Dan Abrams failed his first test at MSNBC

[Neecy]

The afternoon after the Karr story broke, I was watching MSNBC when news began to filter in that DNA testing had not been done, that some of the details of Karr's "confession" didn't match the facts of the case and that his family was insisting he wasn't in Colorado at the time of the murder.

Dan Abrams was publicly speculating on the air on this day that Karr was possibly a nut, and correctly noted several times that false confessions in high profile cases were common. "Happens all the time" he said.

One would think, after Abrams publicly aired his doubt about the credibility of the "confession" that Abrams might have reined in the coverage of this case until more information was forthcoming about this man. But no! MSNBC was all John Mark Karr, all the time, all day, all night, for another week and a half. While CNN was ridiculous, at least they didn't air a one-hour special on the case - MSNBC did.

What was Abrams thinking?? Here was a classic case of false confession that he saw through less than 24 hours after the "news" broke, yet he allowed his airtime to be flooded with this nonstop hysteria.

If anyone was hoping that Abrams would improve MSNBC, we now have the answer - trash cable "news", just as bad if not worse as it was before his promotion.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

1. RATINGS!!

The truth is IRRELEVANT. The only thing that matters is RATINGS and the Almighty $$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Ol' Danny would do the same thing all over again if he had the chance. The fact the story is false does not take away from the fact that Millions and Millions of American MORONS tuned into MSNBC to watch the story, resulting in higher ratings.

Just forget that the story was a complete sham. We don't want to discuss that now. Hey Look! Over there! Is that an Al Qaeda terrorist?

[babylonsister]

2. Sadly, I think the media whores view the whole fiasco as a success.

This story enabled them to waste lots of time, hone their laziness so they wouldn't be compelled to report on anything of substance, and to distract from those substantive stories. Sad state of affairs, but it's happening across the board.

[Fredda Weinberg]

3. And it has always been thus n/t

[Ravenseye]

4. I wasn't aware Dan Abrams had editorial power

Look, the cable channels are the same as newspapers. It doesn't matter what the reporter wants to cover, it just matters what the editor wants to cover.

It's like the old 'liberal media' bs when they mention that a large percentage of reporters for newspapers self identify as liberals or democrats. They leave off the part that a simliarly large percentage of editors are conservatives or republicans, and they're the ones who choose what to put int he papers, and on television.

Maybe Abrams said publicly he had doubt, and maybe he wanted to ignore the case, but if MSNBC said "no you're covering it." he probably didn't have much choice.

[NicoleM]

7. Dan Abrams

was recently named the General Manager of MSNBC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Abrams

[Batgirl]

5. That would be sort of like expecting PT Barnum

to admit the Cardiff Giant was a fake.

Not gonna happen as long as people are lining up to pay their fifty cents admission.

[WiseButAngrySara]

6. Excellent points. Trash 'news' ... I wonder if this is why K.O. has been

taking so much time off as of late? I so hope that he's O.K. (Whoa, an anagram...KO and OK!)

[Radio_Lady]

9. It's August. Lots of people take the last week in August as a vacation.

I'm not reading anything more into it, and hope you don't, either.

Keith Olbermann will be back. Does he still post at www.bloggermann.com?

(ON EDIT: The site is still there, but his last post was in June.)

[UTUSN]

8. How about no MSNBC live coverage of the CT primary results? n/t