by corporate meddling. But it’s only really become a PR nightmare for Olbermann, O’Reilly, News Corp., and GE because News Corp. and GE didn’t put a stop to this when they could have. Or should have.

It got so big with so much posturing on both sides that it had taken on this larger than life aspect, which was played up to the hilt by the press (and blogs like TVN, ICN, etc, etc) who like a good spat. We all share some responsibility in letting things get this out of hand. But, ultimately, the ones who could have nipped it in the bud, didn’t.

What’s Hot/What’s Not: Submissions…

It’s for weeks like this that What’s Hot/What’s Not was designed for. Post your nominations for this week’s What’s Hot/What’s Not. I’ll post the finalists late Sunday night.