What happened to just reporting the facts and letting people decide? I remember growing up and they just reported the news without giving their viewpoints. Last night I was at the gym and Sanjay Goupta (sorry not sure how to spell his name) was doing a piece on the how the undecided voters brain worked.

An important thing to note is that O'Reilly, the loudmouth arrogant (and often ignorant) bully he is, constantly has opposing viewpoints on his show. Olbermann, that pretentious, obnoxious, loudmouth (always ignorant) put-on asshole NEVER does. He speaks only to the choir and never has anyone on who might articulately challenge is viewpoints. Now, why might that be?

Fuck Bill-O'Loudmouth.

Keith O. is a neatly-coiffed dreamboat.

- swoon -

Yeah, Fredo, Keith could have me any way he wanted.

MSNBC, however, is not exclusively Keith & Rachel. They have other shows that have a more middle of the road (which lurched to the right decades ago) approach. Fox News is all right wing propaganda, all the time. Opposing viewpoints are only presented to be shouted down, never to be seriously considered. The mere fact that Keith Olbermann & Rachel Maddow are considered extreme leftist by the mainstream is a good indication how far to the right the mainstream media's "center" has skewed.

Bobito -

I am sorry…but I do not even remotely agree. They are not only shouted down. There's Hannity and Colmes - who have the same air time - and as a matter of FORMAT - always have both views represented. O'Reilly shouts, etc., but he does allow people to get word in here and there and has even agree and/or admitted fault on admittedly rare occassions. If Olbermann made 10% of the effort to show the other side, I'd be amazed. I have seen people from the moderate left to the far left (Code Pink, for instance) put on Fox and defended by Alan Colmes. If Fox is right wing propaganda and has these opposing viewpoints, then what on Earth is MSNBC?

Sure, they might have some dissenting opinions showcased on their network occasionally but they are, overwhelmingly, a conservative-biased network.

Just take a look at their little "tell-all specials" on the two pres. candidates for proof. John McCain was constantly "the war hero". You know, "First, the war hero did this…" "then, the war hero made himself a sandwich" "what will the war hero wear to his next speech?" I'm exaggerating a bit, obv., but it was pretty sickeningly overused.

As for Obama's special on this "fair + balanced" network, the whole tone was different. Where McCain's special had triumphant, pleasant background music, Obama's music was more ominous. Even the host of the Obama special came across as blood-thirsty + eager to cast doubts about Barack. Where McCain was "the hero", Obama was "the big question mark", focusing (of course) on his college friends with "exotic-sounding" names + the fact that he took a "mysterious" trip with them to Pakistan or wherever. The back-to-back specials, I reckon, were supposed to seem fair + even. The positive coverage, however, was laughably one-sided.

I think what you are all wrong in assuming is that these are "news" shows. Simply put, they are entertaining hour-longs that the 24hour networks put on to compete with the other cable networks with their own seasonal shows. Where "24" or "Scrubs" or "The Office" has their own content, "Hannity," "O'Reilly," "Countdown," and "Maddow" all use the news as their source. I'm not saying that these are fictional shows, I'm just saying their meant as entertainment to compete. They've got to be dramatic and controversial. That's entertainment.

Pardon the grammar errors (eek, that's embarrassing).