Although MSNBC routinely beats floundering CNN in the ratings, it continually falls far behind cable news leader Fox News. Nevertheless, the outlet continues to dig into its far-left editorial bias by providing the Biden administration cover and routinely mocking or demonizing the GOP.
According to one former MSNBC personality, the network’s slant has been imposed by top executives — as she learned the hard way following an on-air monologue she delivered nearly a decade ago.
As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton geared up for a 2016 presidential bid, Krystal Ball took a relatively tough approach, outlining Clinton’s close ties to Wall Street and the fact that she was widely unpopular among American voters.
Ball told podcast host Joe Rogan that her bosses almost immediately scolded her for the unflattering portrayal and informed her that any future commentary on Clinton would have to be “approved by the president of the network.”
She went on to note that, even though she was not at the network much longer after that 2014 incident, the reprimand did impact the way she conducted herself for the remainder of her tenure at MSNBC.
“I did further Hillary Clinton commentary, there’s no doubt about it,” she said. “But I would love to say that didn’t affect me and I was just there to be a truth-teller, but listen, I’m a human being. I’m sure I responded to the incentives in that system of, oh, I don’t want to get in trouble with the boss.”
Ball used her own experience to highlight a more pervasive problem within the modern cable news landscape.
“That’s the way that it works,” she added. “That is a very blatant example, but oftentimes people know where the boundaries are. They know what they’re allowed to say so they don’t need that direct intervention of censorship.”
She also shared a less-than-flattering opinion of the talking heads who populate the programming on MSNBC and other cable news networks.
Leftists on MSNBC will say insane things like this, and then wonder why Fox News consistently beats them in ratings. https://t.co/lroCZxup25
— NewsBusters (@newsbusters) February 13, 2023
“They’re not really there because they’re talented,” she asserted. “They’re there because they’re reliable purveyors of whatever it is that that network wants to purvey. That’s ultimately why they get the job and they understand the parameters of the task.”
