MSNBC: Is This Really Who You Are?

Journalists? Or Just Some Crass, Celebrity Comcast Salespeople, like Tom Selleck Selling Reverse Mortgages?

When I first spotted the advertisements—on MSNBC, of course—for NBC’s “all news” Cable network’s “Democracy 2024:  This Is Who We Are,” I passed it off as more election year self-promotion of a network news team, by a network.  Ho hum.

Then, I noted that MSNBC’s stable of “celebrity journalists,” were doing a live event in Brooklyn, N.Y., a short distance from where I was born.  How cool, I naively thought; fellow Brooklynites will be able to see and hear the MSNBC news team live on a Saturday in September of a Presidential election year. 

Having spent years working at the public Downstate Medical Center not far from the Brooklyn Academy of Music (scene of the MSNBC event) lamenting the Manhattan-centric news coverage of everything in New York except crime, I was delighted that MSNBC picked an “outer borough” and not Manhattan to show off their journalistic talent.    The “house” was in Brooklyn, and that was good.  The people would be heard.

When I saw them pushing tickets for the event, I figured it was being done as a public service by the liberal-leaning Cable news network—second only in viewership to Fox News-- since MSNBC devotes so much air time to promoting democracy, ethics in government (particularly on the Supreme Court) and economic justice.  Mistakenly, I thought that since MSNBC was a progressive “news organization” the tickets would be free, to encourage public participation, regardless of income.  First come, first served. Equality.

I decided to go to the link for the “LIVE” event to see if there were any tickets still remaining.  For most of the MSNBC “LIVE” events there were…IF you had the personal resources of Rupert Murdoch, or at least of Rachel Maddow, who earns $30 million per year, or nearly three times as much as Gayle King at CBS and twice as much as ABC’s George Stephanopolous.

Turns out that the “THIS IS WHO WE ARE” tagline MSNBC used each night, multiple times per night, shamelessly hawking their own live event, had a one word definition:  RICH.   Much, much, much wealthier than the average Brooklyn resident.  I know.  I provided public heath services to that underserved population for five years, and all of our patients struggled to stretch their paychecks through the week.   In fact the cumulative cost for one person to buy one ticket to all of the MSNBC events in that ONE DAY, was approximately $1,100—enough to feed a Brooklyn family of four for a month. 

Prices to the MSNBC “Democracy 2024”, Saturday, September 7 event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, were not on a progressive, sliding income scale.  In fact, the only thing “progressive” about the MSNBC “live event” ticket prices were that they got progressively steeper as the day wore on.

To make matters worse, there were no discounted tickets for student groups from NYC public schools, nor public colleges.  No reasons were given why there were no free or discounted tickets for people on a fixed income, considering that nearly 20% of Brooklyn’s 2.6 million residents live below the poverty level.  MSNBC would rather leave those pesky facts for someone else to sort through; there was real money to be made here off the faces of their “celebrity journalists.”

Here are some examples of the levels of MSNBC’s Taylor Swift-priced tickets:

1.  The Afternoon Session, from 1-3 pm, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House) has tickets starting at $98.50 each; 

2. From 5-7 pm, in the BAM Rose Cinema, is the "World Premier" of Executive Producer Rachel Maddow's movie, "From Russia with LEV."  Tickets for viewing the 91-minute documentary start at $43.50 for ALL ages.  There are no reduced prices for Senior Citizens, college students, public school students, teachers, nurses, firefighters, or people on a fixed or low-wage income. 

3. The Evening session, also from 5-7 pm, held in the Gilman Opera House (a separate event from the Maddow movie) has tickets starting from $168.50 each;

4. The Dinner & Reception (with ALL the MSNBC stars, with whom you can schmooze and booze) held at the Peter Jay Sharp Building, starts at $808.50 per ticket, AND IS ALREADY SOLD OUT.  Yes, you read that correctly:  over $800 per ticket to ask a journalist questions about the news, and have a bite to eat. 

All together, if you are rich (“This Is Who We Are”), and decide to participate in ALL of MSNBC’s  "Windfall 2024"--cashing in on their "journalists" celebrity--it would cost you approximately $1,100 for the entire day and night. And, not even your Brooklyn Academy of Museum membership entitled you to any discount.  Did anyone say Mar-A-Lago-like chutzpah?

Did anyone at MSNBC (Steve Kornacki, where are you?) give a thought to scheduling such an expensive day long extravaganza a mere 60-days before the 2024 elections, when $1,100 per wealthy contributor might be better spent re-electing Sherrod Brown in Ohio, or John Tester in Montana, or even, just maybe, Kamala Harris as President of the United States?  How dare Lawrence O’Donnell be silent on this? 

Surely, in keeping with the egalitarian image cultivated by MSNBC and its well-compensated “celebrity journalists” (Ari Melber, $5 million; Lawrence O’Donnell, $4-7 million; Chris Hayes, $2 million; Joy Reid, $1.5 millon) the profits from “Democracy 2024” are being donated to some of the well-deserving charities right in Brooklyn, that provide housing or healthcare services to a community with a 20% poverty rate?  The proceeds from that “democratic,” progressive event couldn’t possibly be going to MSNBC’s parent company, Comcast which racked up Gross Profits of $45.362 Billion as of July 1, 2024?

Well, guess again.

The June 24 issue of Variety perfectly labeled the MSNBC event as “Bravo-Con”, kind of a gussied-up TV industry “upfront” (where networks show their talent ‘upfront’ for advertising support), aimed at milking the public’s thirst (not just advertisers) of being in the same room with “celebrities”—even if those celebrities are supposed to have a journalist’s responsibility to bring us the news, for nothing more than the price of a Cable TV subscription, already too damn high, which is why so many paying Comcast subscribers (478,000 this year, to be exact) are “cutting the cord.”

But wait, Variety’s description of “Democracy 2024” gets even better:

“The event has all the trappings of another gathering held under the auspices of the parent company, NBC Universal…BravoCon, a weekend confab that started in 2019 and features panels with the Network’s reality stars and opportunity to buy related merchandise.  The extravaganza became so noteworthy that NBCU began to tout it during its presentations to advertisers in the industry’s annual “upfront” selling season.”

But isn’t this supposed to be News?  Aren’t these supposed to be journalists?  Guess again, viewers.

Here’s what all this money-chasing cheerleading means to Rebecca Kutler, MSNBC’s Senior Vice President of Content Strategy (there’s such a title in journalism?)”

“Our colleagues at Bravo have created a really magical experience for their audience, and we have learned a lot and been inspired by what they have created.” 

Namely, a cash cow.

Of course, the President of MSNBC, Rashida Jones, perhaps recoiling just a touch from renting out Maddow and company to make more money for Comcast, tried to paste a few streaks of red, white and blue over all that gold:

“In the midst of a critical and unprecedented election year, there’s never been a better time to further deepen that connection with the MSNBC audience to help them understand more of what is happening here in the U.S. and across the globe.”

Yes, but for cash, Rashida?

She could have just as easily added, “to use our “celebrity journalists” to grab an easy $1,100 from our wealthiest and most fervent fans before they open their checkbooks to candidates for the House and Senate, or to the Harris/Walz campaign.  And that’s not even including all the MSNBC Merch they’ll purch!”

Journalism, anyone?  Or, MSNBC-Con?