Phil Donohue Recalls how he Was Fired From MSNBC for Being anti-war (Goodman Interview)

At Democracy Now! Phil Donohue recalls how then General Electric-owned NBC fired him from his popular and top-rated talk show on MSNBC in spring of 2003 because it feared his voice in opposition to the Iraq War.

It is great to have the whole story from Donohue.

Here is what I wrote at this blog in September, 2003:

“Christiane Amanpour said in an interview on CNBC that the US media had been intimidated into self-censorship in its coverage of the Iraq war. “I think the press was muzzled and I think the press self-muzzled.” I think she is being too kind. The US press were virtually cheerleaders for the war, and interviewers were mean to anyone not wholeheartedly for it. Aaron Brown of CNN made a big deal of marginalizing former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, who said that 95% of Iraqi WMD had been destroyed, over a minor criminal charge that had been dropped. He actually told Ritter he was “poison” until Ritter should publicly clear up the matter. Ritter had been wrong, of course; Iraq had destroyed more than 95% of its WMD. But conveniently, he wasn’t around to participate in the debate after Sept. of 2002. And, a lot of us suspect that Phil Donohue was cancelled by MSNBC because General Electric and Microsoft did not want a peacenik to be their public face during the war. Amanpour had her wrist slapped by CNN for admitting even part of the truth.”

I also brought up the Donohue case in this posting on how bloggers are harder to shut up than are television personalities.