March 26, 2013…

In an open letter to MSNBC TV executives, including to the network’s owner’s Chairman, we have complained of race-baiting antics of its compensated-pundits. NYCRC Executive Director Michael Meyers addressed his letter, dated and e-mailed March 25, to Comcast Corporation Chairman Brian Roberts, NBC Universal Chairman Patricia Fili-Krushel, and MSNBC President Phil Griffin. In the letter we take sharp exception to the “reckless” accusation from MSNBC contributors Mike Barnicle and Al Sharpton [aired on a Morning Joe TV show] that there is a “level” of “anti-Semitism” to the criticism directed at New York’s Mayor Bloomberg over his funding of a gun control legislation advertising campaign. Meyers told the MSNBC/Comcast brass, “Enough is enough”, and urged the MSNBC bosses–whom he referred to in his letter as the “grownups”–to require the pundits to show evidence to back up their “reckless, tasteless, reprehensible, irresponsible, despicable, deplorable, and outrageous” smear that accused critics of Bloomberg’s policies and funding effort of harboring anti-Semitic feelings.

The letter reads, in part:

“Neither Mike Barnicle nor Al Sharpton offered any evidence for their accusation of anti-Semitic feelings toward Mayor Bloomberg from any quarter—only their own opinions that there are in their view a “level” of anti-Semitic feelings toward Mayor Bloomberg, the Mayor of a big liberal city.  As such, Messieurs Barnicle and Sharpton cheapened the nature of anti-Semitism just as they and other MSNBC pundits have denuded the power of the allegation of “racism” inasmuch as they have made the accusation of racism a kind of sport in their commentary especially toward critics of President Obama’s policies. Is there no end in sight for such irresponsible compensated-opinion and reckless conjecturing from MSNBC pundits? Will the grownups at MSNBC—and at Comcast—ever step up and say “Enough is enough” to the smearing of critics of President Obama as anti-black and, now, MSNBC pundits depicting critics of New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg as “anti-Semitic”?  

“The constant charges of racism and, today, MSNBC pundits invoking the specter of anti-Semitism to bolster their side of the argument on social issues and public policy debates—in ways to discredit and intimidate the opposition to their sheer rhetoric—is so reckless, tasteless, reprehensible, irresponsible, despicable, deplorable, and outrageous that it warrants not only refutation but disapproval from the top management at MSNBC and Comcast.”