Jul 27 2011

Cenk Uygur leaves MSNBC

Courtesy of TheMomCat

The last couple of weeks Cenk Uygur, a liberal, outspoken commentator, has been missing from the 6 PM program he had been regularly hosting on MSNBC.

Cenk Leaves MSNBC (Inside Story)

Cenk Uygur (host of The Young Turks) explains why he turned down a new, significantly larger MSNBC contract after hosting a prime-time show on the network that was beating CNN in the key demo ratings. He also shares his thoughts on Rachel Maddow and Fox News.

What Jane Hamsher at FDL Action said:

I have, and always have had, tremendous respect for Cenk Uygur. His contract with his audience is that he will never put himself in a position where he cannot say what he really thinks.  And in turning down MSNBC’s offer to host a weekend show so he could give his audience a fair appraisal of what happened, he honors that contract.

What Glenn Greenwald at Salon said:

(But as) Uygur’s stories make clear, MSNBC very much considers itself “part of the establishment” and demands that its on-air personalities reflect that status.  With some exceptions, MSNBC largely fits comfortably in the standard, daily Republicans v. Democrats theatrical conflicts, usually from the perspective that the former is bad and the latter are good.  It’s liberal — certainly more liberal than other establishment media outlets have been in the past — but it’s establishment liberalism, and that’s allowed.  It’s wandering too far afield from that framework, being too hostile to the system of political and financial power itself, that is frowned upon.

2 comments

  2. From Greenwald…

    On Sunday, Cenk Uygur was interviewed by CNN’s Howard Kurtz about Uygur’s departure from MSNBC, and Ugyur claimed that Al Sharpton — widely reported to be his replacement — vowed in a 60 Minutes interview never to criticize President Obama under any circumstances.  

    When I first heard Ugyur make this claim, I assumed it was hyperbole — until I watched the video and read the transcript of the Sharpton interview.  The 60 Minutes segment was aired on May 19, 2011, and chronicles what it calls Sharpton’s “metamorphosis: today he’s down right tame. So much so, that he has made his way into the establishment.”  It includes this:

     

    Sharpton told us that having a black president is a challenge: if he finds fault with Mr. Obama, he’d be aiding those who want to destroy him. So he has decided not to criticize the president about anything — even about black unemployment, which is twice the national rate.

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