February 29, 2016

Given Howard Kurtz's employer's long, long history of race-baiting and disparaging remarks about African-Americans, sadly, this is hardly surprising. From this Sunday's Media Buzz, here's Kurtz throwing in his two cents over the dust up at MSNBC with Melissa Harris-Perry.

Fox's Howard Kurtz Justifies MSNBC Dropping Melissa Harris-Perry Because She "Played The Race Card":

HOWARD KURTZ (HOST): Melissa Harris-Perry walked off her MSNBC show this weekend and things have gotten pretty ugly. The liberal political science professor whose program airs in part when we're on, found her show preempted the last two weeks. She says the show was "taken without comment, or discussion, or notice." And then she ratcheted things up against two white executives, NBC News President Andrew Lack and MSNBC President Phil Griffin, "I will not be used as a tool for their purposes. I am not a token, mammy, or little brown bobble head. I am not owned by Lack, Griffin or MSNBC. I love our show, I want it back."

Unmistakable racial references that MSNBC had already drawn flack for dropping the shows of such black hosts as Joy Reid and Alex Wagner and relegating Al Sharpton to early Sunday morning. NBC saying the preemptions were for basic breaking political news, called her scathing comments really surprising, confusing, and disappointing. Now it does sound like MSNBC treated her a bit poorly, but it's really unfortunate that she played the race card. The Washington Post reporting this morning that MSNBC executives plan to drop Melissa Harris-Perry, and given her extraordinary racial blast, I don't blame them.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon