Episode
Monday, January 24, 2011
Guest: Professor Juan Cole
via AVANT —The Majority Report is back after an eventful weekend. Sam starts off the show discussing Keith Olbermann’s abrupt departure from MSNBC. Keith’s progressive legacy at MSNBC includes Rachel Maddow, Ed Shultz, Cenk Uygur – hosts that may have never gotten a chance on television if Keith didn’t blazon the way. For that, we all thank Mr. Olbermann. Sam also finds a correlation with the way that Randi Rhodes left AAR and Keith. Both were suspended for silly reasons for management to agitate. And that suspension pretty much was the last straw in a long line of management headbutts. Listen to Sam discuss Keith’s legacy on MSNBC.
Update: Keith Olbermann said he will issue an official Tweet tonight at 8:00pm EST
Next, Professor Juan Cole shares his insight into the Tunisia revolution and the history leading to the rise up. Sam also asked Professor Cole about the roughly 1600 documents leaked on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Professor Cole had a great explanation when Sam asked why TV news didn’t seem to pay much attention to the problems in Tunisia:
It wasn’t covered on television or radio because the corporations that own news in the United States and use news for profit have decided that they want big profits… and they’ve closed all the bureaus. So there used to be a Cairo Bureau for CBS News or NBC News and you could fly over from Cairo to Tunis very easily. But now they’ve closed all the bureaus and some of them report on the Middle East from Europe… So it is just a corporate decision that they are going to make money on news and they’re not going to spend a lot of money gathering the news… The producers decided this is not a story – Professor Juan Cole
Listen to Juan Cole on The Majority Report about Tunisia’s Revolution.
Listen to Juan Cole on The Majority Report about the Palestine Papers.
Professor Juan Cole’s writing on Middle Eastern and American politics can be found at Informed Comment (juancole.com).
His book Engaging the Muslim World has been revised and updated recently.
Finally, in the soon to be sequestered MRPS, Sam talks more about Keith Olbermann and Lawrence O’Donnell, Glenn Beck inspires more death threats, and takes listener IM’s. Check out the new social networking toolbar on Majority.fm and the new chat room. Spread the Majority Report Word across the internets to support the show!
Tomorrow is a primer on the State of the Union -all in preparation of Sam’s analysis on Wednesday’s show!