When I first saw Keith Olbermann, I was excited to finally see someone offering a spirited rebuke of Bush administration horseshit that had previously been glad-handed or simply ignored by the vast majority of the press. Then I began to notice a disappointing sameness to all the ranting, and the more he scolded and bloviated, the less effective it became. Rather than any meaningful sort of balance, it only meant that “our side” now had a showboating clown whose manufactured persona begged not to be taken seriously. I began to regret the existence of Keith Olbermann, and made a tacit vow not to give him any more of my attention.
Yeah, and the first article I read about it on my news aggregator had a specific quote from NBC disclaiming the Comcast merger had anything to do about it.
At the same time, I’ve heard of big names in mergers in other fields being let go, and they usually know about it before the merger is complete. It will go down with their current company basically saying, “just letting you know, when this deal is complete your position will be filled by someone else and you will not be retained by the new company.” So no, the purchasing company hadn’t “fired” them, but they let it be known they were going to fire the person, and that will sometimes be enough to just prompt the original company to write up the person’s severance package and start moving them out.
The Media Decoder blog on the New York Times website says that NBC has been negotiating this for weeks. It also says that Olbermann is prohibited from working elsewhere on television for some unspecified time, or from commenting on the deal. It says the deal is kind of similar to the one that NBC made with Conan O’Brien.
I know Conan couldn’t work for a specified period of time, but this business of not talking about the deal seems kind of odd to me. They didn’t have the same restriction on Conan did they?
From what I understand, Conan couldn’t go off and trash NBC, but other than that he was fairly free to talk about what had happened. He did a 60 minutes interview not long after getting let go.
Hmm, I guess I just remembered it happening sooner. Still three and a half months isn’t that long a time. And I seem to remember both he and Jay were talking pretty openly about the debacle even as it was happening.
He never gave scores any more, I think that’s the whole problem. I mean he was #1 on a #4 network. Edward R Olbermann and his weekly “SIR !” speeches got old so quickly. He and Beck really need to watch Network. Of course each would sat the other was the star. As near as I can estimate, in a country of 300 million, 29832 million do not watch either. However,they both think they are right and just and speak for the people. They both believe the other side has some conspiracy against the USA. Beck blames Soros, Olbermann blames the Koch Brothers. It’s nice to have rich evil villains. KO was appalled 24/7 about something . GB is a cult member who thinks he’s a Christian. What if MSNBC goes to the right? Will Fox then go left?
Keith Olbermann has two middle names, and they’re both “Smarm.”
He doesn’t choose words to facilitate discourse, he chooses words so that us commoners can appreciate his vocabulary. I don’t know much about the industry, but I’d bet my left pinky toe’s nail that much of his dialog comes from writer’s and teleprompters, charged with constructing his reputation. But there is no doubt he reads well and I suspect that’s what’s sustained him.
As a conservative it was nice that the most visible liberal on TV was well known for being an arrogant jerk. His self satisfied pomposity made the videos attacking him even funnier. And on election night it was reassuring to have him out there driving independents rightward. MSNBC’s gain is our loss.