Greta Van Susteren, the Sarah Palin and Donald Trump sycophant, will have her own hour-long news show on “liberal” MSNBC. Not only that, her new show looks to be a continuation of what she did on Fox News.
It had been rumored that Van Susteren was likely to get an MSNBC show. But now it's for sure.
From The Huffington Post:
Van Susteren will have a daily weekday show that airs 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. called “For The Record with Greta” ― a variation on the name of her Fox show, which was called “On The Record.” The show begins on Monday and will cover “news coverage and analysis of the day’s top headlines spanning politics and beyond,” according to a network release.
That MSNBC release states:
“Greta is a true pro with a proven record of tough journalism,” said [president of MSNBC Phil] Griffin. “Her broad range of experience and sharp news judgment will be of great value to MSNBC as we build on our momentum going into a new year and a new administration.”
Really? I don’t mean any disrespect to Van Susteren who has always struck me as a decent, well-intentioned person but “sharp news judgment” and “proven record of tough journalism” has not exactly been her record at Fox News where she worked for the last 14 years until leaving abruptly last summer.
That is, unless by “sharp news judgment” Griffin meant that time Van Susteren hosted Palin as an expert on the Iran nuclear deal and then fed her talking points to keep her from making a fool out of herself. Or the "tough journalism" of Van Susteren’s stunningly sophomoric interview with Melania Trump, titled “Who is Melania Trump?” in which Van Susteren seemed to think the most important information to impart was how many languages Mrs. Trump speaks. Van Susteren opened the interview with, “Here’s the question I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time. How many languages do you speak?”
That Melania interview was part of a “Meet the Trumps” infomercial that was so awful it was savaged by various media figures on the right and left.
So why would MSNBC want Van Susteren? Media Matters has an excellent article about how NBC is building a Trump normalization machine with the hiring of Van Susteren and Megyn Kelly.
I suspect it also has to do with access in a Trump administration. Trump has already proven to be vindictive to media outlets that displease him. If there’s one thing Van Susteren can be relied on to do, it’s to butter him up. Media Matters notes:
Before the Republican primary, Trump appeared more times on Van Susteren’s On The Record than on the rest of the Fox News prime-time shows combined. During the Republican primary, Van Susteren had Trump on for over five hours, dwarfing other candidates. During these appearances, Trump pushed birtherism, claimed Obama didn’t write his own memoir, and made bigoted remarks about refugees. And Andrew Kaczynski chronicled more of Trump’s moments from Van Susteren’s show.
Nevertheless, you can be sure Fox will continue to include NBC in its tirades about the “liberal media” no matter what.
Watch Media Matters’ video of Van Susteren's May 26, 2016 Meet The Trumps special that includes only the Trump comments to get a flavor of Van Susteren’s “tough journalism.”
(News Hound Ellen also contributed to this post.)
Crossposted at News Hounds.
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