I sent them this e-mail immediately after the Dean concession speech, which they cut off halfway through:
I wanted to e-mail to tell you how reprehensible I thought your coverage of the Dean concession speech was on Jan. 19. Instead of listening to the entire speech, you chose to interrupt his speech after its fiery beginning
and talk about how "pathetic" it was, about how it was the worst speech ever seen from a candidiate, and about how Dean didn't say a single thing about policy.
Of course, it didn't occur to you to watch the entire speech. Almost immediately after you broke in, Gov. Dean began speaking about policy and congatulating the other candidates. If you had bothered to watch, instead of chuckling
amongst yourselves, you would have seen what I saw by flipping over to C-Span and CNN.
Howard Dean is not the most important figure in his campaign. Rather, it is his supporters who drive his candidacy. When you insult a public figure as you did with your unimformed laughter tonight, you are insulting hundreds of thousands of American voters.
Maybe you don't care about us. However, let's draw the bottom line. WE ARE VIEWERS. I won't take MSNBC as seriously from this point forward, and neither will many others. I will come back to you when you stop perpetuating the myth that Dean is angry without providing a single valid basis for doing so. You are NOT Fox News; quit behaving like them.
This from the man (Chris Matthews) who looked visibly shaken at the simple elegance of Al Gore's concession speech in 2000. How far you have fallen, Chris. I like you. Lift yourself back up above the muck.
Sincerely,
Patton L. Zarate
Attorney at Law
MSNBC's treatment of the Dean speech was deplorable. The reaction of many dKos members was equally dismaying.
I encourage all of you to e-mail MSNBC at hardball@msnbc.com and do it NOW. The media has got to quit trashing people on insubstantial things.