Home Pop Culture The lynching of American media and Keith Olbermann.

The lynching of American media and Keith Olbermann.

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 regarded by fellow journalists who have chosen to react to Mr Olbermann’s sudden resignation the way a bulimic reacts when he finds out his steak dinner is a little on the burned side. 

The following blase reflections from various media heavy weights should make this clearer:

nytimesNBC executives said the move had nothing to do with the impending takeover of NBC Universal by Comcast. With viewers and fans of Mr. Olbermann suggesting that Comcast was responsible for forcing Mr. Olbermann out, Comcast also released an official statement late Friday night:

“Comcast has not closed the transaction for NBC Universal and has no operational control at any of its properties including MSNBC. We pledged from the day the deal was announced that we would not interfere with NBC Universal’s news operations. We have not and we will not.”

Once again the reader is forced to connect the dots (God forbid if the New York Times stepped out of lines and did it for you!) that essentially Mr Olbermann has been gagged ahead of time and that he better get used to the idea of now becoming right wing lite, so as to accommodate the more rigorous new hosts- Comcast and their bank vault as opposed to left wing pony tricks (but even then Mr Olbermann has always insisted he is just an American and not a left leaning thinker, as we all know being associated as left leaning in a country that awards spectacular prizes to those who blindly follow right wing rhetoric is akin to admitting you once kissed another guy and almost liked it. Yes kids feel free to grimace audibly…blah!).

washingtonpost So Keith Olbermann is out. As best as I can tell, none of the news accounts about his departure have gotten to the bottom of what happened here. But Olbermann himself offered enough clues in his final broadcast for us to reasonably speculate that he abruptly got the ax, perhaps even as late as last night.

A “knowledgeable official” at MSNBC told Howard Kurtz that the separation was “mutual.” But it’s hard to see how that squares with this, from Olbermann’s last words on Countdown last night:

“I think the same fantasy has popped into the head of everybody in my business who has ever been told what I have been told, that this is going to be the last edition of your show. You go directly to the scene from the movie ‘Network,’ complete with the pajamas, and the raincoat, and you go off on an existential, otherworldly journey of profundity and vision…

“When I resigned from ESPN 13 and a half years ago, I was literally given 30 seconds to say goodbye at the very end of my last edition of “Sports Center.” As God is my witness, in the commercial break just before the emotional moment, the producer got into my earpiece and he said, `uh, can you cut it down to 15 seconds, so we can get in this tennis result from Stuttgart? So I’m grateful that I have a little more time to sign off here.”

Between this and the shell-shocked look Olbermann had last night, it seems clear that

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19 COMMENTS

  1. fox news had Beck with a chain saw and a live rabbit and he’s STILL on TV????? WOW, Keith PLEASE come back.

  2. Keith was the only one I ever watched. Hey,Paul Ryan maybe you can get one of those phony Vouchers to shop around for some MEDICARE,what ‘d say .

  3. I started watching Jerry Nachman, Hardball, and Donahue back then because they were the ONLY station & (jouralists) aside from a quiet few in print media and ALL KINDS OF VOICES FROM Great Britain & Canada that were asking questions. While Faux and CNN posted banners (like March to War – (so did MSNBC) but at least they were arguing about the merits and predicted what would become QUAGMIRE 2 – the revisiting of War.

    No WMD, No legitimate rationale for invading, LIES and more LIES from Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Bush all so they could complete what they lobbied Bush Sr, Clinton, and Bush Jr from day one…. over throw of Saddam.

    Imagine what we could have spent those 2 Trillion on? Oh that’s right – we borrowed it all on China’s – U.S. Credit line How spectacular. Friends, bothers, fathers, and sons along with daughters, mothers, and grandchildren all used as pawns so CEO’s and companies can WAR PROFITEER.

    Please Faux Noise you won’t you ever be patriotic enough to call out the evil do’ers right here at home? Pretty please?

  4. Great Article.

    Keith from day one – advocated strongly for the powerless without a voice: immigrants­, gays, veterans, the disenfranc­hised from healthcare­, social security recipient, medicare recipients­…

    WE HAVE LOST A POWERFUL ELOQUENT VOICE!
    Keiths warmth and humor touched us as humans, his wonderful vocabulary respected our intelligen­ce (yes I needed to look up words on occasion). I would much rather be spoken to in language that is never dumbed down.

    NOW WE HAVE NO ONE TO SLICE THROUGH THE CONSTANT PROPAGANDA AND CALL OUT THE FACTS ON A DAILY BASIS.

    Propaganda won the day Keith left MSNBC; now we are moving toward a RIGHT WING IDIOTOCRACY! – no referee, no one to directly cross swords and call out the lies by citing fact.

  5. The first 2 letters of program stand for Micro Soft, one of the Wall Street wellfare bums who are not too proud to accept the people’s hard earned tax money. Then kill their livelyhood by shipping their jobs to 3rd world countries who do their dirty work for peanuts. the people of America should wake up and boycott these bastards by not buying their products. The governmet should tax the crap out of them untill they get enough and go to to those countries to live, just where they belong. But I guess that won’t happen, because the stupid republicans will support their destruction of the people, and lie about it to the poor stupid people who are stupid enough to keep voting these criminals back into office. the United States Of America will be a pile of rubble inside of 20 years because of these greedy bastard. This will only be averted if the people wake up vote against republican greed.

  6. The author of this blog really needs to learn how to write comprehensibly. Sheesh! I was interested in the topic, but this is little more than unintelligible blather.

  7. Keith Olberman might have been biased but he never lied. He backed his words woth facts. Why is it ok that we be subject to people like Beck & Limbaugh but K O is a blowhard. Might I mention that he brought awareness to the health care issue & help get several free clinics in different states he was more than a journalist. He cared and tried to make a difference for the common people not for the Corporations now the corps are shutting a voice down that stood for the common people Let’s see who else they shut down next. You, me, we will see.

  8. Two things. I don’t write comments that often, so I apologize for following what I understood to be standard protocol which is to imply that the author of the post is stupid and attack his English skills while at the same time conducting a master class on how to shit all over the English language.

    Secondly, Schmaengell, let us suppose what you say is correct ( debating the particulars will go nowhere) and KO’s leaves were necessary to deal with his father. Having a father who is currently deteriorating into paralysis with sudden onset parkinson’s going into cancer related surgery next week, perhaps I should be more compassionate and allow that under the circumstances, unwinding at a baseball game is not the worst thing to do in the middle of what must have been a period of great anguish for KO.

    Did the training / brainwashing I received in the GOP lab from Sean Hannity himself make any of the other behaviors I have suggested less clownish or any more appropriate for a professional journalist ?

  9. Nice distortion, Random Reader.

    And criticizing someone who was, in fact, on a leave of absence to tend to his father who was very ill indeed (and died, btw) is beyond reprehensible. We all need to unwind sometimes. Perhaps you’ve never had to care for someone with a long-term terminal illness or are just an uncaring prick. But that comment is way out of bounds.

    You’ve been well trained/brainwashed in fox newspeak. Well done.

  10. My hat to you random reader- the author. Hopefully myself and my fellow journalists get round to matriculating from senior college next fall…it’s obvious we have so much to learn…

  11. To describe Gawker as hustlers of cheap vitriol while referring to Keith Olbermann as a journalist demonstrates that the author had to forego learning the definitions of words like “context”, “objectivity”, “journalist”, “vitriol”, and “lynching” because he waited until the last minute to cram for his junior college remedial English exam.

    The author is right, however, in suggesting that Journalists ought to be concerned and will find it valuable to observe the situation closely if only to learn to avoid the following bad habits:

    Challenging your immediate superiors by saying that you wield more power in the organization than they do while indicating your contempt for them and the institution they represent and the company you work for.

    Making sure that none of your guests ever disagree with you and making sure to squelch out any remaining suspicion of objectivity by banning anyone who disagrees with you or dares to offer a differing opinion from communicating with you on twitter.

    Referring to figures in the public eye as Nazis, fascists, racists, and hypocrites while accusing those same public figures of cheapening the Holocaust when they use world war II terminology to describe regimes that have and do, in fact, engage in mass murder and maintain concentration camps.

    Taking a broadcast day off to go to a ball game and then saying that attending to your ailing father was what prevented you from keeping a normal work schedule.

    Demonstrating your priorities by consistently reminding your audience that what another media outlet with a far larger audience is an issue of earth shattering importance especially when it concerns the content being aired on that network during the time slot in which you happen to compete without the self-realization that you might seem petty.

    Doing all of the above while lamenting the uncivil tone of our national dialog without explaining how suggestions that people kill themselves and name calling are, in fact, part of your well-thought out campaign to reintroduce civility.

    Criticizing fellow network journalists while they are on the air without offering a meaningful argument as to why they are wrong and why your behavior is justified.

    Reading out loud from the works of a comic author as a regular part of a news broadcast because your task as a journalist who informs his audience by drawing attention to significant news of the day is not as important as reading humorous fiction aloud.

  12. Wingers and TeaBaggers never give up whining about KO and the other intellectuals in the MSNBC stable, do they? Sure looks like Faux News’s Blog Squad found this site right off!! Al and Al2 indeed!

  13. I read in Mediate it was office politics as GBShaw’s Eliza Doolittle would say that done him in.
    I will miss him. I’m currently reading his “Truth and Consequences” He writes like he talks.
    He does sound pompous, a blowhard but he’s passionate, caring, intelligent.
    How people feel regarding his opinions depend on their politics. I bet Al and Al2 are rightwing.

  14. Good riddance, far as I’m concerned. The guy was an opinionated blowhard who was usually on the wrong side of the issue. Maybe he’ll land in some backwater tv station where he belongs.

  15. I like watching Keith’s show it is very informative and is very straight forward unlike Fox News which many of you foolishly watch even though you know you are being lied to makes me think of the war in Iraq a war started basically on lies and was proven so yet we continue to fight there JUST DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE.

    I respect Keith’s journalism so much that I got hooked onto his show i was flipping through the channels a year and a half ago seeing what all the major news networks are talking about off course Fox news just made me switch the channel right away then same thing happened with CNN but not as swift as fox I then turned to MSNBC watched the whole episode of “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” and was immediately hooked not only can I see the true sense of journalism from this guy I can also see what he was bringing to the show was the Truth something foxnews is the opposite of.

    I am very disappointed with Keith’s decision cause hes one of the last few real journalists around that will tell it like it is much less so with Jon Stewart who although chooses the satirical route with his show yet he tell you the news without covering up the truth like foxnews yes foxnews. One thing that comes to mind that may be the reason for his sudden unfortunate departure might be the Gabrielle Gifford’s shooting and the not surprising post response from our very patriotic politicians. I couldn’t be more disgusted when Sarah Palin and the likes thereof acted like they had no accountability for what happened even though she proudly used terms like RELOAD! I can see why Keith might not want to be any part of such a corrupt and atrocious system of government where blame is passed onto each other instead of claiming accountability like Keith did and surprisingly John McCain. Although they are not directly responsible for the Arizona shooting they stood up and said something out of their hearts instead of their behinds like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, & Rush Limbaugh have been doing.

    I wish Keith all the best kind of like how i did the same with Dan Rather who was also a journalist I had huge respects for its a shame how we just keep sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss where the truth is very hard to come by its all up to Jon Stewart Now.

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