MSNBC Sidelines Muslim Journalists as Ratings Collapse During Israel War Against Hamas
Is it Islamophobia or pragmatism? It appears left-wing propaganda outlet MSNBC has been caught doing a bigotry – or perhaps they are just trying to salvage their ratings. A new report suggests that the network is silently pushing some of its Muslim journalists to the side as the war in Israel rages on.
The news comes as MSNBC is experiencing a serious ratings drop since the beginning of the conflict. Some have suggested that its anti-Israel bias might be turning off a sizeable chunk of the network’s viewers. If the report is accurate, it appears the outlet might be taking some questionable moves to rectify that situation.
MSNBC has quietly taken three of its Muslim broadcasters out of the anchor’s chair since Hamas’s attack on Israel last Saturday amid America’s wave of sympathy for Israeli terror victims.
The network did not air a scheduled Thursday night episode of The Mehdi Hasan Show on the streaming platform Peacock. MSNBC also reversed a plan for Ayman Mohyeldin to fill in this week on the network for host Joy Reid’s 7 p.m. show on Thursday and Friday. Mohyeldin, an Egyptian-American journalist and veteran NBC News correspondent covered the conflict from Gaza for two years. In 2021, he aggressively questioned Israeli leaders on strikes on the territory. Two network sources with knowledge of the plans told Semafor that the network also plans to have Alicia Menendez fill in this upcoming weekend for Ali Velshi, a third Muslim-American host who on Sunday interviewed a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority.
Those are some rather drastic moves, aren’t they?
But perhaps it is correct to assume that this is in response to declining ratings due to the constant “Jewish Country Bad” narrative coming out of some of MSNBC’s staff. However, some at the network claim that the moves are completely coincidental. However, the denial seems tough to believe when it does not seem that non-Muslim anchors are being shifted about. If this were Fox News, we all know how MSNBC and other leftist propaganda outlets would react, don’t we?
Apparently, MSNBC employees have been wrestling with this issue behind closed doors, according to the report.
Middle East divisions have also spilled into the company’s internal politics. On Wednesday, an NBCU engineer organized a network-wide support event for staff who felt grief over the conflict. But a Slack channel dedicated to the event devolved into fighting after the engineer rebuked a producer for Velshi’s show who asked why there were no Palestinians speaking at the event.
“I’m creating an event for those interested in hearing updates about the situation in Israel and a place to share family/friend stories from on the ground,” the NBC event organizer said, noting that there would be a rabbi in attendance.
“There’s no Palestinian representation at this?” Velshi’s producer asked.
“This is not about Palestinians and Jews/Israelis,” the organizer said, tagging NBC’s HR director. “This is about terrorists and Jews/Israelis. Anyone entering this group needs to denounce terror and what happened on Saturday. Claims of ‘freedom fighting,’ rationalizations, really, anything not explicitly and unequivocally about being supportive during this difficult time; these do NOT belong here.”
MSNBC has also been taking fire from those outside the organization. Jonathan Greenblatt, Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), scolded the network for constantly slamming Israel while going easy on Hamas. In one instance, he clashed with host Andrea Mitchell for seemingly trying to equate the grief of victims of Hamas’ terrorism with that of the terrorists.
To make matters worse for the network, its ratings have plummeted by a whopping 33 percent since Hamas’ initial surprise attack on Israel, while Fox News and CNN have seen an increase in viewership. Apparently, pretending that Israel is the big devil while contending that Hamas is as pure as the driven snow isn’t a recipe for ratings. Perhaps this will push MSNBC to include more balanced perspectives in its coverage of the war and the overall conflict.
Post a Comment