UPDATE 9/12/25, 5:30 p.m. EDT: Top executives of Comcast and future spin-off company Versant, parents of NBC and MSNBC respectively, informed the networks’ employees that pundit Matthew Dowd (pictured above) was fired for lack of respectful discourse during coverage of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. From Deadline:
“You may have seen that MSNBC recently ended its association with a contributor who made an unacceptable and insensitive comment about this horrific event,” the Comcast executives wrote. “That coverage was at odds with fostering civil dialogue and being willing to listen to the points of view of those who have differing opinions. We should be able to disagree, robustly and passionately, but, ultimately, with respect. We need to do better.”
They added, “Charlie Kirk believed that ‘when people stop talking, really bad stuff starts.’ Regardless of whether you agreed with his political views, his words and actions underscore the urgency to maintain a respectful exchange of ideas – a principle we must champion. We believe in the power of communication to bring us together. Today, that belief feels more vital than ever. Something essential has fractured in our public discourse, and as a company that values the power of information, we have a responsibility to help mend it.”
“As employees, we ask you to embody our values in your work and communities. We should engage with respect, listen, and treat people with kindness.”
ORIGINAL POST 9/11/2025, 12:00 p.m. EDT (under previous headline “Spin-Off of MSNBC Will Let Comcast’s Brian Roberts Keep the Vitriol Spewing”): As MSNBC (and a few other cable channels) is about to be divested from parent company Comcast, the legacy of vitriol allowed to stain the overall NBC brand continues as it prepares to go under a spin-off called Versant.
Yesterday, after powerful conservative leader Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah, the malicious leftist network’s Matthew Dowd made comments that essentially said the Turning Point USA founder had it coming. As USA Today explained:
At around 3 p.m. ET on Sept. 10, when reports began emerging about the shooting, MSNBC correspondent Katy Tur interviewed Dowd about the attack.
In part, he theorized whether the incident was “a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration.”
Dowd said Kirk had been “one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups.”
“And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions,” Dowd said. “And I think that is the environment we are in.”
He added, “You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in.”
MSNBC, which will allegedly soon become MS NOW under Versant, apologized for Dowd’s comments and fired him. But to say the contrition is insincere is an understatement, as the visceral hatred for conservatives is endemic to the network’s personalities and guest commentators.
Brian Roberts/Fortune Global Forum 2015 (CC)
As NLPC has pointed out repeatedly and especially this year at Comcast’s annual meeting, this disease has been allowed to proliferate (at both NBC and MSNBC) under the leadership of Chairman/CEO Brian Roberts. It’s why President Trump has called the networks and their owner “a disgrace to the integrity of broadcasting,” and said they “oughta be investigated.” He also called Roberts a “lowlife.”
NLPC sponsored a shareholder proposal at Comcast’s meeting this year that called for the roles of Chairman and CEO to be divided so that a single executive — Roberts — could not hold both positions. We also opposed his re-election to the Board of Directors, as we also did last year. In my presentation at the meeting this year, I said in part:
…the broadcast network properties Comcast acquired in 2013 have been run into the ground under Mr. Roberts’s leadership.
For over a decade he allowed historic NBC, and sister cable network MSNBC, to perpetuate fake news narratives such as the Russian collusion hoax against President Trump, and the hiding of former President Biden’s cognitive decline during his White House tenure.
These are just two examples of a multitude of false reporting produced by these networks’ news divisions.
The atrocious conduct of the corporate-owned U.S. media, including NBC and MSNBC, has led to the lowest levels of trust by Americans in five decades, as measured by Gallup.
Only Congress ranks below the media, and television journalists rank lower than even their print counterparts.
In an annual Axios-Harris survey on corporate reputations, Comcast languishes at Number 83, the same territory where it has been for years in the survey, this year seven spots behind rival Disney.
MSNBC and many other of Comcast’s cable networks have been so devalued under Mr. Roberts’s leadership, that the Board decided to spin them off into their own separate company.
Comcast is run like a public company but Roberts has majority voting control among all shareholders. His power is unchecked.
Apparently Matthew Dowd’s comments following Kirk’s murder were a bit much even for MSNBC. Maybe even Roberts pressed for the apology. After all, he’s got to uphold his standing among the elite business management class with whom he must maintain at least a modicum of etiquette, as well as not further eliciting scrutiny from President Trump’s FCC. That’s why we are going to get “MS NOW,” to separate the blemish from the network Comcast will retain: NBC.
However, the name change won’t remove the stain that mars Roberts’s reputation. That’s because the shareholder voting power he enjoys over Comcast will also carry over to Versant.
