The Fever Breaks at MSNBC

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Former MSNBC correspondent Jessica Yellin admitted on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 last night that during the run-up to the war, "the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings." Appearing as part of a panel discussing Scott McClellan’s book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, Yellin alleged that "the higher the president’s approval ratings ... the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president." Hardball host Chris Matthews also admitted in a speech at Harvard’s Institute of Politics on Monday that MSNBC bosses were "basically pro-war during the war." His remark came during a discussion of top-down editorial control at the network, which Matthews denied existed.