The 'Hardball' host comments on rival Bill O'Reilly's departure from Fox News Channel, noting that the event demonstrates how corporate media works.



"I'm not a critic of the media... because I'm in the media," Chris Matthews said Wednesday night. "Depending on the source, I might even be in the mainstream media."



"What grabs me... is the corporate decision. In the end, people like us are on air becsuse of corporate decisions. They hire. They renew. They fire," he said. "The 21st Centry Fox decision is a very big deal. They didn't make it because of ratings, they did it despite ratings. That means they paid a cost for their decision, at least in the short run. They made the choice they did because the stories that made it to the newspapers about Mr. O'Reilly struck the reader as wrong for the person and wrong for that corporation. How 21st Century Fox acted today will strike most of us as right."