Surrender To the Void

MSNBC's Alex Wagner, whom I've had a crush on since, like, forever, is taking over Martin Bashir's old slot at 4 PM Eastern, vacating the 12 PM Eastern slot in the process. So guess what's going to happen now - her old slot is going to be filled with rotating hosts just like Bashir's was over the holidays. Has MSNBC president Phil Griffin given any indication as to who will replace Wagner at noon? Of course not.  It's just another void yet to be filled.  But if you ask me, MSNBC is in one big void itself.

I put two MSNBC ex-hosts on my annual losers' list for 2013 - Bashir and Alec Baldwin - but now I think that I was being unfair to them. It's MSNBC that has the problem. It hires talk show hosts for their blunt approach, it encourages them to be passionate, and then MSNBC bosses are shocked when their hosts makes people's jaws drop. Baldwin didn't even say anything out of line on the air; he made a homophobic comment in battling it out with a paparazzo off-screen. MSNBC brass should have known from Bashir's earlier statements and his political positions that he'd say something too inflammatory, and even though Baldwin was professional on the air as opposed to off, they should have known he gets his Irish up a lot.  (He is Irish.) So, ultimately, they got forced out for being who they are - which is why MSNBC hired them in the first place.

Melissa Harris-Perry was certainly hired for that reason. A commentator who's known for her thoughtful take on domestic strife in These States, Harris-Perry, a black woman, has put race front and center on her weekend MSNBC show. Although I agree with her politically, watching her makes me feel like everything wrong with America is partly my fault because I'm a white man and, so, I must have contributed somehow to the worsening of American society. (I'm already aware that I'm part of the problem for liking classic rock.)  Be that as it may, Harris-Perry thought it would be a real hoot to show a photo of Mitt Romney and his grandchildren, including Kieran Romney, his adopted black grandson, and make jokes with her panel about Kieran being the odd person out in the photo, with actress Pia Glenn singing a song from "Sesame Street" about just that.  Meanwhile, comedian Dean Obeidallah said it represented the diversity of the Republican Party. Harris-Perry, for her part, said that Kieran Romney would one day marry the daughter of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. "Can you imagine Mitt Romney and Kanye West as in-laws?" she said to great laughter.

Harris-Perry later apologized tearfully, and she got to keep her job because that comment wasn't nearly as bad as anything Bashir and Baldwin said, but it displays a problem at MSNBC that has long plagued Fox News - at what point does a cable news channel with a set ideological perspective stop being serious and start pandering to its base? It's not the ideology that's the problem; it's the lack of professional journalistic standards. When news and commentary are reduced to cheap shots, ad hominem attacks, and bluster, it's not news and commentary anymore. It's entertainment.

Because people expect more from MSNBC - like factual reporting - than from Fox, MSNBC is in trouble, the sort of trouble Fox News will never have to face, because Fox News is utterly shameless and tawdry. MSNBC isn't supposed to be any of that, but that seems to be where it's going. A few of MSNBC's commentators - Ed Schultz, for example - stay true to their ideology but don't go overboard. (And he got rewarded for his ability to walk that proverbial tightrope by being banished to weekends for being too liberal, only to come back to weeknights because that's where he belongs.) But they're becoming rarities.

Which is why I appreciate Alex Wagner. She presents the issue, leads a productive discussion on it, and doesn't let anything get out of hand. I look forward to seeing her at a later hour. My only advice to her is this: Don't get actresses and comedians on your panels. And when you think of something really provocative to say, think twice before you speak. 

Ah, why am I wasting my time? Alex Wagner already knows all that, that's why she's still on. And that's why she's my cable TV news crush. :-) 

(P.S. Don't look for Thomas Roberts at 11 AM Eastern - his moving to an earlier time slot. Much earlier: He hosts a show called "Way Too Early," at 5:30 AM Eastern.)