MSNBC Cancels "The Mehdi Hasan Show," Sparking Uproar

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)


MSNBC is facing a torrent of backlash after announcing it’s canceling “The Mehdi Hasan Show.” The British-born journalist is known for holding powerful figures to account and is one of the most powerful Muslim voices on American television.

Following the news, Congressmember Ilhan Omar said, “It is deeply troubling that MSNBC is cancelling his show amid a rampant rise of anti-Muslim bigotry and suppression of Muslim voices.” Journalist Ryan Grim said, “Mehdi’s style of confrontational interviews, in which he doesn’t let public figures get away with lies or half true talking points, turned him into a celebrated journalist in the UK. His show’s cancellation is such a pathetic indictment of the U.S. media.”

Mehdi Hasan’s show has been welcomed as one of the few on a mainstream network to question Israel’s narrative over its attacks on Gaza. Last month, Hasan interviewed Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Mehdi Hasan: “I have seen lots of children with my own lying eyes being pulled from the rubble. So” —

Mark Regev: “Now, because they’re the pictures Hamas wants you to see. Exactly my point, Mehdi.”

Mehdi Hasan: “And also because they’re dead, Mark. Also” —

Mark Regev: “They’re the pictures Hamas wants — no.”

Mehdi Hasan: “But they’re also people your government has killed. You accept that, right? You’ve killed children? Or do you deny that?”

Mark Regev: “No, I do not. I do not. I do not. First of all, you don’t know how those people died, those children.”

Mehdi Hasan: “Oh wow.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/1/headlines/msnbc_cancels_the_mehdi_hasan_show_sparking_uproar



Mehdi's cancellation is no more surprising to me than Phil Donahue being canceled by MSNBC in 2003 when George W. Bush wanted to wage a war against Iraq based on lies.



(snip)

In July 2002, Phil Donahue returned to television after seven years of retirement to host a show called Donahue on MSNBC.[18] On February 25, 2003, MSNBC canceled the show.[19][20] Soon after the show's cancellation, an internal MSNBC memo was leaked to the press stating that Donahue should be fired because he opposed the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq and that he would be a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war"[21] and that his program could be "a home for the liberal anti-war agenda".[22] Donahue commented in 2007 that the management of MSNBC, owned at the time by General Electric, a major defense contractor, required that "we have two conservative (guests) for every liberal. I was counted as two liberals".[23]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Donahue

(snip)

I've said it before and I will say it again, the corporate media is the CORPORATE media.

Fox is just the most blatant example. When selling their news, none of the corporate media cite their financial conflicts of interest whether it be tobacco, fossil fuels, pharmaceuticals or anything else.

They're not in the business of enlightening or informing the people, the corporate media's Prime Directive is about selling. This is true whether it be bought and paid for commercials or their version of reality; aka news, which ultimately is almost always from a top down, authoritarian corporate perspective.

*rump's ascendancy in 2016 was just the inevitable result from the journalistic malpractice of selling authoritarian news by the corporate media.

His wealth and celebrity were all that mattered, he was rich and successful, was he fit for office?

It didn't seem to matter with them, *rump wasn't Bernie Sanders so they promoted him

Even as they turn their nose up to him today, *rump was one of them, an oligarch.

Any conscientious would be journalist that goes to work for them would be wise to remember this.

[Sneederbunk]

1. No uproar from MSNBC commentators or contributors.

[CincyDem]

2. Losing 1/3 of his viewership since 10/1 might have played a role in the decision. n/t

[Uncle Joe]

4. That was part of the point of the OP, the corporate media's Prime Directive

is selling the news to the people, not informing them.

It's highly likely that any member of a minority group reporting on the news will have their viewership ratings damaged if the journalist's ethnic group is involved in the conflict being reported on.

Some Americans will be for and some against each side of a conflict.

It's just the corporate media basing their reporting of reality on popularity over substance and that in turn is taking the nation down the yellow brick road of ignorance as the people are continuously dumbed down.

[TwilightZone]

5. Or people just stopped watching his show.

That's a pretty complicated, long-winded explanation for a two-month drop in ratings.

I can't tell if you're blaming the viewers for being too dumb and ignorant to continue watching or if you're blaming the media, which includes Hasan, for dumbing down America. The latter has been happening for 40+ years, so that's a curious thing to blame for a short-term drop.

I doubt it's that complicated. Telling his viewers, most of whom probably back President Biden, that none of his friends or family, and no one that he's talked to, will vote for him in 2024 probably didn't help his cause or his ratings. It was monumentally dumb and short-sighted.

[Uncle Joe]

6. I didn't think so, but everything is relative, and of course some people prefer simplistic answers.

The two month drop in ratings coincide with the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th.

Just as Israel's government has done, much of the corporate media has conflated Palestinian with Hamas as being one and the same, it's not that complicated.

I'm blaming the corporate media, they have the power, the resources, the knowledge and the wherewithal to do much better by the American People, and the world for that matter with their coverage of human reality.

My criticisms of the corporate media aren't of any individual pundit so much as their MO or business model; this has been a long term dysfunction that I'm convinced is directly responsible for many of our national and global miseries.

[TwilightZone]

7. His time slot is being taken by Ayman Mohyeldin.

They've giving him more time on weekends.

That doesn't really fit into the whole theory of ignorant viewers picking sides or the media conflating Hamas with Palestine.

[Uncle Joe]

8. I don't know Ayman Mohyeldin, but race is not everything, Phil Donahue and Tucker Carlson are both Caucasian.

Whether Hasan gets more time on as a guest analyst, time will tell, but I doubt it.

[Submariner]

3. Jack Welch -GE CEO, a fiercely racist Obama hater,

made former democrats Tweety and Tim Russert millionaires so they could both afford their Nantucket Island getaways.

Russert was bought and paid for by the Bush Cheney cabal and was guaranteed to deliver soft ball interviews to all Bush staff. Tweety helped cripple and fire Phil Donahue, because Tweety wanted to be the only face of Liberalism on MSNBC.

DU discussed this screw job real time back in the days of Cheney's "Operation Desert Fuckup" in Iraq.