Happy bifurcated birthday to you, MSNBC
Web site celebrates 10th anni
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NBC U pulled out all the stops for MSNBC.com's 10th anni, circling the ice rink at 30 Rock with flags signed by staffers and throwing a champagne celebration on the Top of the Rock last week.
MSNBC's "Hardball" moved the show up to Gotham from D.C. for the occasion. GE topper Jeffrey Immelt showed up, as did just about every NBC exec of consequence.
A gaggle of Microsoft staffers flew in from Redmond. NBC "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams reminisced about getting hip to the Web, 10 years ago. "I can remember the first time I hit 'refresh,' " he said.
A few weeks earlier, MSNBC quietly marked its 10th under a sweltering tent in Secaucus, NJ. No press was invited. Publicly, the milestone was ignored.
Why? Anniversaries are a time for looking back -- and that would invite unwelcome analysis of the net, which hasn't unseated Fox or CNN, even with the power of NBC News behind it.
With its ties to the network, one would think MSNBC would have an almost unfair advantage over its cable competish, but benefits seem to flow only in the other direction -- NBC got both its anchor (Williams) and its news chief (Steve Capus) from the network.
The net's futility is all the more galling when compared to the fortunes of another news net that won't let its 10th anniversary pass without beating the drums. Fox News Channel also launched 1996 and took the cable news lead a few years later.
It starts a 10-city "Thank You America" tour this fall.
