To MSNBC president Phil Griffin, news is war. And not one of those fancy modern wars fought by drones and computer hackers, either. "We are in a knife fight for every viewer," he says often, and: "We are on the battleground." So, this winter, as Blizzard Nemo was bearing down on New York City, Griffin bunkered his top executives at the downtown Ritz Carlton for the cable news version of a military training exercise. A Navy SEAL spoke to them about how to manage fear during combat. They toured the September 11 museum, where they discussed the pressures of public scrutiny with the museum's president. And, later, they participated in drills designed to sharpen their competitive instincts, including one where teams of two each created a specialty cocktail they felt "embodied MSNBC."