MSNBC Bombs in Blogosphere

Larry Grossman, a former president of NBC News, said that MSNBC has "been doing very well as the liberal antithesis to Fox, everyone knows that," he said. "But at some point standards and journalistic integrity have to take over."

Grossman questioned whether Gregory's new assignment is a good fit: "If he's presiding over what is an avowedly liberal network, will it in effect tarnish his reputation for being a perfectly straight shooter?"

Olbermann's show is the most popular on MSNBC. In a strikingly friendly interview with Obama that aired last night, Olbermann asked the Democratic nominee whether he should use "more exclamation points," adding: "Have you thought of getting angrier?"

Republicans have been assailing the cable channel for months. Steve Schmidt, McCain's top strategist, has called MSNBC "a partisan advocacy organization that exists for the purpose of attacking John McCain," and White House counselor Ed Gillespie has complained about an "increasing blurring" of the line between NBC News and MSNBC's "blatantly partisan talk show hosts" like Matthews and Olbermann.

Griffin rejected the liberal label increasingly applied to his network, saying that Olbermann and Matthews, for example, are "entirely different."

"We are blending a traditional news network that has been around a long time with a new cable news network that has some point-of-view shows in prime time . . . For NBC News to continue to grow, it needs MSNBC to be successful, and vice versa."

Here's more on what lefty bloggers are saying.

Taylor Marsh:

"It began when Keith Olbermann began to personally target Hillary Clinton during the primaries.

"As I said not long ago, it's a shame that Olbermann was so over the top with his commentary, because Democrats had never had anyone so openly in our corner. So, just when Democrats and Obama need it, Olbermann's commentary is being questioned in every way. It was bound to happen, due to the outrageous coverage that Keith often offered, targeting Clinton personally and viscerally for months."

The aforementioned Glenn Greenwald:

"Nothing changes the behavior of our media corporations more easily than vocal demands and complaints from the right, which petrify media executives and cause them to snap into line . . .