MSNBC Chief Takes A Stand

[Jeanfromfillmore]

MSNBC Chief Takes A Stand

By Don | May 4, 2010
MSNBC president Phil Griffin is taking a page from Roger Ailes and Fox News and making sure his network stands for something.
From the Chicago Tribune
MSNBC boss Phil Griffin looks at what Roger Ailes created at Fox News Channel with no small amount of awe.
"He's changed media. Everybody does news differently because Roger's changed the world," Griffin said over coffee on a visit to Chicago the other day. He was taking a break from making a case for his own cable network to ad buyers here to make the case for changes in the media landscape to a reporter. "Roger early on figured it out and was brilliant."
With so much news coming from so many places, so often in much the same way, a leader distinguishes itself by anticipating what its audience wants and needs beyond the immediate headlines. In doing so, the most successful — and in cable, that's Ailes' FNC — will establish its own identity.
The critical lesson Griffin took from Ailes was that a news outlet that stands for something is one that consumers can stand behind and rally around.
That kind of allegiance is especially important in cable because it can be leveraged to help dictate the kind of fees networks can charge carriers per household they service, regardless of how many people actually watch. Who would dare drop a channel with such a passionate following?
"To be successful in this new age, you've got to create a community," Griffin said. "You've got to have a place where people come. They're like-minded. They share ideas. They want news, but they also get their headlines all day long on the Web, on their BlackBerrys, on their iPhones, on their iPads. It's a different universe, and nobody uses one outlet as their only source."
Fox News Channel offers news through the prisms of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. MSNBC does it with Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews. Whatever one may think of those people and their respective takes on the news, the important thing in this formula is that one does think of those people because of their takes on the news.
"We're talking about the actions and passions of today, which tend to be political," said Griffin, who has been with MSNBC since its 1996 launch and has had executive oversight of it for four years, the last two as its president.
Conservatives may not like what MSNBC stands for but at least Griffin realizes that what Fox has done is incredible. Fox has become the standard bearer when it comes to cable news dethroning longtime leader CNN and preciptating a decline that often has the network trailing it's smaller sister HLN in the ratings.
But standing for something is only part of the equation. Fox combines news, opinion and entertainment and packages it in a way that attrracts viewers in droves compared to MSNBC and CNN which badly trail the network.
MSNBC may be trying ot style themselves as the anti-Fox when it comes to political opinion, but as long as they do they will be relegated to the role of also ran in a world that prefers the Fox viewpoint.

http://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/m...takes-a-stand/