(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) MSNBC censored its own host for producing a negative monologue about Hillary Clinton before her failed presidential run in the 2016 election.
Krystal Ball, a former MSNBC host, described during an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience how she was censored by the cable network, according to Breitbart News.
Ball said that in 2014 she produced a left-wing monologue against Hillary Clinton on the network, describing Obama’s floundering recovery from the recession of 2008 that failed to produce economic relief for middle- and working-class Americans.
“In a time when corporations have hijacked our politics, enabling them to reap all the profit without feeling any compunction to do right by their workers, is someone who sat on the rabidly anti-union board of Walmart for six years the right person to restore workers’ rights?” she asked.
“In a time when we are still reeling from a global financial disaster brought on by foolhardy bank deregulation, is someone who recently took $400,000 to give two speeches at Goldman Sachs the person we need to wrest control of the asylum back from the banking inmates?”
“I must say: ‘Don’t run Hillary. Don’t run,’” Ball concluded.
Ball reported that her mainstream media employers then censored her.
“Afterwards, I get pulled into an office and [was told,] ‘Great monologue, everything’s fine; but next time you do any commentary on Hillary Clinton, it has to get approved by the president of the network,’” she said.
While Ball reported wishing the chastisement did not change her reporting, she admitted that it did.
“I’m a human being. I’m sure I responded to the incentives of that system of like, ‘I don’t want to get in trouble with the boss,’” she said.
Ball explained, “the way it works.” She said most reporters know exactly what they are supposed to cover and what they are not supposed to say.
“They know what they’re allowed to say, and so they don’t need that direct intervention of censorship,” she explained. “Most of them in cable news — they’re not really there because they’re talented. They’re there because they’re reliable purveyors of whatever it is that that network wants to purvey. So that’s ultimately why they get the job and they understand the parameters of the task.”
