MSNBC PRESIDENT RESPONDS TO VIEWER ABOUT SHUSTER DISMISSAL

Although MSNBC has not commented on its decision to suspend correspondent David Shuster indefinitely following a report that he had appeared in a pilot for rival CNN, email correspondence between a disgruntled viewer and MSNBC President Phil Griffin about the suspension spread over the Internet Thursday after the exchange was first disclosed by the website Mediaite.com. (The website is owned by Dan Abrams, a former MSNBC general manager and host, who also is NBC’s chief legal correspondent.) The viewer’s email said in part: “Your ‘suspension’ of David Shuster makes it necessary for me to boycott MSNBC, which is slowly but surely going the way of Fox ‘News.'” Griffin responded: “Sorry, but this is a business and I need team players. He was not moral, ethical or professional and that is not fair to the 500 people who work at msnbc (sic).” Mediaite commented: “This was meant to be a private correspondence, but it is interesting to see the President (sic) of a network so freely respond to someone who was upset about a host’s punishment.”