MSNBC - My Saviour NBC

This past week, those of us (I believe there's an 'us') for whom MSNBC is a preferred watch, received some sad, if not unexpected, news. Parent company, Comcast, is spinning off a parcel of its shows - as cable TV gives way to 20-second sound bites on social media - and MSNBC is among the chopped.

Odd though it may seem, I feel a deep sense of gratitude toward my old network friend, the product of a 1995 alliance between Microsoft and NBC News. Over nearly two decades now, I credit the station with more than mere news reports, and information to keep my political currency sated. I am indebted for the years it, literally, kept me alive.

I’m not even American, but I’ve followed US politics since the Inauguration of JFK (yes, I’m that old), and have always cast my lot – wherever – with more progressive, some would say left-wing politics. There are those who would brand me a socialist, a moniker I don’t refuse when, really, if one were familiar with The Communist Manifesto and the various stages of Dictatorship (State…Proletariat…etc.), he or she should realize that is something I am not. At least not in practice, largely because Canada hasn’t quite made that leap yet. I doubt it ever will. The closest we will come is my designation of its lip service to ‘social democracy’.

So, when I discovered MSNBC on the night of the US election in 2000, I was intrigued by what seemed reporting of the sort that reflected my societal predilections and policy and, after watching the channel for about two weeks, I was hooked.

In those early days, it was the like of Chris Matthews and my favorite, Keith Olbermannn who kept me viewing. As an MA graduate in History, this was fodder for my (what I considered) learned intellect. I flatter myself, of course, but I needed the ego boost.

Over the years, after Keith left his cable show, I came to count not only Chris, but Rachel Maddow, then Chris Hayes, Jonathan Capehart, Ari Melber, Nicole Wallace, Joy Reid and the myriad nighttime anchors among my imagined personal friends. They agreed with me on nearly everything and, hearing their voices and opinions – so like my own – every night for a minimum of four hours was music to my ears. They opined in ways with which I immediately identified, but was denied me given my history of debilitating shyness and selective mutism. How I made it through grad school, nearly silent, is a wondrous thing. Talk was not my forte; writing was. That ability to explain, theorize and discuss on paper was my salvation, and ushered me into a decades-long career as a writer and editor.

Though they had no sense of my dedication or the virtual reality they inhabited in my mind, they had become my familiars, and I relied on them for all my news, albeit strictly American. I really wasn’t interested in the goings-on about me, in Canadian or local life. I had found my tribe, as if it had been preordained. I lived through them vicariously and, so, counted them as my friends. They never argued, never forced me to defend my beliefs and carried me through the weeks that were all too often more difficult than I could manage on my own.

My lifelong problem with introversion was compounded by severe bouts of depression, panic-level anxiety and what I came to learn was CPTSD (Complex PTSD), borne of childhood trauma, though I could point to examples of my struggles later in life. There had been times of deep suicidal ideation which, at that time, hadn’t yet registered as a ‘thing’ in common parlance…as far as I knew. I just wanted the pain of living to end. I never felt I belonged in this world; I identified and meshed with few people and have preferred my own company to that of others, the latter ofttimes causing untold anxious and humiliating moments I would routinely vow to avoid and avoid routinely.

And my new family circle increased when I would find myself descending inexorably into months of deep depression. I found the daytime anchors and their shows, and began to watch my ‘colleagues’ nearly around the clock. I kept the TV on all day, tuned to my MSNBC and couldn’t fall asleep at night without the familiar voices keeping me updated. They became the background music to my reality, comforting and reassuring me when no one or nothing else could.

Several bad rounds of depression and lack of will to live later, I bottomed out nearly entirely. Life, the one I was actually living, had become all but unbearable. There was little to commend it and I descended to a depth previously unimaginable. The days, the hours, the minutes were how I crawled by, never knowing how I would make it through the next few. I took to my bed, rising only for bathroom breaks and to find something I could take back to eat in bed. I cried constantly, tore at my hair and pounded the pillow in perceived anguish more times a day than I can recall.

But, every day – through what was nearly a year out of my life - when I didn’t think I could last any longer, the voices were in the background, oblivious to my reality but reminding me there was more I wanted to know, and about which I truly needed to learn the outcome. And they kept me going. Day in. Day out, as I lay in fetal position, head deep in the pillows, eyes closed.

I was truly in hell. It didn’t seem to be one of my own making. It had just found me, and threatened to be the last thing I would see and experience.

But I made it through. Of course, I must give credit where it’s due, largely to targeted medications, a lot of prayer and the animals who truly needed me; but 24-hour access to MSNBC made it bearable, and sustained my willpower as it flagged.

Cable news is on the chopping block across the world, as ongoing generations gravitate to social media clips for concise presentation of – let us hope – fact. The news that impacts MSNBC’s fate wasn’t a total surprise, but it does make me sad, since it has served me well. It may survive, albeit in altered form and name, and I’ll likely continue as an ardent viewer. I do, however, hope against hope that I am never again in crucial need of comforting and sustenance from my virtual stalwarts.

When I think of my relationship over so many years with the channel, I’m moved to paraphrase Nicolle Wallace’s regular signoff to her Deadline: White House program - “Thank you for inviting us into your homes during these extraordinary times.”

Extraordinary times indeed.