MSNBC’s election night lineup draws criticism

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and conservative media critic Bernie Goldberg slammed MSNBC on Wednesday for having the network's top liberal hosts and commentators lead election night coverage.

Goldberg praised CNN and Fox News for having nonpartisan anchors give results, with commentators on the right and left providing analysis. But he said MSNBC "jumped the shark" with its team, which included Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Lawrence O'Donnell and Eugene Robinson in the studio, along with Ed Schultz in Las Vegas.

Matthews' interview with Minnesota GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann was the MSNBC moment that has drawn the most attention and criticism. Matthews used the interview mainly to focus on comments Bachmann made more than two years ago about investigating "un-American attitudes" in Congress. Eventually he became so exasperated with her that he wondered aloud if the lawmaker had been "hypnotized."

[Related: Palin suggests use of Bachmann photo is sexist]

The exchange, in which Bachmann appeared remotely from a Minneapolis election party, also featured a bit of live on-camera guerrilla theater. One crowd member--evidently not a Bachmann fan--turned up in the shot brandishing the cover image from that week's edition of the local City Pages, showing Bachmann mocked up as Sarah Palin and the headline "Going Crazy." The hand of a Bachmann supporter can be seen abruptly snatching the image away. Another party attendee held up a sign taunting Matthews about his 2008 comment that then-presidential candidate Barack Obama's speech gave him a "thrill" up his leg. Bachmann herself later taunted Matthews with a variation of the phrase. You can watch the full exchange below:

Several conservative sites, including Right Pundits and Big Journalism, took shots at Matthews and the network as a whole.

[Photos: Top moments from the 2010 campaign]

Goldberg echoed many of those complaints in his appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor." "They broke the cardinal rule of journalism: You don't have partisans covering hard news events, and certainly not when the hard news event is the biggest news story of the year—a national election," said Goldberg, author of several books critical of the mainstream media.

"You just don't do that," Goldberg continued. "And yet they had five liberal commentators on, in the studio, all night, having some fun at Republican expense, making fun and this and that. I thought I was watching 'The View' without Elisabeth Hasselbeck."

You can watch O'Reilly and Goldberg below:

But it wasn't only conservatives—who aren't exactly MSNBC's target audience—who questioned the election night team. Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik said that the behavior of MSNBC's studio analysts/anchors was "outrageous" and that it crossed "a line in the way that mainstream media engages government, the electoral process and the citizenry."

MSNBC's election night coverage also came up Wednesday night on "The Daily Show," where host Jon Stewart interviewed "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace. Stewart seemed to suggest that MSNBC shouldn't position itself as a the left-leaning version of Fox News.

The question of having MSNBC's partisan hosts anchor news coverage became an issue during the 2008 political conventions after some of its top on-air personalities clashed with one another. A couple weeks later, NBC's David Gregory was tapped to anchor MSNBC's coverage of major political news events. But as the 2008 election rolled around, the network came up with a new solution: Gregory would "anchor" while Matthews and Olbermann would "host" the coverage.

Two years later, there wasn't any outcry when MSNBC chose to go with Olbermann, Matthews and the rest. Although MSNBC has Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, on air for three hours each morning, the network has solidified its reputation as the cable network for liberal commentary since the 2008 election. Rachel Maddow, who was then a new host, has become more established, and MSNBC gave shows to Schultz and O'Donnell.

Now the network doesn't see a need to sideline its biggest stars for the year's most-watched political event.

[Related: Fox News wins election night ratings battle]

"We made the decision to give the viewers what they come to MSNBC night in and night out for -- Keith, Chris, Rachel, Ed, Lawrence and Gene, who's joined us for election nights for the past several years," an MSNBC spokesman told The Upshot.

Fox News, rather than having top-rated hosts like Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck anchor election coverage, went instead with Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly. But the network still gave ample airtime to its stable of conservative commentators, including Karl Rove, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin.

Fox News, which soundly beat MSNBC and CNN in election night ratings, drew its own share of criticism from liberals for its 2010 election night coverage. Some pointed out the sheer number of potential Republican presidential candidates on Fox News' payroll, the network's positive coverage of the tea party movement since last year, and owner Rupert Murdoch's large donations to Republican candidates and causes this year.

Stewart didn't let Fox News off the hook Wednesday night, either. He even congratulated Wallace on Tuesday's election, saying that his network helped Republicans retake the House. You can watch below:

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