Controversy at the Cable News Networks

Journalism professors stress the importance of objectivity in reporting, but some of the most prominent journalists in the country - the hosts of cable TV talk shows - are anything but objective. So what's going on? FOX News and MSNBC have discovered that opinion-based shows get high ratings, so there's little incentive for either FOX or MSNBC to change their formats. FOX is the conservative alternative for people who believe the mainstream media is too liberal. Its shows, led by ratings king Bill O'Reilly, offer viewers a steady diet of right-of-center commentary. MSNBC positions itself as the liberal alternative to FOX. Indeed, its primetime host, Keith Olbermann, often targets O'Reilly in his show's "World's Worst Person" segment.

There's probably been more chatter about how the tea party protests were covered by the media than about the protests themselves. Liberal critics say the demonstrations were organized and cheered on by conservative media outlets like Fox News; conservatives say the protests were ignored or disparaged by networks like CNN. Alas, there were on-air examples of mistakes by both networks. First there was the spectacle of CNN reporter Susan Roesgen browbeating a man at the Chicago protest. Fox News, on the other hand, wasn't much better. Its slogan may be "Fair and Balanced," but there wasn't much balance in the way the network often seemed to act as a cheerleader for the demonstrators.

So Fox News had been jabbing away at the Obama administration, and now the Obama administration has decided to hit back. White House communications director Anita Dunn has denounced Fox as more of a political operation than a real news organization, and vowed to push back hard when one of the network’s commentators says something particularly nasty or untrue. All of this has the blogosphere abuzz with questions: Should the White House single out a particular news organization this way? Are there any parallels here, as some have suggested, with Watergate, when the Nixon administration attacked the Washington Post? And is Fox News really a news organization?

Does the White House, in its criticism of Fox News, make some valid points about news coverage in general? The administration has been openly critical of the news media and the way some stories are covered. Obama believes the media "prefer conflict over cooperation, encourage bad behavior and weaken the ability of leaders to help the nation." Does the president have a point? Jill Geisler, who teaches management and leadership skills at the Poynter Institute, a journalism training center, thinks so. "Journalists are drawn to conflict, to the horse race," she says. "It's easier for us to put two opposing soundbites on the air than to assign a reporter to do some research about complex issues."

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews will no longer anchor the cable network's coverage of major political events. Instead they'll serve as analysts for the upcoming presidential debates and on election night. David Gregory will anchor those events. This had been a long time coming. Even casual MSNBC watchers could see the tension between Olbermann and some colleagues, particularly Matthews. Many of the spats are now in heavy rotation on YouTube - such as Olbermann's “Jesus, Joe, why don’t you get a shovel?” crack when colleague Joe Scarborough talked about the McCain campaign's rise.

Keith Olbermann says he hasn't signed on to any peace accord with Bill O'Reilly. In his "Worst Persons" segment Monday night, the MSNBC host said he had never agreed to a ceasefire with his Fox News nemesis, and awarded the bronze in the "Worst Persons" contest to New York Times reporter Brian Stelter, who wrote the original story saying there was a truce. Stelter reported that execs at MSNBC and Fox News had asked the two to cool their long-running feud because it was hurting the corporate image of both networks.