Talk:MSNBC/archive

Earlier version mentioned that MSNBC Online used Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player -- I think that was refering to the fact that their web site was atrocious with any other browser. But nowdays it works equally well with Mozilla/Netscape, it also makes extensive use of Flash, so the idea that it is an "IE-specific" site no longer applies. --Nate 02:08 Dec 21, 2002 (UTC)

There's a newsroom in Redmond?

I've never seen it. Has anyone else? - Sekicho 03:38, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC) The Redmond Newsroom is there I live in Washington state and I've been there.

Third place?

As far as I knew, Headline News had passed MSNBC for third place in the cable news ratings. Are we positive MSNBC is still third? Even the commercials for Headline News tout that they've moved up. Beginning 21:56, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Redmond/3rd place

Overall, MSNBC is still in third place. Remember -- HLN craters in prime time.

MSNBC.com does have a newsroom in Redmond -- and there is a flash cam position there. A new show hosted by Ron P. Reagan will be anchored from Washington. - Boisemedia

MSNBC/NBC News Channel

I removed the line about MSNBC being renamed NBC News Channel. Until some credible source can verify this (and Drudge's blind sources don't count), it shouldn't be here. Boisemedia 02:03, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

Umm i dont know if this is any good as proof (see bottom of article) http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/msnbc/williams_couric_demonstrated_the_depth_breadth_of_nbc_news_23513.asp

That is 2-3 years old! All people mentioned are no longer with NBC News and MSNBC.

Chris Matthews

Leans left? Despite his democratic credentials, he's pretty centrist, actually, and claims to have voted for Bush at least once. Check out his profile at media matters. I am changing the description to "centrist" for the time being. If you can think of a better descriptor, go for it, but not "leans to the left." 68.110.199.122 14:52, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I think he certainly leans to the left. Any conservative would laugh at the "center right" that was given to him in this article - it's just not accurate. Beside that, I don't consider Media Matters, a leftist organization in their own right, a reputable source on who is on what side of the political spectrum. 70.168.32.250 07:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Personally, that whole paragraph is iffy. I don't like how it categorizes all the hosts as "left" or "center-right" or whatever. Where they are on the political spectrum varies greatly depending on who you ask. It's not even necessary to the article, is it, to have all the host's politics in there? --71.102.169.120 00:13, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

As the person who put it in, I think it does. The point is that MSNBC's pundits are not all liberals or conservatives. But the fact they have pundits at all separates them from a CNN which is pure news with no pundit-type show on the schedule (now that Crossfire got cancelled). The question is what are the punditry shows on MSNBC. Scarborough and Matthews would obviously qualify because they like injecting their opinion. Olbermann, not so much. Rita Cosby, the same. Calwatch 05:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

At the moment the 2nd para says: Chris Matthews, although admittedly supported George W. Bush for president, was a former speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter, brings a far-right viewpoint What??!! Is that the resolved decision or is it silly vandalism?

Wow the person who made a recent edit in the edit summary said that Matthews was pro Iraq war.....um no he was never for the war in Iraq maybe you should do some research before making edits.69.218.8.5 20:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

edit by Lugnuts6

lugnuts6 made some very extensive questionable edits of this article. can any of his information be confirmed?

It's about half accurate, 30% wrong and 20% POV. I'll change the things I know are flat-out wrong, but to be honest I think it's so horribly written that we should just revert. Aaron 17:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

History

I am trying to piece together the history of MSNBC. Hopefully this will not turn out to be a POV-contentious issue like the other two news channels (and the fact is that there is a lot less stuff out there on MSNBC, which helps in cutting the volume down). I am working on it chronologically and so it will look somewhat abrupt at times, so bear with me. Unfortunately the sources are all newspaper articles dredged up from Lexis Nexis that would be painful to cite, but if anyone really wants me to do it, let me know and I can certainly reference whatever is necessary. Calwatch 08:08, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I wish you the best of luck, Calwatch! Jerry Nachman once said on the air that MSNBC had changed its prime time lineup 69 times in the same amount of time that Fox had changed its lineup twice. There's a whole lot of detail out there if you dig deep enough ... waaaay too much detail probably. But I'd love to see it all in the article. And I certainly don't expect to see you have to cite every fact you uncover, not by a long shot. --Aaron 22:42, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

this article sounds like a advertisement.

Did Dan Abrams write this article? I mean, this entire thing sounded like a commerical. Please be careful about the language you use on this article, and please watch out for people who want to use this article for their own opinions on the subject. I enjoy MSNBC too, but that doesn't mean that this article should sound like it's been sponsored by them. dposse 22:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I've not participated in editing this article, but I don't see how it sounds like an advertisement. I found it informative. If it were an advertisement, I don't think it'd have a relatively large section titled "ratings freefall."

I disagree the article doesn't sound like an advertisement, it provides you the facts about MSNBC, its personalities, history, lineup, no different than the information you find on Fox news or CNN. I agree with the above poster, if it were a large advertisement why would it have an entire section to a ratings freefall and msnbc's constant last place (or near last place) in cable news. Giving that it spends a whole section on the problems with MSNBC and possible successes, I do not see how this article is one sided. I dont think its any different from the information on shows etc as found on Fox News, CNN, or company information you can find for any article written about companies here on Wikipedia. The article page on Microsoft discusses about the product it makes (windows, xbox etc) or the page on Apple discusses its products such as the Mac OS, the Macintosh, Ipods etc, does this mean Bill Gates and Steve Jobs wrote those pages, of course not. I think this page on MSNBC provides the facts and isn't a wholly promotion for MSNBC. I am not an editor of this page nor have contributed to the MSNBC article before. Limitedexpresstrain 04:26, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm talking about the type of language used in this article. It makes it sound like a pro-MSNBC commercial. It should not be pro or anti anything. It should be a Neutral point of view. dposse 16:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I just edited this article. I removed alot of POV crap from the article, and put "citations needed" where it was required. I didn't touch the ratings section. dposse 17:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

You don't need to cite every single item in the world, especially that MSNBC is based out of Secaucus, New Jersey.

The White House is at 1600 Pennslyvania Avenue, I don't see that cited, CNN is based out of Atlanta, Georgia, not citied, Microsoft based out of Redmond Washington, not citied.

The and back to the original topic the article is NOT pro MSNBC, it tells you MSNBC's problems and items being taken ie Dan Abrams being in charge to change items. See my previous post, it might apear as an advertisement, but its no different that the page on say Microsoft or Apple that tells you the products they offer, MSNBC on this page is telling about the shows MSNBC has and its personalities.

I would like how it sounds like an advertisement to you, and how it is no different than the page on CNN, Fox News (or its related pages) or pages on Microsoft, Apple Computer etc, this page tells me what MSNBC is, its history, its problems, and its programming (ie products) and personalities. I just don't see how its an advertisement, no more than how the page on Microsoft talks about its product line of Windows, and has a whole seperate page on Windows. Can I argue that the the page on Microsoft and the page on Windows is just one large advertisment?

I agree on you on this point, some of the items do require citiations, some don't, the article may require a cleanup, but the article is certainly no large advertisment for MSNBC per my post above. Limitedexpresstrain 00:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, really? Well, look in the history and compare the old version to the one i edited. Look at the stuff i deleted. All that was pro-MSNBC, and against the WP:NPOV. dposse 02:31, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I wrote most of the history, and the history came from Scott Collins Crazy Like a Fox: The inside Story of How Fox News Beat CNN, which has a surprising amount of content on MSNBC (about a third of the book). Collins is a reliable source and a longtime television reporter at the Los Angeles Times. I will cite it at the end and remove most of the "citation needed" tags. There is no way to cite the exact locations unless I had the book in front of me, which I no longer do. Calwatch 03:54, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps i did go a little crazy on the citation tags. I'm sorry. If you are going to write a history, you cannot take it from another persons work. You need to put the infomation in your own NPOV words. dposse 16:13, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Portmanteau?

I'm not too sure that MSNBC is portmanteau of MSN and NBC. Back when this channel was formed, Microsoft practically forgot they had an isp until one day they decided they wanted to compete with AOL. This day came long after the formation of this channel. Actually, I think it's just MS(Microsoft)/NBC(NBC).--Attitude2000 22:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe it's correct as it is now. The URL for MSNBC is http://www.msnbc.msn.com/. So, it is a combo of the MSN network and NBC. dposse 21:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Ratings Freefall

This section has some of the most POV and unsubstantiated crap I've seen around here. I tried editing some of it to tried to lessen the "MSNBC suxxorz" tone and add some {{Fact}} tags to no avail. It should not be there if it can't be edited to show at least the semblance of NPOV. I don't doubt many of the points made are true, but they can't be presented that way. This is not a blog.

First, you need to start signing your talk posts with ~~~~. I believe that if you gave the wikipedians on here a chance, we could have rewrote that entire section. I reverted your edit so we can do just that. Does that sound ok with you? dposse 16:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Does "we" mean you?

Sign your posts. It's not that hard. And no, "we" means "all of us working together". dposse 17:30, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not going to sign my posts just now, unless you know of a way to remove the timestamp. Having said that, I agree with the initial modification of the section, so thank you.

---

No change in a month; these are the two POV-filled, unsourced pointless paragraphs I trimmed from the section:

• In 2005, Rita Cosby left the Fox News Channel, where she hosted the weekend edition of The Big Story (which frequently focused on tabloid topics) to host a nightly show focusing mostly on big interviews and tabloid topics, including a "expose" about a brothel in Carson City, Nevada. The show initially did well in the ratings but as time went on ratings dropped. Many attribute the drop to a decrease in promotion on MSNBC and NBC, viewers tiring of tabloid news stories such as the Natalee Holloway abduction, and the novelty of the show wearing off. The show has since swapped timeslots with Joe Scarborough's Scarborough Country and later was cancelled and replaced with 'MSNBC Investigates'

• To compound the network's ratings woes, CNN Headline News completely revamped its primetime block of programming in 2005, replacing its traditional newswheel format with a long-form newscast, entertainment programs, and opinionated hosts, most notably the polarizing victims' advocate Nancy Grace. This has allowed HLN to vault past MSNBC in the crucial primetime viewing period, with HLN consistently rating higher than MSNBC in terms of total viewers (ages 2+) in the 8-11pm ET timeslot.

Citing sources

In order to make this page look less like an advertisement, I have gone through the painful yet necessary process of sifting through Lexis-Nexis and citing sources. No book has ever been written about MSNBC (yet there are several on Fox News and CNN), so most of the content will necessarily come from newspapers and magazines. If there is a disagreement, please cite a source instead of deleting the reference. Thank you. Calwatch 05:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)