MSNB-See Ya!: Pat Buchanan Might Finally Be Off Our Televisions … For Now

January 10th, 2012 by Arturo

On the other hand, MSNBC has changed. It openly courts Progressive views and news. It puts out job ads asking for candidates with a progressive news background. Its pundit host class is all progressive and the network lets them show up en masse at the White House for off the record get togethers. The network is openly and aggressively courting the African American viewing audience so much so that it now notes how big it is in African American viewership in its releases.

Add all these things together and you now have a scenario where MSNBC, which used to be able to handle a Pat Buchanan and his intransigent controversial views, can no longer afford to do so without alienating core constituencies it covets.

The theory makes more sense now than it would have a few years ago: even after Keith Olbermann’s acrimonious departure, MSNBC has rebuilt a good portion of its’ talk show brand around Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, and Chris Hayes, and has added Melissa Harris-Perry, even if it keeps Joe Scarborough around in the morning.

Unfortunately, the nature of cable punditry virtually guarantees that even if Buchanan gets tossed on his duff by MSNBC, some other network will scoop him up and tout him as being “hard-hitting” or whatever the euphemism du jour is for reactionary bigotry. But even if this respite is brief, hopefully it leads to something better for his (apparently) former employers.

 

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Posted in discrimination, ethnocentrism, media, tv | 1 comment

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  • k.eli

    Good riddance! Can’t say I’m going to miss Pat’s revisionist history of America – where Europeans were always the majority; where white people built everything and picked all the crops; where no black person served in the military pre-WWI/II (I’m not sure when he finally acknowledges their presence). So, so long to a man who’s clearly still pissed about the whole integration thing. Farewell to someone who takes pleasure in inciting fear of a brown people takeover of the “European core” of our nation. Of course, given his rampant xenophobia and the coming of his 2025 apocalypse, perhaps it’s more fitting I send him off with an “adios!” =)