0 according to the report, this is largely due to the regulation of health care, finance and energy. it's worth noting that this is a report from the conservative heritage foundation. thanks to all of you for being part mief program this week. i will see you next week. stay tuned for "reliable sources." this is park city, utah, home of the famous sundance festival. the biggest names in the media business are here, and so are unknown filmmakers, hoping to be tomorrow's blockbuster stars. this week, we'll go behind the scenes with the big documentaries and the big business of sundance and we'll tell you about the rest of the week's biggest stories, including the battle between the weather channel and directv. and the premiere of a new comedian that had a lot of people laughing last night on ""saturday night live." >> there's no prompter. no prompt -- good morning. i'm brian stelter. the biggest names in the business are here, film buyers, filmmakers and film buffs as well. we'll take you here and show you all about it, coming up. a few veterans that have been covering it before to fill us all in. we want to get to a big story that developed, involving new jersey governor chris christie. he went to florida, doing some fund-raising, but left some troubles back in new jersey. a scandal over a politically motivated traffic tie-up at the george washington bridge, new claims emerged that his office when would superstorm sandy funds from the city of hoboken when its mayor would mot back a project. personal notes to back up her claims. there's no surprise that the channel has spent a dwrat deal of time talking about christi. in a statement on saturday here is what they said. msnbc is a partisan network that's been openly hostile to governor christie and almost gleeful in their effort of attacking him, taking the unprecedented step of producing and airing a three-minute attack ad this week. governor christie and his entire administration have been helping hoboken get the help they need after sandy, with them being already approved for $3 million of targeted aid and will be getting even more when the obama administration approves the next round of funding. "new york times," covered chris christie extensively and eric wemple of the washington post. kate, let me start with you. gleeful to describe msnbc. do you think that's a fair word? >> in some cases certainly the later evening hosts, rachel maddow and lawrence o'donnell. do we ever suspect that they were anything but liberal television hosts? steve cornaki has been pretty fair. well versed in new jersey. we started his reporting career there. actually, his story was fairly well reported. he talked about christie's reaction and pressed dawn zimmer pretty forcefully on why didn't you come forward if this is really what you were talking about? the network has been aggressively anti-christie. morning joe is pretty much still supporting christie. >> what do you think, eric? you recently spent a whole day watching msnbc and wrote a blog post about what that was like. a story like this just show that msnbc is to the left what fox is to the right? >> i don't think that there's an equivalency quite that way. kate basically took all the words out of my mouth. what cornaki did was reporting. he added a significant dimension to this story. while certainly there was a lot of blather on the msnbc airwaves this week, everybody talked about christie and the story in terms of reporting much, he was sitting there, documenting this new revelation about dawn zimmer, i think that's a fairly significant addition in the "new york times" and just about everybody else has had to follow those revelations. so i don't think that there's an equivalency. just hammer away, hammer away, hammer away, doesn't make huge reporting splashes like this on a big story and as routinely, i think this is actually a very significant and good moment for msnbc, which, of course, ended 2013 on a terrible, terrible note, set of notes. >> well, with martin bashir, alec baldwin, all these various controversies, snl, "saturday night live," brought up this issue of hoboken last night. let's run the clip. >> new allegations about how you when would sandy funds. >> really? you're curious? let me ask you a question, piers, how long is your drive to work? >> i don't know. maybe 15. >> well, that's a nice commute. it would be a real shame if something were to happen to it. >> governor, are you threatening me? >> i don't know. am i? >> i run this clip to make the point that christie is being raked over the coals about these various controversies. did you read the statement attack i attacking msnbc to change the topic and move it over to media buy as as opposed to these actual issues? >> absolutely. kaunt blame him. other politicians would try to do the same thing and move the story to be about media buy as. earlier this year, a story locally in new jersey about how during hurricane sandy he had -- transit had not moved the trains to higher ground. anyway, governor christie was asked about this by one of the newspapers and he blamed what he called a mid-level civil servant. there are no mid-level civil servants. the pattern here is trying to shift the blame on to someone else. >> i don't think -- again, it might be -- go ahead, erik. sorry. >> no. there's a certain -- we've all watched msnbc. we know that when something bad happens to republicans, there will be a gleeful tone. i don't think that the christie people help themselves at all by complaining about tone of coverage. i think what matters are the facts. >> i wonder if it's going to further hurt nbc news. nbc news would love to have interviews with chris christie, gop debates in 2016. do you see this affecting nbc news at all? a high-profile possible candidate for 2016? >> i do. nbc news people i talked to are always somewhat wondrous or, you know, shaking their heads about the fact that especially in the daytime and into prime time as well. there's a lot of talk and not enough reporting. but as i say, i think this cornaki thing steers it in a new direction. it's an interesting mishmash here. >> kate, i remember a story you wrote about a month ago about the image of chris christie being a bully. back then it was hard to get pique people to come on the record. wasn't it? >> right. the stories included in that piece were generally the elements i had seen reported elsewhere that i could get people to talk about. it was incredibly hard to get people to talk. governor christie is an incredibly powerful governor. tremendous power of the purse, like other governors. there's really a feeling by democrats and republicans that they don't want to cross him because they could get in real trouble and they will be punished and have seen it happen to their colleagues before. what's interesting now is that msnbc is not the only one perhaps smelling a little bit of blood in the water. people in the last few days, their willingness to either share more or share on the record has been really striking to me. i think it's actually a sign of how much the governor is in trouble. >> sounds like more stories to come from you and your colleagues? >> i would think so, yes. >> and maybe the point is there are stories from all sorts of places. msnbc is partisan in many ways. that didn't mean they can't do factual reporting. erik, i wonder if that's something they may have to remind viewers or viewers may have to come around to believe. >> that's a really good point. y think we should get this notion just because your a partisan journalism out fit you can't do news or break news. maddow had the rand paul thing. every time we watch her, we know she has a great or fabulously entrenched world view. i'm not saying world view itself is fabulous, but anyway she has done a lot of that. mother jones' view -- reporting and breaking a lot of stories. so, partisan outfits or, you know, idiologically leaning out fits certainly can do news. i agree with kate 100% that the segments were really good. and i think they are a great reminder to all of us who think that partisan or ideologically invested journalism can't do anything on news. they can. >> do you think it will create more attention for msnbc, though. erik, kate, thanks for joining us. >> thanks, brian. remember, i'm always interested in hearing what you think about the show. what you're hearing today. brian stelter. live tweeting shoet thanks to my fiance over on twitter as well. directv versus the weather channel. epic media battle. we'll explain it, coming up. 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