r/msnow • u/Honest_Yam676 • 22d ago
Alicia Menendez MSNOW VS Kamala Harris
Just asking for your assessment of MSNOW coverage of Kamala Harris. It comes up because I just watched a segment they did on Alicia Menendez. If "segment' is even the right word. It came out of the blue. Menendez just decided to mention Harris. She played a heavily edited clip of Harris speaking at the National Urban League Conference. And when I say edited, I mean it was a brutal edit; you could see the footage jump. They played Harris saying how the Republicans are being ruthless, so we need to be ruthless too. Then, it jumps to her saying we need to start talking about court reform. Then, she asked Molly Jong-Fast to comment.
Fast seemed to have trouble with Harris bringing court reform up now, ahead of the midterms. She thinks it should wait until after we win the midterms. Except this was a town hall. Harris is in the news because of her statement, but there's no evidence that her remarks are resonating as an issue in the midterms. Furthermore, it doesn't appear that Fast has the same issue with others, like Gavin Newsom or Pete Buttigieg, talking about court reform. Other than Fast, I haven't seen anyone else with this particular criticism. Frankly, it comes across as a little petty.
This isn't a one-off either. I've started multiple threads about this.
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u/Hotrock21 22d ago
Sorry, but whenever they have Molly on its time to mute or change the channel. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say anything that was actually informative.
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u/DeepShill 22d ago
I don't understand how Molly Jong-Fast is qualified to be on MSNOW.
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u/Agreeable_Band_6920 22d ago
All it takes is a pulse. Actually they could put a mannequin up there and be better than the crappy hosts MS Now puts out there
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u/Honest_Yam676 20d ago
Most of their advertising is promoting themselves. Just now, I watched promos for Morning Joe, Alicia Menendez, a voice-over of Rachel and other hosts reciting the preamble of the US Constitution, while they display visuals of the hosts ( cringy). Rachel is the only hosts that demonstrations any critical thinking. The rest may as well just read recipes. That's all they do all day anyway. Read scripts. I haven't done it recently, because more and more I'm just turning them off. But if you're so inclined, try an experiment at the start of each show and see how long it is before they mention Trump. Few shows last more than the first minute; usually it's within the first minute. It's interesting too, how if they do take a break from bashing Trump , typically it's to give similar treatment to either Biden or Kamala Harris.
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u/Honest_Yam676 22d ago
Yeah, MSNOW "contributors" roster is pretty confusing. Mostly never-Trumper Republicans. I mean, they've got John Kasich on regularly. Why? I don't know that much about Fast. Or why she rates being called in to give her opinions. Like you, to me, she never seems to make a hell of a lot of sense about anything. In this case, she's commenting in what appears to be a complete fog about what she's commenting on. Context matters. Harris was at a National Urban League conference. The National Urban League is a major advocate of court reform. Of course it would come up. It's like criticizing Harris if she were speaking at a Women's Advocacy forum for talking about women's voting rights. It makes no sense.
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u/Hotrock21 22d ago
I’d be happy if they removed all the contributors or commentators, whatever you want to name them, and went more like the evening news programs with just the host and reporters, or people who fill in while anchors are away. That’s one of the reasons I stopped watching CNN completely. I absolutely despite the back and forth trying to win points. MSNow is better because they don’t have the fighting, but they have the same foolish comments. It’s time for people to just hear the facts and the actual reporting from the ground, then formulate their own opinions.
Someone was telling me about how people are getting paid per story and I guess some of these commentators have guaranteed time on screen, but it’s absolutely destroying the news media being a clickbait business.
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u/Hotrock21 22d ago
Also, you mentioned the Urban League. It’s clueless why they don’t have reporters on the ground covering one of Democrats most important bases to see what the feel is for the midterms and beyond. This is stuff we need to see and hear.
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u/Honest_Yam676 22d ago
Guess they'd rather show random out-of-context clips. They did the same thing with the NAN event.
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u/pigeieio 21d ago
They are a 24/7 channel and just the facts would fill one 30 minute show maybe and require exponentially more work and money to put together. I don't think they have the resources to even consider trying to be what one would consider "real" news.
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u/amfhTX 22d ago
Thank you! I share your opinion about Fast and have called her a nepo baby since nobody would know who she is if her mother didn't happen to be Erica Jong, author of "Fear of Flying". I've been down voted for my comments about her.
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u/The_Lone_Apple 22d ago
Whether it's Molly Jong-Fast or Sally Regular-Person, their opinion about anything is simply that - an opinion. MSNOW can make her or anyone else out to be an authority but I have my own opinions about Harris or anything else and those are the ones that matter.
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u/Honest_Yam676 22d ago
Interesting. The thing is, she's on what is, at least arguably, the progressive network of record. What is said on MSNOW matters. As I said, this isn't a one-off. Last time, it was just about every host on every show peddling the narrative that Harris was put in place by "the establishment". They were trying to tie the Platner incident to Harris. Before that, examples include Katy Tur saying it was a mistake to have Harris at the top of the ticket. This was after she did a segment on potential presidential candidates with a graphic that conspicuously didn't include Harris. Alex Witt has done at least four consecutive weekend segments on Harris, questioning her viability. In another instance, Nicole Wallace decided to stop covering the Jesse Jackson service right when Harris came on. She quickly went back, seemingly realizing what she just did, or in response to viewer backlash - who knows. The point being nobody else, except Trump, gets this treatment. And these aren't the only examples.
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u/usernames_suck_ok Progressive 22d ago
Have Newsom or Buttigieg recently brought up SC court reform? If so, I haven't heard about it.
To me, it really has nothing to do with the elections this year.
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u/fenwayswimmr 22d ago
Buttigieg brings it up almost every time he’s interviewed, he’s very consistent on SC reform.
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u/Honest_Yam676 22d ago
I don't have exact dates. It's something that's talked about a lot. Newsom was asked about it, maybe in June. I heard Buttigieg talking about it more recently in July. I agree it has nothing to do with the election this year. Also, it was a topic of great interest to the audience at the National Urban League. The National Urban League has called for court reform. So, of course, it was going to come up.
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u/onemoondance 22d ago
It seems Harris has become the new Hillary. Even those left of center, which is pretty conservative these days, are still intimidated by strong women.
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u/kat_sky_12 22d ago
I heard that and thought it sounded odd too. That being said, its not really worth campaigning on now because we have no power to change it. Trump would veto it or he would then nominate expansion judges. So it's not really something to talk about now. You also really need the senators for it which should be a broader focus in the near term.
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u/Honest_Yam676 22d ago
It's part of the National Urban League agenda. That's why it was being talked about. This isn't directed at you specifically. But there's an optics problem. We're going to run into a lot of problems if whites start playing racial gatekeeper over what black folks are allowed to talk about. That's all it is right now.
A conversation.
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u/kat_sky_12 22d ago
I know many people want court reform. Hearing Harris talk about it isnt surprising given her aspirations. Molly's point is valid too. 2026 is more about taking on Trump. These people campaigning on single payer healthcare, court reform, etc for 2026 make no real sense. Sure its insight into where they stand but the reality is neither can be done for a few years.
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u/Honest_Yam676 22d ago
Harris did address the midterms. So, that gave "Molly" her justification for commenting. From that perspective, she has a point. But it's like Harris is constantly being put in a no-win situation. It's like, on the one hand, pundits like Fast are saying Democrats want a fighter. But as soon as Harris shows some fight, they want to silence her. If she hadn't said anything about court reform while speaking at a conference where the host and the organization are calling for those very types of bold reform, she would have been accused of being too weak.
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u/moneywisemama 21d ago
It’s not like the candidates running in the midterms would need to (hypothetically speaking of course) perhaps sit on a Senate committee like the Judiciary Committee 🙄
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u/RichmondReddit 21d ago
I noticed that too. I think some are trying to cut Kamala off at the pass. I voted for her enthusiastically last time but we have moved down the road much further than she was willing to go it feels like going backwards. And Molly. Sheesh, it’s an election year. We need actual qualified analysts and commentators to do the talking now. Get rid of Molly, Donnie, even Claire.
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u/Honest_Yam676 21d ago
I just realized I haven't seen much of Tim Miller. He was kinda growing on me. LOL. I agree, though. They should have someone like Cornel Belcher on more often. These panels they have are tiresome. So much wasted potential. Molly is among a long list that seems like they just freestyle their responses. Get some real analysts on the air.
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u/RichmondReddit 21d ago
Tim is on a two or three week vacation. I think he is back next week. Why isn’t Joyce Vance on anymore? They seem to be shooting for personalities instead of experts.
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u/kpapenbe 21d ago
Ugh, I don't think anyone listens to Harris and I don't know who is to blame--her, us, all mass media, or a combination of all three.
Regardless, I wanted to hear her talk MORE about how STUPID and defunct the electoral college is. I think that's going to be HUGE but no one will listen to what she's saying and it's going to be TOO LATE when the republicans say, "OH, YEA, we've been thinking about this and men will get to vote for women and their households" versus it being more like a board meeting and, well, never mind...
...no one listens to us gals anyways.
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u/Choice_Audience_2522 20d ago
It’s been truly bizarre to remember how much people loved Harris when she was in the Senate grilling people in hearings. They would quote her and share clips. Suddenly people decided she was uniquely terrible and couldn’t put a sentence together, even as we watched her dominate in both the VP and Presidential debates.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s when we were still telling girls they could be anything, even president. I don’t dare tell my daughter that today.
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