Discovery, TLC, Science Channel, National Geographic, et al. Does it break you're heart a little whenever you flip past one of these channels and see that they are airing another show about ghost hunting, finding bigfoot, or Honey Boo Boo-esque human train wrecks?
Or how about CNN? Do they even show the news anymore? All I see are documentaries they've bought the TV rights to, Anthony Bourdain and Forensic Files.
Yeah, I'm here. Sorry for the prolonged radio silence on the e-mail and your website! We must catch up!
IIRC MSNBC was a joint venture with the GE/NBC corporation and Microsoft. As a Linux user I wasn't particularly interested. All I know is that the MSNBC channel has featured some very insightful pundits over the past 5 years or so, and has been increasingly the place where NBC breaking news is aired. The stuff that doesn't quite warrant breaking into "Big 3" network programming, but is important to me.
The MSNBC pundits are a mixed bag. They can be way ahead of some stories, and then the next day degrade into stupid dogma. But that's how pundits are. If I want to keep one screen up in case there's important breaking news, MSNBC is he channel.
As for spin, MSNBC has the whole spectrum of political advocates, all with their own spin. It's not that hard to separate those who are honestly passionate about their beliefs from the outright liars. But that's the pundit part, not the hard news side.
What are the options? Rupert Murdoch's empire always lies. CNN/HLN/ETC is all about flash. CBS and ABC have nothing outside of their regular network news. If an airliner crashes or a country gets invaded, MCNBC will be the first to get usable data on the air.