prop·a·gan·dist    
-noun
1.    a person involved in producing or spreading propaganda.
2.    a member or agent of a propaganda.

At least for the debate coverage NBC would have to keep Williams and Brokaw at the parent NBC for coverage and couldn't have them anchor for MSNBC.  And the same would be true for the
porion of election night coverage that is aired on NBC.

The larger concern should be that commentators and journalists alike refuse to vet the taking points of various candidates and their surrogates.  I don't want to hear what McCain is saying unless it's true...I don't wan to hear what Obama is saying unless it is true.  If either one is misrepresenting, I want to know.

That's what we don't get from any station or outlet, really.  I come here for partisanship.  In a way, we construct our own realities, here.  But, with basic issues of truthfulness. I think the press should be taking a harder line.  They no longer are, because somehow they've come to think that their function is not to inform, but to report.  

I don't want a network to be my friend - or my enemy; I want it to just tell me what's going on.  I want to be able to identify who is reporting and who is delivering opinion, and I want a clear dividing line between the two.  

Where MSNBC and other networks have failed is in not establishing standards for what is journalism and what is opinion, thereby allowing those on the "news" side to get away with sloppy reporting that is little more than straight-from-the-campaign talking points on the one hand and relying too heavily and too quickly on anonymous and therefore dubious sources on the other.  

There is too much meshing between the news and entertainment/opinion side, such that what we hear on the news is picked up on the opinion side as if it were fact, when, in many cases, it is not.  Back and forth it goes, and no one knows who's on first.

Taking Olbermann and Matthews off the Election Night anchor desk is a sop, not a solution, and it is certainly not going to change their product.  

I don't like Olbermann in the journalism role because he isn't a journalist. He's very good as the snarky, opinionated, talk-show host as you say, and he has shown some guts in some of his Special Comments, although those have also shown him (and his researchers) to be a little thin on some history as well as the history of politics.

So, I welcome this change on MSNBC. We'll still get KO doing what he does best.

What a surprise for me to log on this morning and see all the venom directed at MSNBC and Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann is a partisan commenter.  

He is not the most insightful guy.  But he is willing to say things that others clearly are not.   When he was rightly denouncing this administration I would imagine most here thought he was doing a service.  When he was attacking Hillary many of you got offended.  

That's your right, certainly.  But I really don't see the problem with having someone speak their mind.  I don't mind it when O'Reilly does it and I don't mind when Olbermann does it and I don't mind it when the doofus Glen Beck does it, although his rank stupidity bothers me a bit.

I've been spending time at the Puma blog, and I notice the same thing as I see here (constructive criticism alert!)

You guys get bogged down in what is ultimately trivia, and ignore the big stuff.  There is a lot of discussion of tactics, but I don't see much appreciation for the strategic.  Not to reopen old wounds, but Kerry was a goner in 2004 once the swifties shared their story.  Almost all of it was accurate (I checked), and Kerry left himself open to ridicule with the story of the "magic hat" published by the swooning reporter in the Boston Globe.  And had I been a Democrat, I would have made the same criticisms.  Obama is toast, because he is ultimately unelectable, as was Kerry.  All the talk about we shoulda done this, they unfairly did that - piffle.  If you want to win elections, nominate electable candidates (like Hillary).

Obama has so many negatives (Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Rezko, Wright, Fr. Fleiger, etc) and is so inept (you'd think he of all people would be extra careful around the word "Muslim") he will be destroyed once the 527's get rolling.  And please note, the ads will virtually write themselves (He says "China is way ahead of us in infrastructure", right after shoddily constructed schools collapse during the earthquake killing hundreds of children?).  The down ticket candidates must be sweating bullets.  My governor here in Oklahoma is a Democrat, and a great guy.  He is a fine man and a fine politician, with whom I don't agree on everything.  But I voted to re-elect him because he deserved it.  He would make 100 times the candidate that Obama is.  And Democrats and Republicans alike all over the country would vote for him.

And here you guys are navel gazing about MSNBC!  Did you see the convention ratings for Fox vs MSNBC?  Do you think it possible that there is a correlation between MSNBC's perennially poor ratings and your political philosophy?  America will NOT elect leftists / socialists as president, ever!  The last two Democrat presidents were positioned pretty much in the center.

And BTW, what was the delegate count for Hillary vs Obama?  The PUMAs have been trying to dig that out of the DNC, so far with no luck.  You might have noticed that at the Republican convention we actually called the role (in public, in prime time no less!).

Lest you think I'm piling on:  The 2006 election was lost by the Republicans because so many of the base (me included) were flat out disgusted by the Republican Washington crowd talking out of both sides of their mouths.  So we stayed home or voted Democrat.  Nothing riles us up more than someone campaigning as one thing and governing as another.  Good riddance to Denny Hastert, etc.  If you think my comments to you are pointed, you should have seen the rockets I and many other Republicans sent to the national party!