MSNBC–Hiding who’s in charge

MSNBC reaches 91 million households in major media markets. Comcast owns NBC/Universal Media which operates, MSNBC. That cable news service is also the most Left-leaning cable news provider in the United States. President of Comcast is Neil Smil. Smil appears not to have any particular political leanings. He earned a BS in Oceanography and Geology from Duke University and served five years as a Navy Seal.

Tracing the wildly Left-leaning programming of MSNBC requires digging much deeper into the personnel of Comcast’s holdings which include: Cable Communications–Comcast; Cable Networks; Broadcast Television; NBC and Telemundo; Filmed Entertainment–Universal Pictures as well as DreamWorks Animation and Theme Parks:  Universal theme parks in Orlando, Florida and Hollywood, California and a 51% interest in the Universal Studios theme park in Osaka, Japan.

The search for Leftist bias can eliminate Comcast’s theme park divisions and DreamWorks Animation, but NBC, which does international reporting well is biased to the Left in its MSNBC programming. And Telemundo anchor, José Díaz-Balart and other Telemundo reporters have attacked President Trump’s immigration policies.

NBC, once dominant in the Broadcast television era, featured the nightly news with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley from 1956 to 1970. A culture of arrogance developed during that era and has been carried forward into Cable television programming that, on Morning Joe, features the Tokyo Rose of cable television, Mika Brzezinski.

Brzezinski is followed by Stephanie Ruhl whose Leftist views are energetically expressed by questioning every aspect of the Trump Administration. At Noon, even Andrea Mitchell, now freed from former constraints, paints a negative picture of Republicans.  Evenings are dominated at 7:00 pm by caustic Liberal Chris Matthews who is followed by Rachel Maddow at 9:00 pm and then daily “reporting” is completed at 10:00 pm by Lawrence O’Donnell.

A lineup of Brzezinski, Ruhl, Mitchell, Matthews, Maddow and O’Donnell suggest a massive commitment to the Left by a major communication company and yet, if you read Comcast’s annual 10-K report to the SEC, you struggle to find mention of any key employees. Even the name of Comcast President Neil Smil is buried within a paragraph you must be seeking, or you wouldn’t find it.

Clearly, Comcast is sensitive to the negative opinions that its “journalism” generates, but good public policy, which calls for transparency and accountability, is deliberately thwarted by hiding the names of Comcast’s secretive, Left-wing, managers.