Character Assassination?

The focus of the attacks is MSNBC's evening lineup, where the channel has clearly gravitated to the left in recent years and often seems to regard itself as the antithesis of Fox News. Schmidt, for instance, says he regards MSNBC's daytime reporting as fair, but that it would be "delusional" to view its nighttime operation as anything other than a "partisan entity."

NBC and its cable outlet have become more integrated since MSNBC moved to the 30 Rockefeller Plaza headquarters in New York last fall, a trend accelerated by the sharing of journalistic talent during the campaign. Some top NBC journalists say privately they are troubled by the overlapping identities.

Matthews, the voluble "Hardball" host, appears frequently on NBC's "Today," and Tim Russert, NBC's Washington bureau chief and "Meet the Press" moderator, is an increasingly visible presence on MSNBC. Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory, both well-regarded NBC correspondents, now anchor hour-long programs on the cable outlet. Gregory replaced Tucker Carlson, leaving former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough as the channel's only conservative host.

NBC News President Steve Capus says the distinctions between reporting and opinion are clear. "We happen to have programs that at times are driven by opinion on MSNBC, and we have a worldwide news organization driven by NBC News," he says. "The only people trying to lump it all together are people who tend to view these things through a political filter or are our competitors."

But news and opinion often seem to merge on primary nights. MSNBC's coverage is anchored by Matthews, a onetime Democratic operative, and Olbermann, the "Countdown" host who recently finished one anti-Bush commentary by instructing the president to "shut the hell up."

On election nights, Griffin says, Matthews and Olbermann "put on different hats. I think the audience gets it. . . . I see zero problem." MSNBC, he adds, offers "a little irreverence, entertainment, and sometimes it's even borderline dangerous."

Terence Smith, a former correspondent for CBS, PBS and the New York Times, says that "NBC Nightly News," for example, is far different from cable fare. "I don't believe Brian Williams's show reflects the attitudes and positions of Olbermann and Matthews and others on MSNBC," he says. "But it is potentially a perception problem. The public doesn't make a lot of distinctions between different arms of an organization."

As for Matthews and Olbermann, Smith says, "there's no confusion on 'Hardball' or 'Countdown' as to where they stand. They are and have been enamored of Obama from the beginning."

Scarborough, who hosts "Morning Joe," has been more sympathetic toward Clinton, while often criticizing the Republican Party he once represented in Florida.

The Obama campaign, for its part, has not complained about MSNBC's coverage. "Has it been too pro-Obama? Absolutely not," says Obama spokesman Bill Burton. "When the cable news channels had wall-to-wall negative coverage about our campaign for weeks on end, we didn't think it was particularly fair, but we also didn't whine about it all the time."

Gillespie, who raised questions about the overlap between the networks in a letter to Capus, says in an interview: "The president is not covered on MSNBC, he's talked about on MSNBC," largely in unflattering terms. "It's an advocacy network, and they're free to say what they want."

Russert drew some flak for declaring on the night of the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina: "We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one's going to dispute it." He notes that he made a similar declaration on NBC -- that Bill Clinton had the Democratic race wrapped up -- in 1992.