We like Andrea Mitchell when she's practicing the fine art of journalism. We don't like Andrea Mitchell when she tries anchoring more than 30 seconds of MSNBC programming or bigfoots her colleagues for special treatment. So, we have a sort of wishy-washy feeling toward her. But our feelings aside, she's an ace reporter; a veteran NBC News foreign affairs correspondent, she's earned her keep.
So it makes sense that she'd have a hand in reporting on the news that's affecting every American and, thus, every human being on earth: the collapse of the U.S. economy.
But the struggling financial markets aren't the only angle to this beat — there's also the political angle, because Bush, Obama, McCain, Biden, and Palin are all weighing in on how many billions of dollars we're going to lend to who, and how many trillions of dollars our deficit will end up with. And that's really Mitchell's main territory.
But then there's one small eentsy-weentsy tiny infinitesimal issue: Mitchell's husband is a man named Alan Greenspan. You might know him as the ex-chairman of the Federal Reserve, which he led until 2006 and, some might argue, laid the groundwork to get us into this mess. So might that conflict of interest preclude Mitchell from reporting on, well, anything right now? CONTINUED »
Carly Fiorina, Senator John McCain's top economic adviser, said today that she believes Mister McCain isn't qualified to run a major corporation. Nor are, Fiorina says, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama or Joe Biden.
Don't laugh at her brazenness, dour old Carly knows what she's talking about when it comes to shitty businessmen. Not only was she Fortune's pick for #1 woman in business in 1998, she was also Hewlett-Packard's #1 fired CEO in 2005 after driving the computer company's stock prices into the dirt and watching large parts of its work force lose their jobs.
After the jump, video of Fiorina's naysaying.
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Accustomed to playing defense, MSNBC president Phil Griffin finds himself in a worn-in seat prescribing euphemisms toward his embattled network. With the in-fighting between Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, and David Gregory taking a backseat to the assumption that Griffin & Co. caved to right-y criticism that the network's coverage leaned too far to the left — thus resulting in K+M moving back to pundit-only chairs — MSNBC now finds itself again defending its internal decisions. If only criticism of the cable news network, then, were coming from Fox News and sites like Olbermann Watch. In fact, for months it's been NBC News insiders who've besieged the ears of Griffin, NBC News president Steve Capus, and GE chief Jeff Immelt, begging for change. So who's been complaining? CONTINUED »
Though the Republicans had, arguably, little to celebrate last night, they certainly went overboard with the festivities. Which meant unintended victims in this, the "political equivalent of a Chucky Cheese."
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JOSSIP REPORTS — With Keith Olbermann back in New York and supposedly making up with Chris Matthews, and Joe Scarborough insisting everyone at the network is going to have Thanksgiving together, everything should be hunky-dorey at NBC News, yes?
No.
Joe Scarborough is still taking shots at Olbermann on the air (excellent video here). Oh, and then there's this little matter of Chuck Todd, David Gregory, and Brian Williams — and Meet The Press. It's a clusterfuck, and these are the details: CONTINUED »
JOSSIP REPORTS — With budgets already stretched thin — do you know how much Keith Olbermann costs? — cable networks like MSNBC find themselves covering one of the most expensive presidential election cycles ever. Those primaries went on for eternity, and the DNC and RNC will demand a few million more bucks. And then there's the damn presidential debates still coming!
All those costs explain why network head Phil Griffin has handed down travel restrictions — namely, the number of producers heading to Denver and St. Paul is nothing like it was just four years ago, we're told. Well-placed informants tell us many producers who went to the conventions in '04 aren't going to either the DNC or RNC this year, while the producers who did make the cut will have to pull double or triple duty, handling multiple talent at the same time.
Sounds pretty crappy, but cutbacks are the reality, right?
Well, it's the reality for everyone — except a one Andrea Mitchell. CONTINUED »
McCain's camp was all whine-whine-whine to NBC News president Steve Capus over some comments Andrea Mitchell made on Meet the Press. On the subject of Saturday night's faith forum, Mitchell relayed Team Obama sentiments that there was foul play involved in the event — "that McCain may not have been in the Cone of Silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well prepared." Someone call someone a cheater?
McCain campaign manager Rick Davis sent a very strongly worded letter to NBC, which so often receives this sort of thing, chiding them for "abandoning non-partisan coverage of the presidential race."
This, even though Mitchell was doing that thing that journalists do — reporting — on what had already been stated by the Democrats, and gave full context to the quote. Except, whoops, now it looks like McCain wasn't in that Cone of Silence after all. Their bad, yo. So what is this magical cone that McCain was not in? CONTINUED »
As we've noted before, Andrea Mitchell sometimes does mean things and is generally a terrible interviewer, and it was a mistake for MSNBC to give her an hour of daytime programming to host.
That said, Mitchell is the one news personality we've been enjoying of late.
Unlike the other talking heads we have to listen to, Mitchell is calling it like is. If somebody is lying — ahem, John McCain's campaign — she says so plainly. If somebody is trying to mislead the public — ahem, Barack Obama's campaign — she let's us know.
And when somebody is trying to bullshit the American public, like McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis did last night? Yep — she calls him out on it. Not the next day. Not in a blog post published later. But while she's conducting the interview. This is important because this is what a journalist is supposed to do. (It'd be even better if she didn't let her guests talk over her.) CONTINUED »
What's this? A news anchor actually using the word "lie" to describe a politician's actions? That alone is news, since the media is all too willing to write around blatant lies with words like "misrepresentation," "stretch," and "misleading."
But here's MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, known for pushing colleagues out of the way, doing it to describe John McCain's new ad about Barack Obama's decision not to visit troops in the hospital during his trip overseas, and how it was motivated by Obama's inability to turn the event into a press opportunity (since cameras wouldn't be allowed).
Funny, then, that Mitchell herself may have played a role in Obama's canceling of the hospital visit. CONTINUED »
"Citizen of the world" Barack Obama is leading the press corps through a tour of Europe and the Middle East right about now. It's not about him wanting to present himself as the de facto future U.S. president, of course, but just his chance to hang out with 200,000 of his closest German friends. And he would have loved to have been able to keep his scheduled dates with American troops in Landstuhl and Ramstein, except he had to cancel. How come? Because, according to the campaign, it wouldn't be right to visit the military facilities on a campaign-funded portion of his trip.
Or maybe it's because the media's camera crews wouldn't be allowed. And Obama is tired of getting ripped on for making stops that the press isn't allowed to take part in. Yes, blame Andrea Mitchell. CONTINUED »
Chris Matthews did a fine job infuriating the Hillary Clinton campaign. Now colleague Andrea Mitchell is doing her part to stink things up with Barack Obama. Not that there's anything wrong with a reporter actually, um, reporting.
Mitchell, who booted Lee Cowan out of the way to trail Obama to the Middle East and Europe this week, made a satellite stop by Hardball last night — and in soundbite-able brevity, slammed Obama for engaging in reporter-free public relations stunts as he makes his way through Iraq and Afghanistan. (And then Matthews had to ask about black people.) CONTINUED »
Like David Gregory before her, Andrea Mitchell is being accused by insiders of big footing a colleague to serve her own agenda.
Mitchell is said to have lobbied NBC Nightly News executive producer Alexandra Wallace to let her cover Barack Obama's overseas trip next week to Europe, Iraq, and Afghanistan, despite the fact that Lee Cowan — yes, that Lee Cowan — has been covering Obama's campaign since he began running for president. It's a classic Mitchell "big foot," we're told by one NBC source who's provided accurate information in the past, and has angered folks at NBC's political desk, news desk, and elsewhere. CONTINUED »
As tasteless as it may seem, the rush to find out what to do with Sunday's Meet The Press, following Tim Russert's sudden death at NBC's D.C. studio this afternoon, is on. We're told Steve Capus & Co. are already plotting out what to do, and it's likely Andrea Mitchell will be asked to chair the show, though David Gregory is also a candidate. It's very possible Sunday's show will be used, at least in part, to air a video memorial of Russert, with Tom Brokaw being asked to join the panel, along with Chuck Todd, and others. It's unclear what the role of Brian Williams, who is anchoring NBC Nightly News from Afghanistan, will be, says, a source.
At least one blog post makes the case in fingering MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell for this line about Barack Obama's Virgina visit: "Interesting images today. Barack Obama, Mark Warner, in Southwest Virginia. This is real [chuckle] redneck … sort of … uhm … bordering on Appalachia … country. This is not the Northern Virginia … uh … you know … high-tech corridor. And these are voters that he would not logically … be … you know, gravitating to. This is the beginning of a pivot." Evidence of prejudice, or just bad newscasting?
Andrea Mitchell treated the entire NBC Newsroom in D.C. to a meltdown today, relays an spy. Her 1pm MSNBC show had camera problems upstairs, which meant Andrea was forced to go to the downstairs studio. Horror! We're told a furious Mitchell went "absolutely nuts" and began screaming at several staffers. Some witnesses to the event imagine she'll be reprimanded from above. Luckily, she goes home to a shoulder rub from husband Alan Greenspan.
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