Documentary Maker Confronts MSNBC’s David Schuster
“Media Malpractice” filmmaker and Big Hollywood blogger John Ziegler appeared on MSNBC Friday to speak about his documentary “Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Got Assassinated.”
Ziegler proved himself to be quite critical of David Schuster and MSNBC as a whole during his conversation with the MSNBC presenter. He, rightfully, accused MSNBC of being biased in favor of Barack Obama and against Sarah Palin, while Schuster once again proved to be one of the strongest anti-Palin voices in the media.
“I believe her character was assassinated David, and I think that this network played an enormous role in that process,” Ziegler said. “MSNBC is clearly the pet-network of Barack Obama and I understand that.”
Schuster then said that Palin may blame the media for her problems during the campaign but that she should, perhaps, take responsibility for the mistakes she made instead which, he said, she refuses to do. Ziegler then asked Schuster whether he actually watched the clip or whether he just repeated the talking points shared with him by his staffers.
“If you would have watched the YouTube clip we released you would already have known this,” Ziegler said.
Schuster responded angrily, showing his true colors by criticizing Ziegler for emancipating a politician who is “clearly unqualified.” Ziegler then pointed out that such a statement can hardly be called “objective.” The MSNBC ‘journalist’ responded by citing polls that say that 65% of the American people considered Palin unqualified; as Ziegler pointed out, just because the majority holds a particular view does not mean that the view is correct. Additionally, Schuster seems to ignore the fact that ‘journalists’ contributed significantly to these bad poll numbers; without the character assassination carried out by many media outlets, the general public would undoubtedly have had a more favorable opinion of the Alaska governor.
Watch the video:
Even those who are no fan of Governor Palin have to admit that many ‘journalists’ were biased against her and treated her terribly unfairly. As such, Ziegler’s project should be welcomed by all those interested in facts and honest reporting.
I agree with your last paragraph but she’s still making a huge mistake by allowing herself to appear weak and whiny. Hillary Clinton had a big image problem too, but she overcame it by ignoring the negative press and rolling up her sleeves and getting some work done for the people of NY (and I say this as someone who’s not at all a fan of HC.) There’s just no way for a politician, particularly a female one, to complain about media bias because the more one complains, the weaker one appears (even if the complaints are 100% accurate.)
C Stanley is right.
Even this interview didn’t go so well for Sarah Palin.
That doesn’t excuse MSNBC’s ignorance.
I think she’s going to run again, but she has little chance versus experienced conservatives who are better at debate and interviews.
Manual Trackback:
http://www.crimsonpolitics.com/sarah-palin-interviewer-accuses-msnbcs-david-schuster-media-bias
Here’s a take of the John Ziegler ‘coup’…
… Guess it’s just a matter of perspective. Well, perspective and ACTUALLY watching the interview.
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/wingnut-john-ziegler-pays-shuster-se
Steve: Trying to prove bias of Ziegler’s part…by linking to one of the most biased sources around. Good job!
I don’t know much about Ziegler, but many of his points are correct. I I’ve seen the interview on MSNBC. Shuster didn’t help his case. Now MSNBC looks more loony.
I don’t agree on the “big evil conspiracy of the media to get Obama elected” angle that he appears to be portraying, though.
Are you saying that you think Crooks and Liars is biased and Media Bistro is not?
To repeat my original point “Guess it’s just a matter of perspective. Well, perspective and ACTUALLY watching the interview.”
BOTH interviews actually… Michaels link was to the MORNING interview with John Zigler… the Crooks and Liars link I posted was to the AFTERNOON interview.
Crooks and Liars is the most biased blogs on the internet. They are partisan hacks, in the highest degree. They are popular for their outrageous liberal lies and provocative headlines and blogs.
They are not popular because of simply liberal agenda. They are not popular because they are biased.
The only perspective on this issue is that John Ziegler obviously promotes Sarah Palin, and MSNBC’s David Shuster is incredibly biased against Palin. The difference? David Shuster claims he is a journalist, when he’s obviously not.
These are FACTS. Not opinions. An opinion or perspective would say “Oh John Ziegler is always right” or “David Shuster had a good point” etc. I’m telling it as I see it, through observation.
Steve: I’d never even heard of them before this post, so I can’t yet make any judgments on them.
I have watched both interviews, and found both men to be incredibly egotistical and arrogant.
Kudos to David Shuster. At least by MSNBC standards. He actually had someone on who argued with him. Olbermann and Maddow may as well be doing their shows with hand puppets.
David,
Why do you consistently let the righ wing idealogs talk over everybody. Don’t be afraisd to cut them off. Try to be at least fair in the amount of time you let each talk. Chris was more than overbearing and holier than tho…. Tahnks
@RAGGEDSTEP
@RAGGEDSTEP
This may be a bit too balanced a view, but the way it looked to me was that more than MSNBC was biased in the last election. Fox was appallingly biased in the other direction.
In fact, I thought the last election demonstrated the enormous problems we have with the media generally, in all its various manifestations.
Fox was appallingly biased in the other direction.
Do you have specific examples? I certainly admit that Fox has always leaned right, and sometimes verging into the ‘appallingly biased’ but not during the election. And I think the media watchdogs found that Fox’s coverage really was the most evenhanded of the cable networks.
I definitely can’t see comparing Fox’s bias during the election with MSNBC- now THAT was undeniably appalling.
Do you have specific examples?
Not off the top of my head. Since I’ve pulled totally away from following all this since the election, I’m really left with overall impressions, generally. Probably I shouldn’t have made the comment, since it left me wide-open to your question (and I just am not motivated to go back and reread it all).
:<
But I can’t say that every bit of coverage from any one network was biased, either. Some of Fox’s stuff seemed fine, as I recall. Same with CNN. Even MSNBC, sometimes, was okay. But it seems to me that there were certain shows on all the networks that consistently left me shaking my head as I hit the “off” button.
OK, fair enough. My impression was that MSNBC was the network that really crossed the line in terms of their actual news coverage being highly biased (as opposed to the opinion shows.) And then add to that the vitriolic quality of some of their opinion shows and it was really over the top, far beyond anything I’ve seen on Fox.
I would say MSNBC was far worse this campaign season and agree that they really crossed a line this year. I think Fox wasn’t as bad as usual this year, I can’t give examples but they seemed much worse in 06 and 04.
Polimom, I have missed seeing you around. I was curious as a fiscal conservative Dem (or leaning Dem) I was curious what your take was on all of this. I remember that you were one of the few on TMV that had reservations about Obama’s economic policies.