ON THE MEDIA : Seizing that middle ground

You knew the likes of MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow would respond with fury when Rep. Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” during President Obama’s health address to Congress.

But it seemed a bit more unusual when the cable station’s news anchors eagerly joined the attacks on the Republican from South Carolina.

“You look at the image of the Republican Party, all white males with short haircuts,” newsman David Shuster huffed. “They look sort of angry. No women, no minorities, and it looks like they’ve sort of become unhinged.” Fellow anchor Tamron Hall agreed: The GOP’s Wilson had expressed himself “in such a loser way.”

That’s how they’re making the sausage these days at MSNBC, where the bosses encourage bending old-fashioned news rules to make a distinct impression. In search of the media’s current Holy Grail, the market niche, the station’s creep toward the left will not end.

With MSNBC chasing top dog Fox News up the ratings-and-ideological-purity ladder, we are offered seeming proof that the down-the-middle philosophy of old cannot win. Poor, stodgy CNN is bound to wither away, or so the argument goes.

Yet I’d like to suggest that CNN, in parting ways this week with its most opinionated host, Lou Dobbs, may be planting the seeds of its resurrection and holding out the possibility that around-the-clock broadcasting doesn’t have to mean around-the-clock spin.

To be sure, the trend in recent times has been in the opposite direction. I’ve written before about how Fox News serves up heaping portions of conservative opinion even on what it claims are straight news programs.

I promised I would look at the same issue at MSNBC, and -- surprise, surprise -- I had no problem finding a raft of instances in which commentary polluted the regular news stream.

The MSNBC team hasn’t yet matched the message-masters at Fox -- with day-long screeds on a single theme, overt cheerleading for conservative causes and routine opposition to all things Obama -- but cable’s No. 2-rated station increasingly creates a unified front for liberals.

So “Morning Meeting” host Dylan Ratigan didn’t just report about Chicago’s Olympic bid and the glee of Obama opponents last month when the Games instead went to Rio de Janeiro.

“I mean, there are people that are actually trying to derail healthcare in order to take down Obama, even if it means half the country dies,” Ratigan fumed. “So, of course, they don’t care about Chicago’s Olympics. Are you kidding me?”

MSNBC newswoman Contessa Brewer took a similar tack when reporting how a Republican political group had barbed DemocratNancy Pelosi, saying they hoped Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander in Afghanistan, would put the House Speaker “in her place.”

“You don’t say about the first [female] Speaker of the House, ‘She should be put in her place,’ ” Brewer insisted, seemingly incredulous. “And I think if you’re trying to win over independent voters ahead of the next election, that was a very poor move.”

The anchor even made it clear, with a wooden quip, how far she was stepping outside the old boundaries. “I’m not a political strategist,” Brewer said, “but once in a while I play one on TV.”

The already blurry news-opinion divide becomes further obliterated when journalists start appearing on commentary programs. When Shuster went on “The Ed Show” with Ed Schultz last week, he seemed to think the change of venue absolved him of the modicum of objectivity he might maintain during the news.

Shuster could have merely recounted the record of Cheney’s serial amnesia during interviews with authorities over the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, a case the newsman had covered. Instead, out popped a full-throated attack on Dick Cheney.

He mocked the former vice president’s explanations, calling them, among other things, “nuts.”

Exuding incredulity, Shuster concluded by asserting it was “shocking that prosecutors didn’t pursue a criminal indictment against Cheney.”

MSNBC President Phil Griffin told me this week the cable station needed to change to survive. He said that with news junkies getting their straight news from the Internet, cable TV had to bring something more -- “heavy analysis, point of view, but with strongly researched facts and information” -- to maintain any relevance.

Griffin said he wants program hosts offering opinions only in prime time, though he encourages even daytime anchors to provide “informed analysis.” He acknowledged that the station is in transition, “still trying to figure out” how far personalities should venture.

When I asked about Shuster’s sharp comments on Cheney, Griffin agreed they had gone too far.

“I don’t want cheerleading that hurts our brand,” he said. “People tune in to us because they want smart, thoughtful reaction. . . . Stick to the facts, they are strong enough. I think when you get into more ideology, it’s not as smart.”

The issue is of no small consequence not just for the cable outlet, but for its mother operation, NBC News. Though the network attempts a journalistic detachment, critics attempt to tie it to its pugilistic child at every turn.

As the rules of engagement at MSNBC remain fuzzy, we can expect journalists who are urged to set themselves apart to routinely slip across the news-opinion divide.

Viewers can decide how much they like the change, though I’m putting my hopes in another direction.

Onetime front-runner and current dark horse CNN cast off the last of its original personalities Wednesday with the resignation of Dobbs. The newsman’s departure, for parts unknown, came about a year after Glenn Beck defected to Fox.

That leaves CNN without any significant opinion programming and shifting back to the middle ground with the appointment of Dobbs’ replacement, John King.

In King, the station is betting on a straight-arrow newsman made famous as the wizard of the election night “magic wall” map of America. He represents a marked departure from Dobbs, a gruff and sometimes acerbic presence, preoccupied with immigration and willing to entertain theories about where the president was born.

In an interview with my colleague Matea Gold on Thursday, King said CNN intends to continue to buck the opinion tide. He predicted it can be “part of a very lively, provocative, feisty conversation about the issues of the day,” while maintaining objectivity.

After an election year in which its ratings soared, CNN has seen viewership steadily erode . Its move to a news-only diet is seen as an extremely risky one.

But if CNN fortifies the information meal, I think King could prove correct. I hear all the time from a segment of the audience tired of being prodded and preached to from both sides of the ideological divide.

These news hawks follow world events obsessively and crave original reporting and investigative stories that truly break new ground.

Those sorts of initiatives can take a lot of time and money. So it would make sense for CNN to partner with other outlets -- perhaps a big newspaper chain or a nonprofit investigative shop like ProPublica. CNN would get more heft in its coverage, and the partners would get another platform for their reporting.

With everyone else bound and determined to be different, more of the same just might feel like something new.

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james.rainey@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimesrainey