The speaker was the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Later, he recalled that he originally took a meeting with MSNBC executives believing that he would be pitching the network on a weekly series. Instead, he was offered a nightly program all his own. He started as a temporary replacement for Ed Schultz at 6 p.m. when Mr. Schultz moved to 10 p.m. in the rejiggering prompted by Keith Olbermann’s departure. Before long, the hour was rechristened PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton.

“The only thing I was worried about was my bosses,” MSNBC president Phil Griffin told The Observer of the decision to name Mr. Sharpton a primary host. “But he’d already been on for a month and a half. If we’d said that he was the permanent host on that first day, I’m not sure we’d have pulled it off.”

MSNBC was willing to let Mr. Sharpton travel (provided he gave enough advance notice to allow for a studio to be provided on the road) and wrote a provision into his contract allowing him to continue his activism, Mr. Sharpton said.

It was less of a leap than it might have appeared. As he pointed out during an interview at his MSNBC office, he’d been a talk-radio host for six years (Keepin’ It Real airs from 8 to 10 p.m. on 1600 AM in New York).

If it weren’t for his civil rights organization, the National Action Network, he added, “I had the background of 50 percent of the people doing this.” But he is Al Sharpton of the National Action Network. He is also the Al Sharpton who enthusiastically fanned a media firestorm 25 years ago with his advocacy on behalf of Tawana Brawley, a teenager who claimed—falsely, it now appears—to have been raped by a group of white men, an incident that cemented the young civil rights leader’s influence and brought him a measure of infamy. He ended up losing a defamation lawsuit filed by an assistant district attorney accused of raping Ms. Brawley and was immortalized by Tom Wolfe as The Bonfire of the Vanities’ “Rev. Reginald Bacon,” a shrewd manipulator of the city’s media. Then, there was his endlessly caricatured tracksuit-and-chains image, immortalized in a parade of Sean Delonas cartoons for Page Six that depicted the reverend as a Violet Beauregarde-like sphere.

Not to mention his unsuccessful, if impressive, run for the presidency in 2004.

Perhaps it was a desire to put his reputation as a firebrand behind him that accounted for Mr. Sharpton’s decidedly sober debut. “His first show was stiff,” Mr. Griffin told the crowd at the PoliticsNation party. “There was no Rev.”

Over the course of his first year on air, though, Mr. Sharpton has managed to uncork those cable-friendly “Rev” qualities—his undisguised political advocacy, for instance, and a compelling style of oratory that finds him punching rhetorical questions with a furious solemnity that lends the daily news churn an unusual hint of gravitas.

Still, his reputation notwithstanding, Mr. Sharpton is far from the angriest man in prime time.

“He's controversial,” Mr. Griffin told The Observer. “But a lot of people only know him from a few things. You don’t understand that he’s a good person. He’s fair. You don’t want to be judged for just a few things in your life, do you?”

We noted that his missteps had been particularly public and might color potential viewers’ impressions before they even tuned in. “It’s the civil rights movement! He has to do things that he’s misunderstood for. Maybe he’s made a mistake or two—but his heart is in the right place.”

He’s even happy to give airtime to his ideological foes. “I fought with Newt Gingrich,” Mr. Sharpton reminded The Observer at his party. He was puffing on a cigar, his only vice after he adopted a vegetarian diet that brought his weight down to a svelte 150 pounds. (He’d lost weight during his 2001 arrest on the island of Vieques, then gained much of it back while running for president—“room service when you get back to the hotel, South Carolina, fried chicken three times a day”—and lost it, once more, before he even knew he’d be on television each day.) He was looking good.

“I fought with Pat Buchanan,” he added. “And I had a good time with Michael Steele!”

For the significant portion of the nation that identifies as liberal (and the smaller number that watches MSNBC), Rev. Sharpton—cast as a clown and a villain throughout the late 1980s and 1990s—is, at 57, suddenly an establishment figure. “The Rev is only going to grow, because more people are going to accept him,” Mr. Griffin noted. “He’s going to break all these notions of who he is.”

Mr. Sharpton, who early in his career served as the tour manager for James Brown, borrowed more than a hairstyle from his mentor.

According to Mr. Sharpton’s lawyer, Sanford Rubinstein, “he’s the hardest-working man in show business.”

Mr. Sharpton's office is decorated with blown-up covers of Newsweek and The New York Post bearing his image, and a smaller frame containing three separately matted photos, portraits of the reverend as a younger man. One shows him preaching at age seven. One has him posing with James Brown. The third is of Mr. Brown and Mr. Sharpton meeting a young Michael and Janet Jackson.

Asked what the biggest misconception about him is, Mr. Sharpton cited the notion that he craves media attention and fame for its own sake. He left his role as James Brown’s tour manager in order to focus full-time on organizing and activism. “If you had a young guy out of Brooklyn, out of welfare, dead broke, who starts flying around the world with Jay-Z, then tells Jay-Z, ‘I know I ain’t got no money but I’m committed to social justice’—that defines him! If I had wanted money, I could’ve stayed with James Brown. You can disagree with me, but at least give me credit for having sacrificed. Because there was no guarantee that when I went to Howard Beach that it was going to be a national issue. Or Bensonhurst. Or whatever! Or that one day I would get MSNBC and radio and all that.”

James Brown, he added, thought his young protégé was crazy.

Mr. Sharpton came to prominence during a period of extreme racial enmity in the city, speaking out on one notorious case after another, fulminating before the news cameras and leading crowds of protesters with his now-familiar rallying cry: “No justice, no peace!”

His reference to Howard Beach recalled the 1986 death of Michael Griffith, who was struck by traffic after being chased by a white mob in Queens (Mr. Sharpton’s activism resulted in the appointment of a special prosecutor in the case). In the Bensonhurst incident, in 1989, a mob of white residents beat four black teenagers, killing one, Yusef Hawkins. Mr. Sharpton’s outspokenness in that case resulted in an attempt on his life.

After a few decades of dancing on the city’s racial fault lines, jousting with guests on basic cable must seem like a pretty low-key gig.

Mr. Sharpton’s 2011 television debut occurred as MSNBC was finding its footing as a liberal answer to right-leaning juggernaut Fox News. Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times recently referred to the network’s mission as “counterprogramming, not coverage,” and counted Mr. Sharpton as part of “a growing cast of anchor-bloviators.” At his party, the host didn’t deny that MSNBC and Fox had similarities: “We’re people with opinions,” he said.

“People don’t watch Bill O’Reilly or me for the weather report,” he went on. “They know we have an opinion. We said in the beginning I wasn’t objective. No one who watches my show thinks I’m objective. Fox is not objective.”

He used the weather-report crack, again, at a recent Saturday broadcast from the National Action Network’s “House of Justice” in Harlem. The crowd roared its approval, as they did with most of his laugh lines; an elderly woman in the audience remarked, “I call him the next Chris Rock.”

Before Mr. Sharpton’s entrance at 10 a.m. sharp at the Saturday NAN gathering, which is a hybrid of sorts between church service and activist meet-up, a female speaker decried Nicki Minaj’s apparent endorsement of Mitt Romney (which the rapper herself has disavowed). “When I look at certain celebrities, I look at what they’ve done. How engaged are you in community activism? If you’ve never seen them on the ground, why would what they say matter?”

A choir member announced, “We should be thankful that we are blessed, that we are educated, that we can tell somebody something.” Then Rev. Sharpton took the stage, swaying to the beat but unsmiling.

“What do we waaaaaant,” he sang. The room was packed with guests who knew the answer: “justice.” Rev. Sharpton added, “Some people cheat and come at 10, because that’s when I get up here. But you don’t have a seat this morning.”

He discussed, briefly, the Trayvon Martin killing this year; he was frustrated, he told the crowd, that he had been perceived to be seeking publicity from a case he took credit for bringing to the public’s attention. (After Mr. Sharpton urged due process for George Zimmerman, Martin’s shooter, he was criticized by some media observers for full-throated political advocacy on top of his journalistic duties.) “Later the press tried to act like we rode in on the publicity,” he went on. “No. We started the publicity. Was I an ambulance chaser? No, I’m an ambulance.”

He exhorted the crowd to never lose the power to define themselves. “In my life I’ve had ups and downs. I keep going. You know why I like having my MSNBC show on at six o’clock? Not four o’clock or nine o’clock? I think about my critics, who said I’d never do anything. My show comes on at six o’clock, about the time my critics come home and put dinner on the table!”

Like his office, Rev. Sharpton’s House of Justice is decorated with images from his past. The Newsweek cover is there, as is a New York Daily News front page, “GIVE ME THE TRUTH,” about the reverend’s quest to learn about whether he was biologically related to Senator Strom Thurmond. Hung above the stage, to the left of the podium, is a framed picture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., looking down and to the right. It appears he’s gazing approvingly at whomever is speaking.

Still, Mr. Sharpton is looking for real approval these days—and not just from his amen corner.

“We can get 300 or 400 in the room on Saturday,” he explained, “and 50,000 more on the radio. Okay. When do you stop playing to the 300 people in the room that’ll clap at anything you say? And when do you deal with the 50,000 that are listening, half of whom may not be on your side but would be if you make a sound argument?”

In September 2011, its first full month on air, PoliticsNation averaged 598,000 nightly viewers; in the first two weeks of this month, the show is hovering around 912,000 per evening. Viewership in the 25-54 demographic has nearly doubled as well. (The program comes in second in its time slot among cable news outlets in both metrics, behind Fox News’s Special Report with Bret Baier.) While Mr. Sharpton claims that his Saturday-morning audience is tuning in, PoliticsNation executive producer Matt Saal described the viewership of MSNBC as, traditionally, affluent. “He speaks for people who aren’t of means. He’s making sure we’re speaking not necessarily to those people—but for those people.”

Though he’s making fewer headlines these days, Mr. Sharpton finally seems to be achieving a measure of respectability. Knowing what he knows now, he was asked, does he regret anything about the fiery rhetorical style he employed back in the day?

“So, I was in my 30s when people first met me,” he said, “and I would say things, or react, or be personal. You learn over time, well, you may be more effective not making personal attacks. Not because it looks better—but because you may really want to win the case. You may really want to win people over. So, the question is, is you being flippant more important than winning? Or is winning more important than you being flippant?”

He leaned back, almost horizontal, in his desk chair.

“I regret personalizing the battles rather than keeping it on public policy,” he said.

By way of example, Mr. Sharpton recalled that he’d once had a habit of referring to then-mayor Ed Koch as “Bull Koch,” in reference to the Civil Rights-era scourge Bull Connor. “There are a lot of people who supported Koch who don’t see him as Bull Koch but would have supported us on not cutting services. Again, the question is, when do you put winning as your goal rather than just being flippant?”

Indeed, if anything, Mr. Sharpton seems not to take politics personally at all these days; he has dinner with Bill O’Reilly several times a year and is friends with MSNBC morning host and former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough. “He’s not a phony,” Mr. Sharpton noted. “And I get along with any conservative if they believe what they’re saying.”

Would a younger Al Sharpton have been able to say that?

“I don’t think I would have said that. I would have gotten along with them. But I wouldn’t have said it."

Now that he’s adopted a more conciliatory tone and taken his seat among the media elites, Mr. Sharpton was asked if he’d spotted any likely successors for the role of chief civil rights bomb-thrower he played so effectively for so long. He declined to name anyone specific, but he noted that whoever came after him would have opportunities he had never imagined. “A guy said to me soon after we started PoliticsNation, he said, ‘Rev. Sharpton, I always saw you as an activist, you came out of the post-King movement, would Dr. King have had a radio and talk show?’

“I told him that there was no MSNBC in Dr. King’s time, so we will never know!”

Last night, he gave us an hour's worth of answers. This morning, some editors of the Observer gathered to talk about how he managed the task.

Let's talk about 'The Newsroom.' As our fearless leader, Spiers, please tell us how you're going to save us all and revolutionize everything.

Elizabeth Spiers, Editor-in-Chief: Oh, I have A PLAN.

Do you, now?

ES: Had to miss 'Newsroom' for a wedding last night. But from what I've heard it doesn't sound like I missed much. Surprisingly to me, [The New Yorker's] Emily Nussbaum HATED it.

Brian Gallagher, Deputy Editor: Not enough Brooklyn for her.

ES: Apparently. Not enough vampires either.

BG: Aside from the cable news talking heads sucking the lifeblood from our great republic.

Jim Hanas, Social Media Editor: I had to watch the finale of Sister Wives. Turns out Meri and Janelle HATE each other.

So, let me guess: You all loved it.

Aaron Gell, Executive Editor: I'm going to just come out and admit that as manipulative and cheesy as it was, I found it unexpectedly moving. I actually teared up at one point. And I can't figure out why.

BG: YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH (about the 4th estate and the situation regarding American democracy)! I found it exciting and charming, but also completely full of shit. And the fact that Jeff Daniels is a combination of Little Man Tate, Will Hunting, and Adlai Stevenson is also a little hard to swallow. I mean, the guy seems to know everything.

Right, well, that's Sorkin for you. But wait, Aaron: I kind of want to have a breakthrough here, because the fact that you found it moving is legitimately shocking to me.

AG: Me too. I have a thing for plucky blondes.

BG: Yeah, that was really big of him to remember [the assistant's] name at the end.
I mean, "Your name is Margaret Jordan" is like the equivalent of a raise, it seems.

To take it from the top, for a moment: Can we first say that nobody's ever been to a media panel that engaged, ever? More than anything, this made me think greater media panels were possible.

BG: Yeah, and also the professor moderating it looked nothing like any professor I've ever seen, but beside the point. I would like to have known what the title/conceit of the panel was.

AG: But seriously, why IS America the greatest country in the world?

BG: I mean, the substance of his formulation is probably why most intelligent people would tell you that it is the greatest in the world. The possibility, the premise of America is as Burroughs said, "the last and greatest of human dreams" (though he did say it had been betrayed). But yes, what she had on her magic note cards, that it's what it can be.

Did anyone notice that this is the closest thing to 'The West Wing' that Aaron Sorkin has done since then? Will McEvoy is basically the perfect news anchor in the same way Bartlett was the perfect president. But why does this feel so wrong when that felt so right?

BG: That is a good question.

I tried finding the answer in the idea that people in D.C. loved West Wing, and everyone in media seemingly hates The Newsroom. Is it because media folks are inherently skeptical and self-loathing and distrustful of their own image, and politicos are narcissists (and D.C. is America's Ugly Hollywood)? Or is it because one show's good and the other one isn't? Also of note: Sorkin had actual politicos working on The West Wing. And as insane as they were (Paul Begala, Peggy Noonan), they seemed to get a lot right.

AG: I don't agree that 'The West Wing' felt right. It felt good, for a minute, until I realized we still had Bush in the White House and he was the real president and watching a show wouldn't change that. I suspect the same will happen with 'Newsroom.'

BG: There's no question that Sorkin can push those buttons, but it's sentimental to the point of being cynical.

And yet, it made Gell go emo!

AG: True, I did start to think that Sorkin's ability to pluck those strings has not been all that well understood. The politics and the stylistic tics are maybe beside the point. It's Spielberg style manipuation, and it's really fun while it lasts.

BG: Also, I think it's amusing that the cynosure of journalistic integrity is being rendered as a TELEVISION newsroom. It's like we totally forgot that only one generation ago, television news was already considered a far degraded form of the craft. And that Jeff Daniels is basically answering a situation that television news basically caused to begin with.

Right, Brian, that's the other thing. Not to be 'like that' but I think television news is irrelevant. And boring. And people still don't see what happens at newspapers, which would've made for a better show, despite all conventional wisdom to the contrary. To wit, I present the fifth season of The Wire as evidence for possibility.

AG: I don't think the show is about television or journalism at all but about being stressed at work and having those sad little victories. That's what all compelling TV is about I think.

BG: Right, but I think that for it's imagery, the show had to be about TV.

But there is an interesting question and challenge there, which is: What would cable news look like done well? If it even possible? And I actually did find that compelling.

BG: Brian Lamb does cable news well, but most people find that quite boring.

I can't remember the last time a television show was armed with actual journalists who could break news on air that isn't breaking in to, like, Balloon Boy coverage. Do you think that's even possible?

BG: Speaking of which, it just occurred to me that this show is thus far setting up network news as the antidote to cable news, which is almost hilarious.

Again, I admire the show for trying to come up with what it would look like. Not Sorkin, but the show. Because one guy attempting to answer this is just insanely egotistical, which Aaron Sorkin most certainly is.

BG: My first thought was that 'Newsroom' is to a newsroom as 'General Hospital' is to an actual hospital. It's dramatized to the point of incredulity, but it's still somewhat fun to watch.

Did anybody notice when they invoked Erin Andrews—who was the victim of very real-life sexual harassment and predatory behavior—as the lady who Aaron Sorkin’s very fake character is dating? That was odd.

BG: The first thing I thought was that Sorkin at one point asked her out and she said no, and he was settling that score.

Wouldn't surprise me.

BG: But okay, that is an interesting point. That same issue is sort of in play in the fact that they are seemingly going to cover things retroactively. Like the BP spill. We all know how that played out, but they are going to go back and do the ideal version of the coverage.

Right. I was really skeptical about this when I heard it - and in no way was the BP spill that exciting, nor did news break on it that quickly - but I enjoyed the way it played out. And again, I ask: Could news ever look like that?

AG: Maybe if we all get our news from Newsroom and vote for fake presidents we can pretend that the world is awesome.

BG: And then once that fake world is well-established, we can secede from the real world.

With the vampires from True Blood.

ES: Sorkin's ability to get away with preachy exposition by coating with wit is sort of amazing. Anybody else and I'd want to punch the writer.

BG: I feel the same, except for the "anybody else" part. Can you imagine how annoying Sorkin must've been in college?

Insufferable. Especially at Syracuse.

BG: He's like a hidebound version of Diablo Cody. All the dialogue is impossibly witty, and I think that in the end it's at the expense of any depth. After a while, it all seems implausible, precisely because of how "good" the dialogue is.

AG: Maybe we should support this... the media hasn't had a particularly good rep lately. An hour of propaganda on premium cable every week could do wonders for our careers.

BG: [That wit] is fine in something like 'In The Loop,' because it's not aiming for profundity. But Sorkin most certainly is.

But again, 'The West Wing' managed to have witty characters, and it did at moments achieve great moments of profundity. I don't see this show winning a Peabody.

BG: Are you kidding? The media loves nothing more than to give itself awards. And a show about the slipping standards of news? I'll eat my hat if it doesn't win a Peabody.

JH: "Why does everyone in media hate the show so much?" Um. Because we hate everything, especially if it involves anyone we might run into.

Yeah, but everyone in media loved the fifth season of 'The Wire.' And David Simon was actually a reporter at The Baltimore Sun.

AG: Well, Sorkin DATED MODO. Hello?

BG: To be fair, everyone in the New York media demographic loved the entire run of The Wire. But point taken.

ES: I think that's the rare instance of media loving something because it's actually good.

BG: Back to the content for a second. It really annoys me that they seem to be setting up some sort of sexual/romantic past with Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer, and from the allusions in the dialogue that somehow precipitated his stopping caring about journalistic standards...

Right? Not to flash a feminist card, but why are all the women on the show so patently nerve-wracked and emotional?

BG: Also, it was very funny that they had to explain away her seemingly discordant speech about American democracy delivered in Oxbridge's finest elocution. "She was born in America!"

The Power of the Studio Note (also see: Dev Patel's entire role on the show).

JH: I'm still stuck on this thing about what the New York media will embrace and reject. What do 'Mad Men' and and 'The Wire' have in common that 'Girls' and 'The Newsroom' lack? Or maybe it's the other way around.

BG: [But] the New York media certainly seems to have embraced 'Girls,' no?

ES: I think 'Girls' lacks sophistication, vis a vis the other shows. But people don't measure them against each other because everyone knows it's Lena Dunham's debut. And there's a bit of condescending head patting that she could do her very own TV show.

FINAL QUESTION TIME. Why did Gell get weepy? Everyone, GO!

AG: That's easy: male menopause.

I think it's because you were coming to terms with enjoying it. The show, not male menopause.

BG: I mean, the show I think is good television. I just don't think it should be read as legitimate media criticism, or even having much bearing on reality. Like most television.

AG: I think it's because putting out a weekly paper is hard and stressful and requires a certain amount of self-delusion that what we're doing matters, or could matter. And editing a bunch of starry-eyed 24-year-olds is a bitch, and like Will I actually can't remember half their names, and yet it's inspiring when they succeed and Chartbeat lights up and the lawyers start calling... In that sense, on a psychological level, 'Newsroom' taps into a certain wish I think I'm harboring about what we're doing having some kind of meaning. Because it certainly doesn't pay that much.

BG: Yeah, but Gell, don't forget the time you gave up $1 million dollars a year of your salary for the ability to fire [Observer managing editor Michael] Woodsmall at the end of every week.

AG: A good investment, I think.

Last thoughts, anyone?

JH: "[Keels Over]"

ES: I was looking at galleys and I just had the sudden realization that the U.S. is not the best country in the world. I'm going to go rethink my entire career.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Illustration by Drew Friedman.

"THIS IS NOT SOME OPINION! This is a mathematical fact!"

In a now-infamous Aug. 9, 2011, taping, a cable news host has just boiled over at his assembled panel of guests. He's yelling, at full volume. "I've been coming on TV for three years doing this," he bellows, exasperated. "And the fact of the matter is that there's a refusal on both the Democratic and the Republican side of the aisle to acknowledge the mathematical problem, which is that the United States of America is being extracted!" He has now erupted. "It's being extracted through banking! It's being extracted through trade! And it's being extracted through taxation! And there's not a single politician that has stepped forward to deal with this!"

Five months and a couple hundred thousand views later, answering The Observer's call from a hotel room in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the 39-year-old host of MSNBC's The Dylan Ratigan Show sounded nothing like the man whose unhinged, frothing-at-the-mouth rants on unmitigated corporate greed went viral last summer. Nor did he sound like the man who frustrated Ed Schultz, of all people, to the point where he ended the segment in disgust, or the man who has been known to cut off guests completely. It didn't even sound like the guy whose favorite New Yorker was Teddy Roosevelt, and whose first book, hitting bookstores in barely a week, bears the unsubtle title Greedy Bastards!

Dylan Ratigan answered the phone sounding like a calm, collected New York City bachelor enjoying a tropical vacation. One couldn't help wondering if maybe the apoplectic, vein-popping madman wasn't perhaps a bit of a TV creation?

Not quite. Mr. Ratigan's rants, he assured us, were "100 percent spontaneous."

Even the notorious "extraction" rant, the episode the show's website refers to as his Network moment, was pure, unvarnished Ratigan, he insisted. "It's terrible and embarrassing behavior," he said. "It's unprofessional to behave that way in public, for God's sake."

Not that he regrets the outburst. "If I had just gone on and said those things, then no one would have watched it," he explained. "So I walk away and I'm like, 'At least everyone is going to hear about the bank extraction.' Not because they want to, because they want to hear Ratigan lose his shit. It's kind of funny," he laughed. "If I could do it on a premeditated basis, then I'd do it more often. I'd be more famous."

Instead, the host, whose live show airs weekdays at 4 p.m., said he would rather promote a more thoughtful sort of discourse. More calm, nuanced, and positive—conversation that is, in his own words, "fuelled by compassion."

MR. RATIGAN, who is 39, grew up in Saranac Lake, N.Y., the only child of a single mother, a social worker, whose Hungarian, Jewish father (a "hero" to his grandson) came through Ellis Island without knowing any English, but somehow built a flourishing carpet business. Mr. Ratigan's grandfather died in a work-related accident, climbing spools of carpet in his Astoria warehouse. "Having watched how hard that man worked," he said with a sigh, "you always kind of feel like … the nature of the work that I'm doing? It's really not that hard."

After graduating from Union College upstate with a bachelor's in political economics, he worked for a time as an auditor for parking garages around the city, winding up living in a townhouse owned by his boss. His neighbors happened to include Susan Brown, the ex-wife of Michael Bloomberg—"We used to sit in the garden and smoke cigarettes together"—and the couple's two daughters, Emma and Georgina, the three of whom he became friendly with. After leaving New York briefly to travel the country by train for a year (he was in his 20s, he explained: "It sounded like fun, so I did it"), he returned to the city and paid Ms. Brown a visit. She asked what he planned to do with his life; Mr. Ratigan had no idea. So Ms. Brown harangued her ex-husband about hiring the young man, and finally Mr. Bloomberg relented.

The timing was good. As Mr. Ratigan tells it, "The company was in the middle of an explosion of growth, and it went from 8,000 to 250,000 terminals while I was there."

At Bloomberg, Mr. Ratigan went from reporting on mergers and acquisitions to editing. He eventually landed on-camera, winning a Gerald Loeb award for his reporting on the Enron scandal. Despite his sometimes overbearing demeanor (most notably, a loud voice that sometimes caused Mr. Bloomberg scream at him lovingly across the newsroom to "Shut up, Ratigan"), he was ultimately elevated to global managing editor for corporate finance, a position created for him. He hated the work, though, particularly the endless rounds of meetings. He left the company for a brief consulting job with Boeing, and was eventually lured to CNBC, where he co-created and hosted the daily stock market analysis show Fast Money.

Despite viewing Mr. Bloomberg as a mentor, Mr. Ratigan took issue with the mayor's handling of the Occupy Wall Street protests, which Mr. Ratigan supported and visited on several occasions with an MSNBC camera crew. Though Mr. Ratigan identifies himself as a conservative, and stands more than a few notches to the right of some of his MSNBC colleagues, he seems to have an instinctive sympathy for the underdog. "I've spent a lot of my career dealing with the wealthiest, most powerful 1 percent as a reporter by covering them and interacting with them," he pointed out, "and as a social worker my mother has spent the bulk of her career dealing with some of the most impoverished 1 percent."

The Bloomberg administration's approach to the protests, Mr. Ratigan said, "was disappointing for me." He pointed out the unique opportunity the mayor has to address issues like wealth inequality. "Mike is in a position to do that, and I think to do that in a way a few people could," he said, quickly adding a note of optimism: "Listen, I'm still hopeful that he may do that, although there is certainly not any indication."

While Mr. Ratigan's career as a talking head seems to be speeding along a well-traveled route—hopping from one network to another amid a spasm of leaked news reports; moving from straight reporting to loudly articulated opinion; unleashing a made-for-YouTube tirade; publishing a book—he insists it's all been a reaction to circumstances. Primarily, he cites the financial meltdown, and what he sees as the financial press's failure to prevent it, see it coming, or at minimum explain it to viewers.

"It's negligent," Mr. Ratigan said, "to be in the national media covering a national unemployment crisis, covering a national housing crisis, covering a national education crisis, covering a national poverty crisis," and not be communicating the basic underlying principles to your audience.

For instance, the idea that credit derivatives are not backed by actual assets, he said, "is utterly insulting beyond all comprehension. It's one of those things where the more you learn about it, the more horrifying it becomes."

And the Obama administration hasn't helped matters, he said. "We've seen no change. We've seen the Obama administration and [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner actually codify and advance" the broken system. "Instead of blaming George Bush or Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, you realize that they're all doing it!"

As for financial journalism's role in the economic meltdown, he said, "It's grossly disappointing." He laughed. "What do you want me to tell you? It's embarrassing."

Mr. Ratigan left CNBC in April 2009. "I'm happy to not be a journalist," he said, noting that the constraints of the profession had made it impossible to see the big picture. "My old style was, ‘Well, this is a sport [in which] we try and figure out what's the best idea to put money into,'" he said. In his new role, he can step back and impart a larger point, namely: "This is a fundamentally corrupt global system that people don't understand."

Righteous though he can sound, Mr. Ratigan is not altogether unimpeachable. In December 2010, MSNBC announced that steel company Nucor would be sponsoring The Dylan Ratigan Show's "Steel on Wheels" tour of the country. At the time, Mr. Ratigan told TVNewser's Gail Shister: "I won't talk about Nucor on the air, absolutely not," in light of the potential conflicts. But in a February 2011 episode, he toured a Nucor factory in Seattle.

When The Observer asked him about the discrepancy, Mr. Ratigan exhaled loudly. "That's an absolutely fair criticism," he said finally. "I recognize that was a mistake," he added, explaining that he should never have promised not to cover Nucor in the first place.

That might not satisfy a professor of journalistic ethics, but it's more of a mea culpa than one might expect. "Your ego is a huge liability to your judgment, and when you get into these jobs, your ego only gets bigger," Mr. Ratigan said. "How can I go on TV and blather about integrity and all this nonsense and then not exhibit it? I'd be a real asshole."

It's another reason he doesn't necessarily consider himself a journalist. "I'm an advocate who hosts a show, let's be honest," he said. The advocacy Mr. Ratigan is referring to is his Get Money Out! movement, which aims to introduce a new Constitutional amendment banning corporate campaign contributions. Mr. Ratigan said the group is the largest nonprofit in the world pushing for corporate political finance reform, "by dollars, by people, by staff, and by signatures." While he said he has ruled out running for office (at least until his amendment passes), he intends to keep pushing the issue.

"I will do as much as possible to address what I see as the structural misaligned interests in America," he declared. "I'm hoping that we'll be able to enlist tens of millions of people." And to those who question the propriety of such an effort by a newsman, he said, "To the extent to which I am able to acquire and amass and advocate resources around an agenda that is transparent, and people know what I'm doing, it's what I'm going to do. I'll start a circus. Are you kidding me? We have to do this. Who cares if Dylan Ratigan is a journalist?"

GREEDY BASTARDS!, Mr. Ratigan said, was conceived as a response to the economic decline of the last three years. It was written with a team of five researchers, a ghostwriter, and a close college friend—a PhD in stem-cell biology—to help "logic-proof" the 245-page text.

That title notwithstanding, the book doesn't actually go after the bastards themselves, but instead takes aim at a cultural tendency, what the author calls "greedy bastardism," which can be adopted or discarded at will.

The antidote to greedy bastardism, Mr. Ratigan writes, is a systemic set of values he dubs V.I.C.I. (or vici, Latin for ‘I Overcame'), which translates into Visibility, Integrity, Choice and Interests.

That formula might not be quite vehement enough for some of Mr. Ratigan's fans, who presumably expect a bit more red meat with their reading. "I'm sure they'll be taken aback," he admitted. "They might be a little confused. But I'll be able to reveal my own process of self-discovery, because my reaction to all of this has been fury and frustration, and what I've learned is that it's not constructive."

Indeed, the rage-aholic outbursts that have fueled Mr. Ratigan's rise—leading The Daily Beast to dub him "The Angriest Man in Cable"—seem to be abating, and not a moment too soon. "Over the past year," he said, "I've gained 25 pounds. I've started smoking again. It has made me miserable."

Mr. Ratigan, who lives in Tribeca, is indulging a softer side. He has been known to get on stage with one of his favorite bands, Fountains of Wayne, and play the gourd at their concerts. He has taken up paddleboarding. "It forces you into the present tense, you know?" he said. And he recently sought out Deepak Chopra personally to get the guru's advice on chilling out.

"I'd like to lose some weight and I'd like to be happy," said the broadcaster, who has been engaged twice but is currently single. "I still want to do this job, you know, and I have to find a way to do that, and the only way to do it is to have some compassion."

He stops, and then adds: "Including compassion, by the way, for the bankers. And the politicians."

How will that play on cable, we ask him, where everyone knows anger is what sells?

"We're going to find out if compassion sells."

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Tamika D. Mallory

Tamika Mallory, the 31-year-old executive director of Al Sharpton's National Action Network, has some words of warning for African-American reporters. On Friday, Mallory wrote a column titled "Time For Black Journalists To Stop Criticizing Rev. Sharpton."

Mallory's column, which was published on NewsOne.com and linked on National Action Network's web site, was addressed "to all the Black journalists out there." She begins by discussing her distaste for criticism of Sharpton's MSNBC show, "Politics Nation," which premiered August 29.

"Whenever I hear people question Reverend Sharpton’s new show, ‘Politics Nation’ on MSNBC, I find myself thinking of the theory known as ‘crabs in the barrel.,’" Mallory wrote.

Sharpton's show drew critiques from conservative news outlets in its first week on the air including Andrew Breitbart's BreitbartTV, which mocked Sharpton's language skills, and Newsbusters, which poked fun at his ratings. Mallory doesn't identify any criticism from African-American members of the media that may have inspired her column, but she does explain why she thinks black reporters shouldn't criticize Sharpton's show.

"Rev. Sharpton is and has always been an advocate and defender of the people, and I believe 'we' should support his new endeavor for it affords him the opportunity to continue to build on his years of struggle. An activist such as Rev. Sharpton doesn’t need to be fed information on the injustices in society, because he lives and breathes them every single day," Mallory wrote.

Mallory was named executive director of National Action Network in 2009. Her parents are founding members of the group, and Mallory has said she "grew up in this organization." According to National Action Network's web site, Sharpton created the organization to "to promote a modern civil rights agenda."

"After knowing [Sharpton] for over 20 years, I would bet my last dollar that he will continue championing justice in his new position with no apologies," Mallory wrote.

Of course, that's not the only way Murdoch has helped to fund the conservative movement. Fox News is home to nearly all of the probably Republican presidential nominees for the 2012 elections, and the cable channel isn't the only part of the News Corp. empire that has prominent right wingers on the payroll. Murdoch's publishing house, HarperCollins, has released the books of many top Republican political figures. And in September, HarperCollins announced the launch of Broadside Books, an imprint dedicated to Conservative authors. To help you keep track of who's cashing Murdoch's checks, we bring you A Guide to Top Conservatives on the News Corp. payroll. 

The former ABC anchor and current "BBC World News America" contributor expressed his displeasure with the current state of cable news in an editorial that will appear in Sunday's Washington Post.

"We live now in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly - individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable," wrote Koppel.

Koppel thinks the domination of partisan punditry has led to "a pervasive ethos that eschews facts in favor of an idealized reality." According to Koppel, Fox and MSNBC "show us the world not as it is, but as partisans (and loyal viewers) at either end of the political spectrum would like it to be." All this politicized news coverage is very upsetting to Koppel. 

"The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me," he wrote.

Koppel believes the shift from the more objective style of traditional network news broadcasts to cable's more opinionated coverage is especially dangerous because, "the need for clear, objective reporting in a world of rising religious fundamentalism, economic interdependence and global ecological problems is probably greater than it has ever been." With the modern media's focus on reaching targeted segments of the audience, Koppel doesn't expect to things to improve any time soon.

"There is, after all, not much of a chance that 21st-century journalism will be adapted to conform with the old rules," Koppel wrote.

Koppel isn't the only prominent media figure who criticized cable news this week. Jon Stewart broke down his problems with the 24-hour news networks on Thursday's episode of "The Rachel Maddow Show." 

The Oct. 30 "Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear" on the National Mall was attended by about 200,000 supporters. 

"I felt like, in twelve years, I'd earned a moment to tell people who I was. And that's what I did," Stewart told Maddow of his reasons for holding the rally. 

Stewart's rally earned its share of critics to go along with the throngs of enthusiastic attendees. 

Though he used painfully diplomatic language, Stewart essentially told Maddow that his detractors missed the point of the rally:

"Whatever you put out, you can only control your intention ... So, when ... people that I respect are perceiving it as something that we didn't perceive it as, sort of, either two or three things. One is, we were inartful in the way that we conceived it and presented it, our intention was wrong or off, not clear, or it's being misperceived."

Stewart used the majority of his Maddow appearance to elaborate on the critique of the divisive, uncivilized culture of cable news that he said was "the point" of his rally.

"My problem is, it's become tribal," Stewart said. "And if you have 24-hour networks that focus -- their job is to highlight the conflict between two sides."

The "Daily Show" host laid blame on CNN for playing a major role in creating the contentious cable climate. 

"CNN sort of started it," Stewart said. "They had this idea that, you know, the fight in Washington is Republicans and Democrats, so why don't we isolate that and we'll stand back here." 

Stewart also called out MSNBC for taking part in an ideological "arms race" with Fox. He criticized the network's coverage of the Tea Party and a dismissive attempt "to delegitimize" the Conservative movement by focusing on its fringes.

Stewart has issues with CNN and MSNBC, but he told Maddow that he and his fellow "Daily Show" staffers have a "special place in our hearts for Fox."  

"I think the brilliance of Fox is they've delegitimized the idea of editorial authority while exercising incredible editorial authority, which is its amazing," Stewart said. "And they also have the game that, 'They're all out to get us,' so any criticism of them can be filtered through the idea that its persecution." 

Maddow and Stewart's discussion focused on the politics of the cable news business, but surprisingly, they didn't talk about last week's controversy over MSNBC host Keith Olbermann's campaign contributions to Democrats. In the nearly hourlong conversation that aired on Maddow's show, the pair of pundits didn't find time to address the temporary suspension of Maddow's "colleague and friend." 

Watch the uncut video of Maddow's conversation with Stewart below:

The fake correspondence was published on the Philadelphia gossip site Phawker.com, which has since published a correction. The email exchange began when Philadelphia Daily News reporter Stu Bykofsky contacted the Olbermann for an article he was writing about the suspension controversy. Olbermann was temporarily suspended by Griffin on Friday after an article in Politico revealed that he gave money to three Democrats during the last election in violation of NBC ethics policies.

Bykofsky emailed the address keith@keitholbermann.com and received a series of responses eviscerating his article and berating MSNBC management.

"I could have Phil Griffin fired tomorrow if I felt like it, trust me. And if he keeps yapping about me in public, I may," read one of the responses to Bykofsky.

The thing is, KeithOlbermann.com is actually owned by The Daily Caller. A visit to the site shows an archive of Daily Caller posts about Olbermann. Carlson purchased Keitholbermann.com in July from a Virginia man named Jason Drake. Drake told The Observer on Monday that Carlson bought the site from him for $400.

At the time of the purchase, Carlson wrote a blog post that explained his plans for KeithOlbermann.com.

“We plan to make The Daily Caller the one-stop online shop for Keith Olbermann commentary … We will be THE Keith Olbermann superstore,” Carlson wrote.

Bykofsky told The Observer that he "believed the emails to be coming from Olbermann."

"I was fooled, but I was fooled while I honestly tried to reach Keith Olbermann," Bykofsky said.

Carlson hosted the show "Tucker" on MSNBC from 2005 until 2008 when it was cancelled due to low ratings. He launched the Daily Caller in January. Carlson and Phil Griffin have not responded to requests for comment from The Observer.

Olbermann, who returns to primetime tonight, did apologize "for having precipitated such anxiety and unnecessary drama," but his only regrets seem to stem from the way his superiors handled the situation.

"You should know that I mistakenly violated an inconsistently applied rule – which I previously knew nothing about – that pertains to the process by which such political contributions are approved by NBC," Olbermann wrote.

Network ethics policies prohibit staffers at MSNBC and NBC News from making political donations without obtaining prior approval. Olbermann may have been unaware of the policy and MSNBC's application of its ethics rules was reportedly iconsistent, but neither of those excuses address his failure to disclose the contributions on air.

At least one of the candidates who received money from Olbermann, Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva, also appeared on "Countdown." Olbermann never disclosed this to his viewers. In his statement, Olbermann said he would have come clean about the contributions, but was prevented from doing so by MSNBC.

"I did not attempt to keep any of these political contributions secret; I knew they would be known to you and the rest of the public. I did not make them through a relative, friend, corporation, PAC, or any other intermediary … When a website contacted NBC about one of the donations, I immediately volunteered that there were in fact three of them; and contrary to much of the subsequent reporting, I immediately volunteered to explain all this, on-air and off, in the fashion MSNBC desired," Olbermann wrote.

Olbermann may not have hid his donations, but he didn't tell MSNBC or his viewers about the gifts until they were revealed by Politico. Full disclosure is one of the basic concepts of ethical journalism and a disclosure statement after the fact is worth very little. Proper disclosures allow consumers to more fairly evaluate the content in a media outlet. Admitting to something after it is discovered isn't a disclosure; it's getting caught with your pants down.

Supporters have argued that Olbermann and his fellow cable news hosts practice opinion journalism and should be entitled to their opinions. No one has asked Olbermann not to have a point of view, or even, not to give money to politicians. MSNBC policy doesn't ban campaign contributions outright, it simply asks staffers to reveal them to the network in advance.

Olbermann claims he "immediately volunteered" to "explain all this … in the fashion MSNBC desired," but Politico's Mike Allen says anonymous sources at the network have told him that the network suspended Olbermann because of his refusal to apologize. If it was indeed a public apology MSNBC was looking for, Olbermann's statement clearly didn't satisfy them.

"After several days of deliberation and discussion, I have determined that suspending Keith through and including Monday night's program is an appropriate punishment for his violation of our policy. We look forward to having him back on the air Tuesday night," Griffin said.

Olbermann was suspended on Friday following the publication of a story in Politico that revealed his donations to three Democratic candidates in the mid-term elections. NBC policy prohibits MSNBC and NBC News staffers from making campaign contributions without prior approval from the network. Olbermann did not disclose the donations to MSNBC or to his viewers prior to the Politico story.

Olbermann stayed quiet about the controversy on Friday, but he broke his silence on Sunday with a Tweet thanking fans and friends who supported him through his brief ordeal.

"Greetings From Exile! A quick, overwhelmed, stunned THANK YOU for support that feels like a global hug & obviously left me tweetless XO," Olbermann wrote.