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