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19 Nov 2010 22:14

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Politics: Joe Scarborough gets Olbermann treatment; world yawns

  • three number of candidates Keith Olbermann donated to, which led to his recent two-day suspension
  • eight number of candidates Joe Scarborough donated to; he’ll also get suspended for two days source
  • » Standards and stuff: It’s probably good to note that this double-standard between MSNBC and Fox remains bizarre. Fox News hosts (most notably Sarah Palin, who regularly endorses candidates and runs her own political action committee) don’t get treated this way. Honestly, we think that MSNBC has to loosen their standards for their political commentators. This is going to eventually come to a head in a more public way than either of these incidents. Know why we know this? Because Joe Scarborough is considering running on a presidential ticket with Michael Bloomberg in 2012. You think this crosses a line? What if that happens, guys?
Posted by Ernie Smith • 3 Comments • Permalink

12 Nov 2010 22:17

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Politics: Keith Olbermann, Pat Sajak have war of words, vowels, consonants

  • It’s not often we have Pat Sajak on the blog twice in a week – he’s a nice guy and all, but we’re not regular watchers of “Wheel of Fortune” by a long shot. But this clip right here is interesting for a number of reasons. First, it’s one of Keith Olbermann’s first network television appearances, and he’s on Pat Sajak’s, lost, lamented talk show with his ‘stache talking about sports. Second, Sajak (a conservative) pulled the clip out of the vault, apologizing for being the first to give Keith a wide audience. Keith, however, denies this, claiming that he had been on CNN years earlier, and had been the subject of segments on The Today Show and the CBS Evening News before that. Finally, no matter what happened, this clip is great. Keith was really funny back in the day, even though he was more wacky newscaster than second coming of Edward R. Murrow. (Pat Sajak’s show did give Rush Limbaugh his first wide audience on television.) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Nov 2010 21:51

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Politics: Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” return, complete with funny open

  • The audible buzzing at the beginning of this clip we imagine was a side effect of the guy taping the video, but it makes the effect of Keith coming back even funnier. It wasn’t a PR stunt, kids, but it sure worked like one, didn’t it? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Nov 2010 21:07

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Politics: Posted without comment: Keith Olbermann’s open letter to you guys

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Nov 2010 09:17

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Politics: MSNBC limits Keith Olbermann’s suspension to two shows

  • 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.
  • MSNBC president Phil Griffin • Explaining how he’s decided to keep Keith Olbermann’s suspension really freaking short. While we’re happy about it, it’s like you gave your best player a two-game suspension for arguing with the ref. The fact of the matter is, we didn’t expect it to be so short, since you did it in the first place. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Nov 2010 22:00

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Politics: Max Headroom: Keith Olbermann’s incredibly busy week

  • The week in Olbermann Keith Olbermann has had a pretty busy week. It started with him ripping Jon Stewart while kneeling to him simultaneously. It ended with him getting suspended and getting Bill Kristol of all people defending him. This is prime territory of two media sources: Howard Kurtz and Mediaite. Both are covered here.
  • Countdown’s quick word “We know you are all looking forward to Keith’s return, and so are we.” We can imagine how weird it must be for Olbermann and the network that Olbermann revitalized to be going through with this. MSNBC sounds like Courtney Cox trying to be diplomatic about her separation from David Arquette.
  • So, to be clear … Eric Cantor, the likely new House Majority Leader, showed up on “Fox News Sunday” today, and was thrown a question on whether he’d allow a government shutdown on Obama’s watch, like in 1995. Notice how he didn’t say no, and suggested it would be Obama’s fault if it happened.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Nov 2010 21:27

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Politics: Keith Olbermann breaks silence via Twitter; happy for support

  • Atta boy Keith. We don’t think what you did was particularly smart, but we think MSNBC overreacted. Glad to see you keeping up your spirits. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

05 Nov 2010 20:14

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Politics: Why MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann decision was a really bad idea

  • Keith Olbermann stepped in it when he donated to a political candidate. What happened next, though, was a really bad precedent for MSNBC that’ll prove more controversial than Olbermann’s original move was. While we don’t think Keith should’ve been donating to candidates immediately after talking to them on TV, we also think the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. It also opens NBC Universal up to double standards, especially if Gawker’s right, and MSNBC doesn’t actually have the standards that NBC News does. Some other points to come out of this whole mess:
  • one Even William Kristol, a conservative commentator who has no reason to support the ideologically opposed Olbermann, had his back, which was really nice of him.
  • two Salon offers up another relevant point: If CNBC were held to the same standards as Olbermann, most of their staff would have to be suspended. Oy vey. source
  • » Correction: An earlier version of this post noted The Nation’s Washington Editor, Chris L. Hayes, no longer doing a replacement MSNBC show because of campaign contributions of his own. This was based on a still-online Wall Street Journal article. Hayes himself denied the allegations: “OK: I’m not filling in on Countdown tonight because I didn’t feel comfortable doing it given the circumstances. My not hosting tonight has *nothing* to do with several donations I made to two friends *before* I ever signed an MSNBC contract.” Thanks to Ilya Gerner and Susan Pruden for tipping us off to this. (And for reading!)
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Nov 2010 14:01

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Politics: MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann suspended for campaign donations

  • I became aware of Keith’s political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay.
  • MSNBC President Phil Griffin • Announcing that Keith Olbermann has been suspended for donating to three political campaigns, one of which happened immediately after he interviewed the candidate (Raul Grijalva of Arizona) on the show. While Olbermann noted that he “did not privately or publicly encourage anyone else to donate to these campaigns, nor to any others in this election or any previous ones, nor have I previously donated to any political campaign at any level,” clearly that wasn’t enough for MSNBC. On Tumblr, me and Mark Coatney (formerly of Newsweek, now of Tumblr) had a little bit of a debate on all this, and while I didn’t come on Keith’s side here for ethical reasons, I honestly thought he was untouchable (and that it wasn’t bad enough to force MSNBC’s hand). Guess not. The mighty fall, too. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Nov 2010 22:44

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Politics: Keith Olbermann stops “Worst Person in the World” segment (for now)

  • Well, that was unexpected. While criticizing the “Rally To Restore Sanity,” Keith Olbermann actually bent to it a little bit. He’s taking a break from the most well-known segment of “Countdown,” the “Worst Person in the World” segment, which (hilariously enough) was created in an attempt to defend Tucker “mining Journolist for traffic” Carlson. Is this temporary? Is it a pre-election stunt? Does it matter? Who cares! It’s Keith, admitting Jon Stewart’s rally got to him while at the same time saying it didn’t really get to him. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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