Les Miz Live at MSNBC!
By Robert Amsel
In Victor Hugo’s classic novel, Les Misérables, a police inspector named Javert dedicates his life to catching a former prisoner, Jean Valjean, whose crime involves stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family.
Updating this story to our own times, MSNBC President Phil Griffin’s relentless pursuit to bring down anchorman David Shuster suggests a long-time personal vendetta against the award-winning television journalist. This animosity has been demonstrated through thwarted attempts to get Shuster fired. Is this an abuse of power by someone unsuited to be in a powerful position? Hopefully future events will reveal the truth of the matter.
But the current situation is this.
On April 2, 2010, the New York Observer claimed that David Shuster, a popular anchor and frequent substitute host on MSNBC, had made an unaired pilot for CNN, a competing news network. The pilot also included as Shuster’s co-host, the well-known newswoman, Michel Martin, of National Public Radio (NPR).
Phil Griffin, on vacation in Florida, was reported to be furious. According to Gail Shister of TVNewser, Griffin phoned Shuster and "ripped Shuster a new one" for collaborating with "the enemy" (, Griffin’s term for CNN, a network for which he himself had worked in the early 1980s, apparently not too happily). Several days later, on April 6, Griffin officially suspended Shuster "indefinitely".
Griffin's reaction, to say the least, was puzzling. David Shuster is represented by the N.S. Bienstock Talent Agency, who also represents (or has represented in the past) Dan Abrams, Stephanie Abrams, Glenn Beck, Ed Bradley, Margaret Brennan, Aaron Brown, Campbell Brown, JuJu Chang, Jane Clayson, Anderson Cooper, Phil Donahue, Howard Fineman, Jack Ford, Michael Gelman, David Gregory, Steve Kroft, Lars Larson, Harvey Levin, Steve Levy, Chris ...Matthews, Jane Velez-Mitchell, Natalie Morales, Norah O'Donnell, Pam Oliver, Byron Pitts, Dan Rather, Bill O'Reilly, Jeff Ranieri, John Roberts, Robin Roberts, Thomas Roberts, Andy Rooney, Diane Sawyer, Bob Schieffer, Bob Simon, Alison Stewart, John Stossel, Paula Zahn. Bienstock, doubtless familiar with Shuster’s contract, would never have arranged for him to make a CNN pilot if the agency believed for one minute that any conflict with MSNBC Corporate would result.
(Also, what punitive action befell Michel Martin, Shuster’s co-host of the alleged pilot? None whatsoever. NPR’s refreshingly rational president, Vivian Schiller, relayed through her spokesperson, Anna Christopher, that the pilot was a non-issue.)
To understand the present situation and Griffin’s strange fury, one must dredge up certain past incidents involving both men. (I am only describing the public incidents here, previously reported, since I have no way of knowing about whatever private skirmishes took place.)
On February 7, 2008, during the fierce presidential primary season, Shuster made an on-the air-comment about Hillary Clinton’s use of her daughter on the campaign trail "like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way." Now the term "pimped out" in modern slang means "publicly exploited," which is how Shuster intended the comment to be taken. The Clintons were greatly upset and being of an older generation took the expression with its more traditional meaning. Hillary Clinton even wrote to Steve Capus, the then president of MSNBC to express her displeasure.
Although Shuster had apologized on the air by then and Capus had phoned Hillary to apologize also, no one, not even the well-seasoned Clintons, seemed as furious as Phil Griffin, whose position at the time was Senior Vice President at NBC News. He also had "executive oversight" for MSNBC. For whatever reason, Griffin had never liked Shuster and attempted to get Shuster fired. But Griffin's rage was suddenly thwarted. Shuster’s sentence turned out to be a two-week suspension.
Chris Matthews, anchor of Hardball, privately expressed his support of Shuster to friends, but he was fearful of publicly speaking out since he was in hot water of his own, having been recently accused of making sexist comments regarding Hillary herself. But fighting on Shuster’s behalf against Griffin was one man who was a far more powerful player at NBC and MSNBC than Matthews or Shuster or even the angry Griffin.
He was Tim Russert of Meet the Press. Russert was Shuster’s mentor and greatly responsible for his decision to work at MSNBC in the first place. Russert recognized in Shuster an exceptional newsman in a sadly diminishing pool of such newsmen. While most of them read teleprompters or listened languidly to political talking points, Shuster did his homework in advance and challenged the guests he interviewed; in short, he was a man of Russert’s own heart. Thanks to Russert’s intervention, Shuster was, at least, temporarily saved. Griffin was left fuming and sulking ... to wait his time. And his time was fast approaching.
On June 13, 2008, Tim Russert died of a heart attack.
In July, 2008, Phil Griffin was named President at MSNBC.
Shuster’s most powerful protector was gone. And like Inspector Javert, Griffin was determined to get his man or at least to make life for Shuster as unpleasant as possible.
Then on January 26, 2010, Shuster tweeted the following to James O’Keefe III, who had just been placed under a federal indictment for unlawfully breaking into the offices of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu in New Orleans: "@JamesOKeefeIII a) you are not a journalist b) the truth is you intended to tap her phones c) it’s a felony d) you will go to prison."
Shuster’s claim that O’Keefe intended to tap Landrieu’s phones was based on misinformation originally supplied to him by the New Orleans district attorney, an understandable mistake since O’Keefe and his colleagues had infiltrated the senator’s office dressed as, and pretending to be, phone repairmen. The Associated Press later noted that O’Keefe and three other men initially faced penalties of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
More recently, since Shuster’s Twitter comment to O’Keefe, the maximum punishment O’Keefe and his cohorts can receive has been reduced to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine. According to the Associated Press, one of the men’s lawyers confirmed that a plea deal was reached to account for the reduction in charges. Although I will refer to O’Keefe’s "alleged" crime here, a plea deal generally involves an admission of guilt to lesser charges. Thus, as it has turned out, what Shuster said was close to accurate or prophetic, even though he was intemperate in not using the word "alleged" (since O’Keefe had not been tried) and he referred to O’Keefe’s supposed intent for the break-in rather than what was written in the actual FBI indictment.
Following the Twitter incident, on January 28, Shuster had an on-the-air scuffle with Andrew Breitbart, the conservative who financially sponsored O’Keefe’s alleged criminal endeavors. Breitbart insisted that O’Keefe’s acts were not criminal and that Shuster was prejudging him, not only in regard to the Senator Landrieu incident but in the ACORN case in which O’Keefe pretended to be a pimp in order to get ACORN workers to help him establish a prostitution ring.
The truth regarding the ACORN case has since been blown wide open by MSNBC anchor, Rachel Maddow, among others, and shows that the secret tapings by O’Keefe had been radically edited to incriminate innocent ACORN employees. The employees, in actuality, were verbally leading O’Keefe and his companion down a primrose path to incriminate themselves. The visit was subsequently reported to the authorities. The Brooklyn police, where the ACORN office was located, also cleared the office and its workers of any wrongdoing, despite Breitbart’s continued self-delusions and fabrications on this subject.
While Shuster’s assessment has been shown by later events to be accurate on the whole, Phil Griffin went on the attack, as expected, following Shuster’s exchange with Breitbart. Griffin was in his usual hysterics and the MSNBC lawyers were in a frenzy. MSNBC’s enfant terrible had to be silenced. Shuster’s Twitter privileges were immediately revoked.
Still Shuster’s gaffes pale beside the gaffes of Griffin himself. When a Shuster admirer wrote to Griffin requesting that the most recent suspension end, Griffin emailed her back on April 7 and stated, "Sorry, but this is a business and I need team players. He [Shuster] was not moral, ethical or professional and that is not fair to the 500 people who work at msnbc."
Perhaps, Griffin believes that such defamatory language aimed at Shuster’s reputation is far more legally acceptable than Shuster’s faux pas regarding O’Keefe. Although Shuster is known to be quite popular among his MSNBC coworkers, none of them, like Matthews, are of the late Tim Russert’s stature. They would be nervous about confronting Griffin on Shuster’s behalf.
They’re too worried, rightfully, about their own skins. Griffin, in his latest hissy fit, has already hired and fired Donny Deutsch to replace Shuster because Deutsch, as reported in the Daily Kos, had the chutzpah to suggest that several of MSNBC’s own anchors might be "angry." Heavens no! Anger is better left in the hands of executives like Phil Griffin. It’s also strange that no anchor on what purports to be a news network will publicly discuss Shuster’s current situation. Why? Isn’t the suspension itself news? Or are Shuster’s fellow anchors terrified for their own well-being on such a draconian network? One of Griffin's former colleagues (and I stress, former) described Griffin to me as being "self-aggrandizing" and "incredibly pompous."
Although I don’t personally know Shuster or what he is thinking in terms of his current suspension, I would guess that it’s possible Shuster suspects his days at MSNBC might be numbered, especially since his most prominent advocate is dead. His contract with MSNBC ends this December, after all, and I imagine he has (and had) a valid reason to believe that his contract would not be extended or renewed ... if Phil Griffin is The Decider on this subject. The result of such intuitive thinking might have even led him to doing a pilot at a different network!
Shuster supposedly has in his contract a clause forbidding him to appear on other networks that compete with MSNBC. Since the pilot has never been aired and never will be aired, Shuster has never actually competed with MSNBC. If he had actually competed, he most likely would have been fired on the spot.
It may seem that this modern-day Inspector Javert, Phil Griffin, has finally captured his Jean Valjean, David Shuster, for a "crime" of equal insignificance to the original. Still, this strange story of one’s man animus toward another may yet have a happy ending, at least for Shuster.
Comcast is currently involved in negotiations to purchase MSNBC. According to the Comcast CEO, Brian Roberts, he hopes that the deal will be completed by the end of 2010. Coincidentally, Shuster’s contract is due to expire about the same time.
The question is this -- which will come first?
Will Shuster leave MSNBC before the Comcast take-over?
Or will Griffin himself leave before Shuster’s contract expires? It is hardly uncommon for even superior network presidents to lose their own positions during a take-over.
It’s conceivable that David Shuster may finally, after eight long years of being passed over, get his own branded show to anchor on MSNBC while his arch nemesis, Phil Griffin, is banished to that barren land where former network executives go.
Please sign the Bring Back David Shuster Petition at
http://www.petitiononline.com/...