10 years ago Phil Donahue was fired from MSNBC, the "liberal" network...

[RgrF]

...for opposing the upcoming war on Iraq.

Well, I think what happened to me, the biggest lesson, I think, is the—how corporate media shapes our opinions and our coverage. This was a decision—my decision—the decision to release me came from far above. This was not an assistant program director who decided to separate me from MSNBC. They were terrified of the antiwar voice. And that is not an overstatement. Antiwar voices were not popular. And if you’re General Electric, you certainly don’t want an antiwar voice on a cable channel that you own; Donald Rumsfeld is your biggest customer. So, by the way, I had to have two conservatives on for every liberal. I could have Richard Perle on alone, but I couldn’t have Dennis Kucinich on alone. I was considered two liberals. It really is funny almost, when you look back on how—how the management was just frozen by the antiwar voice. We were scolds. We weren’t patriotic. American people disagreed with us. And we weren’t good for business. wrote:

interview

[Bread Crumbs]

He should be off the air permanently for being fatally boring.

[Ted King]

Seeing that happen to Donahue reinforced the growing perception I had at the time that the country was being gripped by a near-hysterical nativism that insisted "You are either for us or against us" where the journalist media both helped create and rode that nativism rather than doing its business the way it should be done - tell what is, not just what the powers that be or the people want to be told.

[Speedy]

This topic is about MSNBC, don't bring in Faux News.

Ted King wrote:
Seeing that happen to Donahue reinforced the growing perception I had at the time that the country was being gripped by a near-hysterical nativism that insisted "You are either for us or against us" where the journalist media both helped create and rode that nativism rather than doing its business the way it should be done - tell what is, not just what the powers that be or the people want to be told.

[hal]

Or just maybe they fired him because his on air product was just plain stupid.

One of the funniest things I've ever seen on TV - a Donahue teaser blurb about his upcoming show...

"Gay transsexuals... [pause for effect - extremely earnest look on his face...]

...why?"