MSNBC has given up any pretense of being a news organization, and is staking out an explicitly left-wing political persona as part of a new marketing campaign under the slogan, “Lean Forward.”
As reported by The New York Times:
MSNBC, once the also-ran but now the No. 2 cable news channel, has a new tagline that embraces its progressive political identity.
The tagline, “Lean Forward,” will be publicly announced Tuesday, opening a planned two-year advertising campaign intended to raise awareness of the channel among viewers, advertisers and distributors.
The tagline “defines us and defines our competition,” said Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, his implication being that the Fox News Channel, which is No. 1 in cable news and a home for conservatives, is leaning backward. Fox’s best-known tagline is “Fair and Balanced.”
Some of the new MSNBC ads include shots of President Obama on his election night; others, directed by the filmmaker Spike Lee, showcase hosts like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow preparing for their nightly programs; and still others feature quotes like “the future belongs to the fearless.”
One has to question the wisdom of a network throwing in completely and exclusively with the left, considering that self-identified liberals are only 20% of the population. When the best one can do is 20%, that is not exactly a pathway to the top.
The new MSNBC branding campaign also reminds me of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” slogan, but I’m sure that is pure coincidence. The Great Leap Forward killed 45 million people; MSNBC’s slogan will kill only its own credibility.
I think MSNBC would have been better served with a slogan along the lines of:
“Your time is a terrible thing to waste.”
Update: Thanks to reader Unlikely Hospitalist for reminding us in the comments of the other situation in which someone tells us to “lean forward.”
And Tom Maguire gets more to the point:
Oh, geez – why don’t they just lean the rest of the way and announce that the new progressive slogan is “Bend Over”?
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