The Chicago Tribune, Chris Matthews, and Institutional Loyalty

As Alden was purchasing its stake Schmich wrote a rather courageous column in which she implored another potential buyer to save the Tribune from possible liquidation at the hands of Alden a hedge fund notorious for gutting newsrooms Presumably as a consequence of Schmich39s vocal opposition to her paper39s new owners many readers worried that Schmich might be next on the chopping block As Schmich herself noted quotSome of us are paid fairly for this labor Many are notquot It39s no small leap then to realize that when the time for costcutting arrives some of those quotpaid fairlyquot are the first to go As of now Schmich remains but as is evident from her February comments she is under no illusions about media outlets39 less than stellar reputations for their loyaltyOn March 2 only minutes into his broadcast of Hardball the show he had hosted for more than two decades Chris Matthews announced his retirement It was the culmination of a difficult nine days for Matthews On February 22 Matthews found himself on the receiving end of significant social media backlash after he compared Bernie Sanders39 victory in the Nevada Democratic caucuses to Germany39s 1940 invasion of France The FireChrisMatthews effort would accelerate on February 28 when Matthews confused the identities of two black South Carolina politicians But the final straw for Matthews would be a GQ column published that same day by journalist Laura Bassett describing how Matthews had quotinappropriately flirtedquot with her drawing further attention to his tasteless past comments to womenReactions to Matthew39s departure from MSNBC were nothing short of impassioned with MSNBC political correspondent Steve Kornacki choking up onair in the immediate aftermath of Matthews39 announcement This was followed by further sorrow the next morning from Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski the cohosts of Morning Joe with Brzezinski saying quotAs a woman I loved working with Chris Matthewsquot a perspective notably shared by The Washington Post39s Kathleen Parker For both Brzezinski and Parker Mathews39 behavior while certainly not ideal was far from comparable to that of other nowdisgraced media personalities and was an example of cancel culture gone too far All the while other female media personalities such as SE Cupp defended Matthews39 firing Perhaps most important though were those commentaries that expressed some iteration of quotHow could MSNBC fire one of the faces that helped to build the networkquotCertainly many events are overdetermined with many underlying causes contributing to a final result and Chris Matthews39 firing was no different Did his comments to women play a role Of course they did But then again MSNBC was aware of Mathews39 conduct since at least 1999 when NBC offered severance to a female employee who accused Matthews of making flirtatious remarks The acute cause of his downfall began with those comments about Bernie Sanders a candidate whose rise Matthews a man who39d voted for George W Bush in 2000 likely could not comprehendAs Matthews hinted at when announcing his retirement the younger generation39s worldview is perhaps a world apart from his own quotThe younger generations out there are ready to take the reins we see them in politics in the media and fighting for their causesquot A growing share of younger Democrats who might increasingly come to comprise MSNBC39s viewership clearly do not share Matthews39 revulsion towards socialism and MSNBC could not help but take noteMatthews39 finest hour however may have actually come in 2012 when he himself did something courageous and loyal sticking up for a man who was clearly down In February 2012 after years of alleged tensions between Pat Buchanan and MSNBC the network fired Buchanan in response to comments in his book Suicide of a Superpower Will America Survive to 2025 Buchanan was not a popular man in many circles and it likely would have been easier to say nothing amp8212 or to join in condemning him But Matthews chose a different course and strongly denounced the firing of his ideological sparring partner quotThe good quality above his relentless genialities is deep even formidable loyalty Pat sticks up for his people like nobody I know Name another public figure who has built his public career on being a stalwart loyalist to Richard Nixon Loyalty is the heart of Pat39s beingquotIt may very well be the case that amp8212 as Holman Jenkins has argued amp8212 as more media outlets come to rely upon subscriptions rather than advertisers for revenue events such as CancelNYT or in this case FireChrisMatthews will become more frequent Certainly Matthews ought not to have said and done some of the things he did yet one has the suspicion that all would have been excused had viewers not called with such vehemence for his head MSNBC knew about his comments to women for at least 21 years but it only became an issue nowMatthews39 decades of service were unable to offset nine bad days But the news media has a certain ruthlessness to it a ruthlessness for ratings and dollars Perhaps some of that mythical quotinstitutional loyaltyquot that Schmich pined for would go a long way in restoring the confidence and comfortability of news media39s contributors Just ask the folks at the Chicago TribuneDon39t stop now Stay in the know with critical commentary on media news coverage from Erich Prince and News on the RecordClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNetamp160

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The Chicago Tribune, Chris Matthews, and Institutional Loyalty

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Erich J. Prince

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The Chicago Tribune, Chris Matthews, and Institutional Loyalty

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