Phil Griffin
Posted on 06/03/2013 9:04:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Seriously? Huh. When something’s happening in the world in the late afternoon hours on the east coast, I always turn to Chris Matthews to find out (a) how its Republicans’ fault and (b) how racism is motivating it. Oh, and (c) how Obama’s handling it really, really well.
As embarrassing as Phil Griffin’s admission here is, it has the shining virtue of being true. Candor is sufficiently rare in politics and media that I kinda want to pat him on the back for admitting it, even though it’s insane that he persists in letting his network operate this way.
At a time of intensely high interest in news, MSNBC’s ratings declined from the same period a year ago by about 20 percent. The explanation, in the network’s own analysis, comes down to this: breaking news is not really what MSNBC does.
“We’re not the place for that,” said Phil Griffin, the channel’s president, in reference to covering breaking events as CNN does. “Our brand is not that.”…
MSNBC’s viewers may have especially grown tired of politics because the news has been mostly negative recently toward President Obama, whom MSNBC’s hosts have championed. As another senior producer for news programs at multiple networks put it, “People will watch MSG when the Knicks are hot, and not watch when they aren’t.”…
With all the changes wrought by the Internet, Mr. Griffin said news organizations are in the midst of “a media revolution — and you better find out where you fit in this world.”
The Knicks analogy is cute, but John Nolte’s right that MSNBC’s ratings slippage didn’t begin with Scandalmania last month. They finished third in April, before the IRS and DOJ scandals erupted, and then slid to fourth last month behind HLN’s Jodi Arias frenzy. What happened in April? The Boston bombings, of course — and even though MSNBC had a valuable breaking-news asset in NBC’s Pete Williams, they still couldn’t top CNN for second place. As one cable producer told the NYT, “MS has stopped doing news so you don’t really think of them when there is a breaking news story.” Right, which apparently is by choice per Griffin’s comment about knowing where you fit in the world.
But … why would he choose that? Even if MSNBC has strayed so far from the path of straight news that it no longer sees virtue in covering it for its own sake, there’s a reason to cover it for the sake of advancing the liberal cause — namely that it’ll broaden MSNBC’s audience during big news events and some of those viewers will stick around for Hayes, Maddow, and O’Donnell in primetime. Purely as a point of pride, you would think Griffin would want to build his own stable of respected hard-news reporters rather than having to piggyback on NBC’s assets, which reinforces the sense of the network as NBC’s JV squad. CNN went out and got Jake Tapper, MSNBC went out and got Al Sharpton. If you’re making upwards of $200 million a year, as MSNBC is, and you’re committed to giving a platform to even the cheapest liberal demagogues, why not diversify your brand by going out and hiring both of them? Baffling.
"President of McDonald's restaurants: We’re not the place to turn for a good hamburger."
“President of MSNBC “news” network: We’re not the place to turn for breaking news”
Yes, it takes time for them to ask their god for and receive permission to print any “news”.
There. Fixed it.
Phil Griffin
The only ‘breaking’ on MSNBC is gas.
Most thinking human beings figured this out a long time ago.
On the other hand, if you're looking for state sanctioned propaganda...
His ‘excuse’ isn’t for the viewer; it’s for the higher ups - the people that own MSNBC. He is trying, unsuccessfully I’d add, to give them enough reasons why it isn’t his fault their ratings are in the sh!tter. He’s trying to save his job.
http://nymag.com/images/2/daily/intel/08/02/26_hippiephil_lgl.jpg
Phil Griffin started work with CNN during their early years where he met and worked with Keith Olbermann who worked there as a sportscaster. After several years with CNN working primarily as a writer-producer-editor in their sports department, Griffin began work at NBC in 1983 as a sports producer for the Today Show.
Griffin speaks boldly about building “the MSNBC lifestyle” — “much more like a general-interest brand than a left-wing clubhouse,” according to writer Rebecca Dana — with an eye toward “covering fashion, entertainment, sports, and food.”
Griffin’s new-found cockiness is credited with one of his producers’ new nickname for Fox News, “Loserville,”
In 2003, when MSNBC was on deathwatch, Griffin found himself in Ailes’s office, on a job interview. As Griffin remembers it, the Fox News chief asked him where he went to college, and when Griffin told him Vassar, Ailes replied, “Liberal.”
“Why do you say that?” Griffin asked.
“Only liberals go there,” Ailes said.
And these days:
“I’m fond of Phil Griffin,” Ailes told me. “He’s like the guy next door who wants to borrow your lawnmower. And he does a pretty good job of managing that mean-spirited circus over there. But let’s be honest, he built his whole career out of being in Jeff Zucker’s wedding party.”
Ailes, and “Fox executives mostly laugh at MSNBC and its dreams of cable news domination,” Dana writes. “In 2011, Fox News had profits of nearly $900 million on $1.6 billion of revenue, according to an analysis by SNL Kagan. The same year, MSNBC made $195 million on $420 million of revenue. And to catch Fox, MSNBC wouldn’t just have to sustain its current ratings; it’d have to double them.”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/03/msnbc-phil-griffin-calls-fox-news-loserville.html
The New Republic published a profile Monday of MSNBC President Phil Griffin in which one of Griffin’s producers labels rival cable network Fox News “Loserville.” The piece also includes a quote from Fox President Roger Ailes who refers to MSNBC as a “mean-spirited circus.”
Griffin tells TNR that he expects to beat Fox in the ratings by 2014.
Griffin may not be talking strategy with Jarrett, but his hosts have had multiple off-the-record sit-downs with the President. Rachel Maddow, who heads up the MSNBC primetime lineup, has been to the White House at least eight times, seven as of January 2012. Two of those visits were sit-downs with the President. Maddow’s most recent visit, in December of 2012, also included MSNBC hosts Lawrence O’Donnell, Ed Schultz, and Al Sharpton. Which is more important: that Griffin visited the White House or that his hosts repeatedly did so?
The New Republic piece also omits a mention of the recent Pew analysis which found that 85% of MSNBC’s content was opinion-laden vs. 15% that was strictly “factual reporting.” The figures for Fox were 55%-45%. As I wrote at the time, “MSNBC is everything that progressives imagine Fox to be.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/03/25/Foxs-Roger-Ailes-MSNBCs-Phil-Griffin-Trade-Barbs
Yes, they’ve got a full plate with AVOIDING all “breaking news”, same for the Obama Administration.
Yes, they’ve got a full plate with AVOIDING all “breaking news”, same for the Obama Administration.
The NBC affiliates tended to have better coverage than Fox, and, up until a few years ago, had [real] journalists on hand to report.
Unlike FNC. They would drive me away by putting on Smith and/or Rivera to cover a breaking story.
Progressive propaganda network; can’t do breaking news because of the time it takes to arrange the spin on it.
Near as I can figure, MSNBC is the place to turn when your lower area is rumbling and you need to find a place to take a bodacious Obama.
MSG=Focuses on the issue of monosodium glutamate in food and drugs, which some people consider is causing their health symptoms.
“We’re not the place for that,” said Phil Griffin, the channel’s president, in reference to covering breaking events as CNN does. “Our brand is not that.”…
Therein lies a large part of their problem. Of course, that’s in addition to biased, lying, idiot “reporters.”
Who knew?
I thought they were a satire network like the Onion. To show how ridiculous the Left is when they report on current events.
They are actually pretending to spread news?
They're only about as trustworthy as Newsweek or the Amerikan Communist World Guardian...
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