Nu uhhh!
They’re fair and balanced. I read it myself on the internets.
It would say as much about their integrity as it does about Olbermann’s. For the record, according to Open Secrets, Glenn Beck has never given money to a political candidate. Rush Limbaugh has made three such donations - to Senator Kit Bond in 1991, to George H. W. Bush in 1992, and to Oliver North in 1994. Does he technically work for anybody at this point or is he self employed?
I agree with that.
My understanding of the reason behind the rule is that donations give the appearance of bias. However, Keith Olbermann has never hidden his bias. He loves liberals and the Democratic Party and hates conservatives and the Republican Party. People turn in to see and hear his bias, just as people turn in to hear Rush’s bias.
He should have gotten fined (money to go to a neutral charity like Heifer Project or Operation Smile or something similar). He should make an on air apology for breaking the rules, where he explains what he did and why it was wrong - no half-assed apology. Admit his bias for liberals and vow to disclose any further donations. A one month only suspension, max. Then life is good in Olbermann land.
This would have allowed NBC to show that they enforce their rules unilaterally, which is what the suspension is supposed to show conservatives. It would also have gotten Olbermann back on the air, in a set amount of time, to keep making money for them.
While I fully understand what NBC was trying to do with the suspension, making it indefinite is foolish in my view.
That is an awful lot of Foxes. (are they good looking?)
Why does it matter if someone else does it? Does it suddenly make it right?
Can’t speak for other papers, but the Wall Street Journal does indeed impose a lot of restrictions on how its journalists can invest their money or play the market.
Commentary like this makes me chuckle all day long.
Pony up the cites, then. Olbermann is a partsan and a demagogue, and the comparison to O’Reilly may be fair, but the comparison to Beck is not. Even O’Reilly does not deserve to be compared to Beck. If you disagree, please cite examples of Olbermann actually making things up or spinning crazy conspiracy theories.
Bottom line appears to be that he violated MSNBC policy. OTOH, he’s not really a reporter, if he ever was; he’s a commentator, and I don’t think anyone is unclear on where his political sympathies lie. From that standpoint, it would be surprising to me only if he had been found donating to Republican causes. In my view, he’s a piss-poor journalist, frankly; more than the other MSNBC pundits I’ve seen, he will feature stories that fit his narrative without apparently doing much in the way of fact-checking , and at least once I’ve seen him splice together statements by a political figure to basically construct a fake interview in which the “answers” were actually responses to something completly different than what Olbermann “asked”. OK, it was done as a bit of a joke, but that sort of thing in straight journalism would be right out.
I personally don’t care for his relentless name-calling, voice-imitating, sneering, and spin on the subjects he discusses any more than I care for that of the FOX shouters. I frankly wish they’d all go away. I guess I’m saying I can’t work up much sympathy for him.
Perhaps you can identify some (or even one) of the conspiracy theories Olbermann has pushed? Obviously, he’s heavily biased to the left, but he’s not even close to Glenn Beck’s asylum-escapee act.
It would be interesting. It’s right there in that bit you quoted.
As Eric Davidson, the Governor of Wentworth Detention Center on the great Australian Soap Opera, Prisoner (Prisoner: Cell Block H) once said
This seem to be the case here. He need not only to be unbiased but to always be seen to be unbiased
You make me laugh. Hilarious.
Prove me wrong.
Say you’re a network trying to get people to watch your news show or a publisher trying to get them to read your paper. Why would you want to undercut your own raison d’etre by allowing your journalists to give money to the people who they are covering? How would you expect your viewers to trust their reporting? Would you watch a news show if it turned out the host agreed to give money to the campaigns of candidates who agreed to be interviewed?
Many news organizations have rules like that, too. I don’t have a problem with it. I don’t think this the biggest problem in journalism - employing “insider commentators” who are openly shilling for political parties, countries, the stock market, etc., is worse than employing people with biases who are at least trying to make an objective presentation of the news - but it’s a real problem. And it’s not a rights issue, either. If you don’t want any restrictions placed on your ability to participate in politics, don’t work in journalism.
I think Shep Smith is the “news” department. The rest is commentary, AFAICT.
As for Olbermann, I guess he broke the rules and out he goes. I never watched his show, but MSNBC is my go-to cable news channel, and it was his blabbering on election night that sent me over to FOX. I couldn’t take listening to him for more than 30 secondsA
I’m just surprised to hear him considered a journalist. If he’s a journalist in the tradition of objective journalism, he’s a miserable, ridiculous failure. But he’s not at all a part of that tradition, as far as I can tell: he’s part of a different tradition.
In my opinion, it totally makes sense for NBC to parse out who the partisans are and who they aren’t–not just for this rule, but for all kinds of behavior. If a supposedly objective journalist writes a book that excoriated an entire political party, I’d see a problem–but this is par for the course for modern-day pundits. They’re a different creature from journalists.
I’m not super-familiar with Juan Williams, for example, except from his NPR commentary, but I always got the impression we was in the supposed-to-be-objective camp. I never got that impression about Olbermann, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Colmes, or any of their ilk.
Just came in to say, Keith Olbermann is nothing like Glen Beck. He really isn’t. His Special Comments, especially the ones on Gay Marriage and the “Ground Zero mosque” are important for cutting through the bull and spreading some compassion. His special comment on the us healthcare system and his father’s death is also important to see.
Really like Keith, sometimes I find him a bit ott but not in a dangerous perpetuator of crazy way.
Well, there was that time he got all pissed off and called Twitter the worst person in the world - never mind that Twitter isn’t a person. He was doing this because there was a Keith Olbermann on Twitter tweeting away, and that made him paranoid.
Turned out it was his own staff, and a corporate Twitter account - they were just trying to build up his brand.
Like I said earlier if he violated his contract then that is between him and MSNBC.
As long as a journalist discloses conceivable conflicts of interest I have no problem with them donating or investing or whatever.
If they keep it to themselves I can see how it could be a real problem. Hence it is understandable for MSNBC to have this in their contracts.
This is the best you can do? I was asking for lies and crazy conspiracy theories, not tongue in cheek condemnations of Twitter accounts.
It matters in that there is this constant false equivalency from the right regarding FOX and MSNBC. If MSNBC does what I think is the right thing in suspending one of its stars for what potentially would be a detriment to unbiased reporting, it would be nice to know if that other “news” network has similar scruples.