The sight of the Bill of Rights being crossed out with a red marker and then being flung to the back like a David Letterman Top 10 card might have been a bit over the top, but I gotta say it stirred a visceral reaction in me.
Worse, I tend to think he’s more right than wrong.
Did anyone else see this?
I channel surfed in towards the end of it, just as he was x-ing out the rights of the bill of rights. It turns out that the only right we will still have is the one that prohibits quartering troops.
What scares me is that I think Keith’s analysis is correct.
I only started watching Olbermann earlier this year (thanks to a reference to Countdown in a Dope post), and I liked him from the beginning. But in that short time I’ve become increasingly disappointed in him. He’s becoming more partisan and strident, and less objective and trustworthy. Although he is saying things in his editorials that need to be said, and I agree with him most of the time, in doing so he has weakened his journalistic credentials significantly, IMHO.
In his “special comments,” Olbermann has consciously modelled himself on Edward R. Murrow, to the extent of quoting him directly on occasion. But what he fails to realize is that Murrow had a much stronger journalistic background and made editorial comments only rarely, which made them that much more powerful and effective.
I’m troubled by the nearly ubiquitous merging of straight news with opinion in the media these days. It’s gotten to the point that many people have come to feel that all news must biased or slanted one way or the other. This has the effect of weakening public trust in all journalists and turning all public discourse into an us-versus-them debate.
Olbermann may feel his role is to provide a counterpart to the Rush Limbaughs, Bill O’Reillys, and Sean Hannitys of the world, but he can’t do that by being as journalistically sloppy as they are. The answer to the lies of the “other” side isn’t lies from “our” side. He has to be better than them, even if it sometimes means not being as flashy or provocative.
So I didn’t care for his “special report” on habeas corpus, because he made a joke out of a very serious issue. That piece would have been just fine on The Daily Show, but on a supposedly serious news show it was out of place. One reason the administration can get away with killing habeas corpus is that the average American doesn’t understand the writ and its historic importance. Olbermann could have provided a vital public service by treating seriously this most serious of issues. But he made a joke of it instead.
The result: people who already understood problem and think it’s a bad thing learned nothing; people who agree with the president haven’t been given any reason to change their views, and have one more reason not to take Olbermann seriously; and people who didn’t know anything about habeas corpus don’t know much more, and may have come away thinking it’s not that important. Bad move, Keith.
Has Keith actually made a factual error in his editorials/commentaries?
I loved it. Keith is my TV boyfriend.
The Countdown has always been a semi-humorous show, I’d say on average Olbermann cracks at least one joke per story. And they usually have a few bits that are purely for comedy rather then news value. There is indeed a need for serious discussions of the death of Habeus Corpus in this country, but I don’t think that’s what The Countdown is for.
Not that I’ve noticed, and I didn’t mean to imply that Olbermann is intentionally lying. But he frequently asks interview subjects very leading questions, along the lines of, “This latest revelation really proves that the Bush administration is lying, doesn’t it?” Most of the time, the interviewees follow his lead, although occasionally they don’t.
My point is not that he’s lying, but that the best way to counter O’Reilly et al is to do better journalism, not to match slant with blatant slant.
In the ten months or so I’ve been watching, the show has always had a mix of serious and light-hearted items, and often a little too much of the latter for my taste. But I think Keith sees himself as a serious journalist, not as MSNBC’s Jon Stewart, and I think he should work harder on building his serious cred. We know he can do the funny stuff, and I don’t mind him spending a few minutes on some silly clips he found on the Internets or the latest Brangelina nonsense (except for the fact that he seems not to like it either: “This is another story my producers are forcing me to report.”)
But at least half of the show is supposed to be taken seriously, and I think the habeas corpus bit should have been firmly in that camp, and not played for laughs. And he should realize that his editorials aren’t going to be taken seriously by anyone except fans and partisans–and therefore aren’t likely to have the effect I think he would like them to have–if he’s seen as being little more than a watered-down Jon Stewart.
Remember when Stewart went on Crossfire and made some very valid comments about how their style of “debate” was actually harming the country? He was saying something important that almost no one else was saying, but for a lot of people the take-away message of the incident was, Look, clown-boy is rude and thinks he can lecture the pundits. Silly clown-boy, go back to your comedy show and leave the serious stuff to the smart people.
I know what someone’s going to say: shortly after that Crossfire was cancelled and now Jon Stewart is a leading source of news for the under-25 crowd.
I’d go gay.
As a journalist, Olbermann makes a really good sportscaster. I don’t subject myself to the Limbaughs and O’Reillys of the world, I 'm not inclined to watch the liberal version either. The quality that Keith lacks that is crucial for an actual journalist to posses is objectivity. Olbermann is just another partisan shill, and I am sure that Murrow is spinning in his grave to be compared to this clown.
If that’s the only reasonable interpreation of whatever the latest revelation is, I don’t have a problem with that. If anything, most “news” programs err too far in the other direction, treating facts and nonsense as if they were two side with equal standing.
Not that I can remember any specific instance, but when he has, he’s corrected it.
So that already puts him head and shoulders above O’Reilly and Limbaugh. 
You and I almost agree, Dave, but where you’ve given up on Keith, but I still have hope. I think he is an intelligent and principled person who has a better grasp of how journalism (and responsible commentary) should be practised than his conservative counterparts. He just doesn’t always live up to those standards.
This is probaby due in part to the commercial pressure he is under. Whether they need to be said or not, his “special comments,” full of sound and thunder, raging against the administration, undoubtedly boost his ratings.
Again, I may not have use the best example. He often asks questions like Stephen Colbert’s, “George Bush: great president or greatest?” (But in the opposite direction, of course.) He can do this because he generally knows that his interview subjects are going to agree with his premises. It’s only very rarely that an interviewee rejects the expected answer and provides his own.
Which brings up another point about Keith that I hadn’t fully realized before: he rarely has conservatives on the show. Almost no one ever stands up for the administration’s view. Maybe they feel that there are enough people out there doing that already, or maybe no conservative wants to appear on Countdown. But I think Keith would show that, unlike O’Reilly and Hannity, you can be respectful of people with opposing views and have a real conversation with them, and it would add to his credibility.
Oh God, I hate partisan shills. Especially those hypocritical types who claim not to be partisan. I hate those waffley bastards.
Excuse me, Weirddave. I believe you’ve missed a crucial point here. In the habeas corpus piece, did Olbermann say anything that wasn’t completely true? In Guinastasia’s link, there’s a text transcript, so you can read it without having to watch or listen to Olbermann. Take your time, analyze the whole thing, and tell us the minute you catch him saying something that isn’t completely true. We’ll wait.
Being factually right and being a partisan shill aren’t mutually exclusive prospects. I’ve never seen Olberman say anything that wasn’t 100% correct (well, some metaphorical asides, but since they were tangental to the point he was making I’m willing to give him a pass). In fact, I’ve never seen him say anything I disagreed with at all. But he’s still a loudmouthed hack more interested in stirring shit up and entertaining the unwashed (left-leaning) masses than civil discourse.
I lost all respect for the man as a journalist when he showed scenes from the room 101 sequence of a film version of 1984 while he was talking about the Bush administration (I think, I may be misremembering the piece). That was unnecessary and a low-minded attempt to associate Bush with the fictional Big Brother.
I still like him as a guy that says the things I believe more loudly and more wittily than I can, but I’ll never confuse him with a journalist or a commentator I should take seriously.
I seldom watch his show, myself, and I don’t know if this piece is typical or not. The habeas corpus piece struck me as powerful stuff. Why are “serious journalists” ignoring the erosion of our rights?
I don’t know. But were they to take notice, crossing out amendments with a quip and tossing it over your shoulder like Letterman isn’t the way to go about it. It’s far too easy to write off as partisan fluff.
I actually think Jon Stewart is a better watchdog for the government, despite his work being 100% comedy, since he isn’t as antagonistic as Olberman comes off as in most of his monologues.
I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic, but Keith has never claimed to be non-partisan.
Yep. I know Keith hasn’t. Guess it was kind of a non-sequitor that just struck me at the time.