Rejecting Lucrative Offer, Cenk Uygur Leaves MSNBC After Being Told to "Act Like an Insider"Amy Goodman/Juan Gonzalez - DemocracyNow
July 22, 2011
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JUAN GONZALEZ: We turn now to media news. After giving a nearly six-month tryout for the internet talk show host Cenk Uygur, the cable news channel MSNBC is preparing to instead award its 6:00 p.m. prime-time slot to the Reverend Al Sharpton. MSNBC president Phil Griffin offered Uygur a well-paid but lower-profile on-air slot, but Uygur rejected the offer, saying the decision to demote him was politically motivated.
Uygur is known for aggressively interrogating leading Washington figures and challenging the political establishment, which he alleges made some MSNBC executives uneasy. On his internet talk show, The Young Turks, Uygur described what happened last April when Griffin called him into his office.
CENK UYGUR: I got pulled in, and they told me, "Hey, listen. We were just"—or, it was actually one specific person, the head of MSNBC. He said, "I was just in Washington, and people in Washington tell me that they’re concerned about your tone." I was like, "Whoa!"
JUAN GONZALEZ: Uygur said Griffin also reminded him that the channel was part of the "establishment," so he must conduct himself accordingly.
This is not the first time a journalist has accused MSNBC of applying subtle, yet clear pressure to shape its political programming. Jessica Yellin covered the White House for MSNBC and ABC News in 2002 and 2003 at the onset of the Iraq War. In 2008, she told Anderson Cooper that news executives meddled with how she covered the war.
JESSICA YELLIN: I think the press corps dropped the ball at the beginning. When the lead-up to war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings. And my own experience at the White House was that the higher the president’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives—and I was not at this network at the time—but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president. I think, over time, as President Bush’s—
ANDERSON COOPER: Really? You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?
JESSICA YELLIN: Not in that exact—they wouldn’t say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces, they would push me in different directions, they would turn down stories that were more critical, and try to put on pieces that were more positive. Yes, that was my experience.
AMY GOODMAN: And in that case, she was talking about the Bush administration. That was Jessica Yellin, former White House correspondent for MSNBC.
We invited MSNBC to join us today, but they declined. However, MSNBC spokesperson Jeremy Gaines did provide us with the following statement. Quote: "Cenk’s claims are completely baseless. In fact, we were working on a new contract, to develop him into an even bigger television talent. We did have numerous conversations with Cenk about his style, not substance. It’s unfortunate that he’s decided to depart in such a negative fashion," he wrote.
Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said Wednesday in an email to the New York Times that his staff did not raise any concerns about Cenk Uygur’s show "with Phil Griffin or anyone else" at MSNBC.
So, well, Cenk Uygur is joining us himself from Los Angeles to speak for himself. In addition to his recent prime-time talk show on MSNBC, Cenk Uygur blogs at several liberal websites and hosts a popular internet and radio show called The Young Turks.
Cenk, welcome to Democracy Now! What happened?
CENK UYGUR: Well, it’s exactly as I explained on The Young Turks. You know, I was going along doing a program. You know, they did have, early on, some stylistic comments. I was trying to listen to them, you know, in terms of body language—don’t wave your arms, act like a senator. I don’t know why you would want a talk show host to act like a senator, but fine, it’s the medium that you’re working in. If I’m working on the internet, you know, it’s different than working on television. And, you know, taking those points is no problem at all.
But in April, when they pulled me in, Phil Griffin gave me this big speech about how we’re the establishment, and it would be cool to be like outsiders, but we’re not, we’re insiders, and we have to act like it. And I remember thinking at the time, well, there’s no way I’m going to do that. So I’m going to give them what I got. And then, if they like it, they like it. If they don’t, they don’t.
And honestly, I didn’t know which way they were going to go with it, because I know how much they care about ratings. So I figured if I delivered good ratings, that that would probably do the job. Well, it didn’t, because I delivered really good ratings, beating CNN significantly, handily, and also improving upon the numbers from last year. So there’s no question about the ratings. And then they pulled me in and said, "Well, you know, we’re going to go in a different direction at 6:00 anyway." And when I asked them about it, they didn’t really have a good answer as to why, leading me to believe that that giant conversation we had three months ago might have been part of the reason.
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