OK, I am now officially disgusted.

[Berry Cool]

Some blogger in New Orleans has decided that Keith is not sufficiently devoted to the progressive or liberal causes she holds dear.

Why? Because she read Howard Kurtz's slam job in the WaPo--and BELIEVED it. And even read things into it that were not there. Like, that he has no control over what stories are covered on his show, and that he writes less than half of it. She says these are questions that "should be asked," but then she supplies the answers herself. Incorrect ones, if we are to believe what he has actually said.

Oh, and apparently, she's decided he likes baseball way too much.

Thus, she has posted the following diatribe to warn us all away from him:

http://hellsmouthcafe.wordpress.com/2006/04/03/beware-of-false-gods/

Some juicy excerpts:

Nobody else who wants to have faith in Keith Olbermann seems to be catching on to what's really going on here. No one who interviews him asks about how much he has let his involvement in Countdown slip since taking up his daily moonlighting gig at ESPN Radio.

The questions that should be asked are: how much say do you have in what stories are covered on the show? and: how much of the writing is yours? When the answers are 'none' and 'less than half, and falling fast,' the followup question should be: Why?

Before this guy is canonized by the left, they need to remind themselves that 99% of television is an illusion. And that goes for news as well, particularly cable news. Mr. Olbermann has reduced himself to the role of 'talent,' reading stories chosen and largely written by other people off a teleprompter. He may agree with what he's reading, but it's not coming from him...

Keith's heart is in sports. He needs to go back there and stay there–permanently. And unless he can make Countdown into a three-hour-a-night, six-day-a-week program exclusively about baseball, this will come to pass, within a year at most. Count on it.

Progressives and those seeking honest, first-person criticism of the Bush administration and its policies need to get a clue: this guy is not your knight in shining armor. He's going to run from the battlefield at the first opportunity....

I say this with a heavy heart. But Keith Olbermann is a sheep in wolf's clothing. He's not holding up any banners for anybody but himself. Enjoy him while you still can, but keep in mind that what you're seeing is really just a not-so-great and not-so-powerful Oz who would much rather be watching and/or talking about baseball.

Let's go back to the transcript. This is what Keith said himself on C-SPAN's Q&A about how much of Countdown he writes:

It varies. I have written as much as 100 percent. I have literally written every word in a one-hour newscast when we have had people out sick or something. I have written everything from that -- the open I always write...And then there might be 6,000 words in the show. I try to keep it down below 3,000. I try to keep it below 50 percent, but I rarely succeed in that.

So, that equates to "less than half, and falling fast"?

And here's what he has to say about how much say he has about the show's content:

As much as I want, basically. It is -- I don’t know what happened, maybe I shouldn’t say this aloud or it will all stop, but for some reason after 25 years of professional broadcasting in which people have told me, no, no, you can’t do it that way, this is one where they come to me and they say, how shall we do it, Keith?

Sure doesn't sound like "none" to me.

Also, it appears she read WAY too much into the end of Kurtz's hatchet job article. When Keith said he would go back to sports if things got too hot, I think it's quite obvious that he meant that if he were no longer permitted to do his news show the way he wants, and he was FIRED because he refused to do it any other way, he would have sports to fall back on. What's wrong with that? Keith knows he has a "safe" career to go back to if he's not permitted to do what he wants in the news world. That GIVES him clout; it doesn't take it away. It means he can be LESS afraid of insisting on doing things his way, knowing that if he gets canned because of it, he will be welcomed and appreciated elsewhere.

I did not read it as him saying "You know what? The second someone tells me I can't be critical of the Bush administration anymore, I'm just going to quit and get a full-time job covering baseball, because that's what I really want to do anyway."

I mean, come on. We all know how much he loves baseball, and we have joked about how he loves to take time off and go catch a game, and some of us have complained a bit about how much time he's given the steroids thing on his show. But really--were the two weeks he spent at spring training evidence of a guy whose heart is not in covering the news? Why on earth would he have done TWO working vacations (given that he's gone on record before saying he has plenty of vacation time coming to him) if he didn't care about doing the news, and doing it his way?

This blogger reminded me of every DU'er I've seen who thinks that Keith is just another media clown who is either a) under GE's thumb and not really free to say what he wants to or b) a Johnny-come-lately jumping on the bandwagon and criticizing * only for the ratings, who believes he will skip town the second that criticizing * is no longer popular (or some other idiot comes into power). That we can't trust him because "he'd really rather do sports, and he spends way too much time covering baseball."

In other words, someone who has not only forgotten how KO has come out in favor of even unpopular positions in the past (again, I bring up the Ohio election fraud issue), but someone who wants KO to be what THEY want him to be. Rather than to be himself. And won't trust him unless he becomes it.

Me, I'd rather see him be himself. Himself, with all his flaws and foibles.

Maybe he's not really here to be our savior, the way we joke about ("help me, Olby-mann Keithobi"). But as long as he's on the air, saying what he's saying, then, dammit--people have someone intelligent and fun to listen to who questions the Powers That Be.

And how can that be bad, or wrong?

Why can we not enjoy it while it lasts?

And hope that it lasts a long, long time?

[RevCheesehead]

1. Don't you think it's possible she wants to be the next WPITW?

Or at the very least, the target of one of his blogs? :rofl:

Ya gotta laugh at someone who calls Keith "A sheep in wolf's clothing."
Like Blitzer knows anything about fashion. :eyes:

[gkhouston]

2. actually, I think it says a lot about her that

she's expecting a news anchor to carry banners for her causes. I had this weird idea that their job is to let us know what's happening in the world. I admire Keith for the truthful reporting he's doing and look foward hearing his program every night but sheesh, it's not like I'm a puppy at the pound waiting for him to come rescue me. :eyes:


btw, do you have to visit a Notary Public to become officially disgusted? Just wondering what the procedure is...

[Berry Cool]

3. It does say a lot, doesn't it?

Apparently she wants him to be willing to be nailed to a cross for the liberal/progressive cause. If he's not willing to be a martyr, she has no use for the man. No use at all.

Meanwhile, here are the rest of us, just happy that when we tune in his news show, we can get some truth.

Oh, and there is no need for a notary public to stamp your papers in order to be Officially Disgusted. Just say "I am officially disgusted with thee" three times and you're done.

[gkhouston]

4. do I have to

look into a mirrow while I'm doing that? Or click my ruby slippers? ;-)

[_q_]

5. She's got her fingers in her ears...

I attempted to post a comment on that blog entry, but she bravely censored it. Then she set up a straw man of me as a witless, drooling fanatic and heroically knocked that down.
http://hellsmouthcafe.wordpress.com/2006/04/09/223-days-after-katrina/
For the record, I didn't say what she says I said. I said something more or less as follows, recreated from memory:

I think it's perfectly perfect for KO to delegate a good deal of his work to his small, trusted staff, as long as they have a grasp of his style and sensibility. It's proper to empower the staff more as they gain experience and as the process of putting the show together matures. It shows more professionalism on his part to rely on them, not less.
I don't buy the "stories my producers are forcing me to do" thing for a second. If you don't get that he's tongue-in-cheek, then you're really not in that group of people who can really appreciate his work.
As for his heart being in sports, I don't think he's ever going to leave his love of sports behind, nor should he. I also don't think he's that small of a person, that he can't maintain an interest in other things, going forward or even back in his ESPN days. He's a brilliant individual with many interests.
"He's going to run from the battlefield at the first opportunity."
This really sounds like a Cox/O'Reilly talking point. KO is a flash in the pan; he's not relevant. Do you have evidence for your claims? Do you have an inside source at MSNBC? How well do you really know KO?

-q

[gkhouston]

6. hee. You interrupted her fantasy rant.

Telling, isn't it, that she couldn't handle your real remarks but had to invent arguments she was capable of attacking? She didn't want to have a conversation, she just wanted be tragically misunderstood and undeservedly betrayed by Yet Another Lesser Being. (All other beings in her world are lesser, by definition.)

I've always assumed that he's not actually forced to do those stories, it's more a matter of his recognizing that a large segment of the public has more interest in those stories than he does and Izzy and the others are telling him, "yes, this is hot right now, we really should cover this even if you think it's abhorrent". I suspect he does a lot of good-natured bitching about the whole thing -- the sort of things-you-love-to-hate give and take. Hey, you're not at work if you're not complaining. ;-)

I really don't see a problem with letting the staff select and write a lot of the material. He's made it clear that he has as much control as he wants, so he must be happy with the work they're doing.

I'm not sure where she gets off thinking he's some sort of traitor unless he stays chained to a news desk for the rest of his life. That's his job right now and he does it well but if he gets to the point where his heart isn't in it any more, I don't see anything wrong with going off to do something more to his liking. It's a free country, or at least it used to be.

[Berry Cool]

7. I just read the page q pointed to, and now I understand why

all this happened.

Call it 'Rina rage.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And in her eyes, THIS woman's whole city has been scorned.

If you espouse a generally liberal point of view on your TV show, and you have chosen not to devote enough of it to post-Katrina for her liking...well then, in her eyes, you have betrayed both her and her city. Woe be unto you.

She has a grudge against Keith because (according to her) he didn't cover Mardi Gras enough, and did it inaccurately, and he's not spending enough time on post-Katrina stories now. (As if he'll never do another post-Katrina story in the future. She assumes a lot. A hell of a lot.)

She sees that he spent a couple of weeks at spring training, that he is (understandably, given that it's his favorite sport) captivated by the steroid issue...and she immediately jumps to the conclusion that his interest in her city and its fate is utterly at an end.

And she simply can't forgive him for that. She's judged him, juried him and sentenced him.

And now, like one of the women with a bad ex-boyfriend on DontDateHimGirl.com, she feels she must perform a public service by warning us all away from him.

"Beware. He betrayed me. He was unfaithful to me, to my city, to its story. He had the nerve to not cover it as much as I think he should have--and to cover other subjects as well. And to cover subjects that interested him more.

"It's only a matter of time before he cheats on you, too, and neglects what YOU think matters. Because you see, all that matters to him is baseball. Baseball, baseball and more baseball. That's what matters to him. YOU don't.

"So don't be fooled by a handsome face, girlfriend. This loser is going to let you down and he's going to let you down hard."

And then she has the nerve to refer to "the obsessed fanatics at Olbermann.org"? (Where does Olbermann.org have any fanatics?)

"I'm sorry–-but not surprised–-that the drooling, Keith-is-sooo-cute groupies can't look at that fact objectively." Oh. Nice. So now she is the only person in the room with any intelligence. People who happen to find a man attractive can't possibly be objective about anything he says; they must be mere drooling groupies.

"I'm glad you agree with me that he's mostly just talent now. And that he'd much rather be doing sports"? What a way to twist someone's words. And then she has the nerve to say she never gets into battles of wits with unarmed opponents! Better that she should say "I never get into battles with people...unless they have some straw I can fashion into a straw man to knock down so I can win."

The Army Corps of Engineers? Maybe even Harry Shearer is being too quick to assume nobody cares what they have to say. Yeah, I'd like to see Keith cover this. But I have a tendency not to jump to the conclusion that he's going to fail to cover a story at all simply because he didn't cover it the day it came out. Or even three days. Sometimes, journalists choose to devote more in-depth exploration and reporting to a large issue. A single news story doesn't always do the job and can easily be lost in the shuffle.

I find the comments people posted to Shearer's column interesting. One poster said "Apathy is often the result of sensory overload." Which is sad, but true. Harry's reply? Something to the effect of "Oh, yeah, so Katie and Meredith are more important than this?" *sigh* No, they are not, but given that one of them is going to be at least reading news for some time to come, there might be some importance to the fact that she has been chosen to do so. Even if only as a reflection on what the media value, and whether or not those values make sense.

Do the media sometimes have strange ways of choosing what to focus on? Yes. Do they sometimes go overboard on the trivial while overlooking the important? Yes. But not always. And not all the media.

I've already spoken my piece. I think the steroid issue matters--in a larger sense--because truth and honesty matter, even in sports and games. And I can't hate Keith for caring or for devoting time to this issue. I just can't. This is the way we all are with things that matter to us and are particularly dear to our hearts.

I imagine that if Keith had ever had a wife who had been on life support, and had to make the painful decision to let her go, he might have devoted as much time to the Michael Schiavo story as he is now to baseball. Because he'd be even more easily able to relate to it and it would strike even closer to home. Would that be wrong of him? Would it be wrong of him to spend more time on end-of-life issues and how the government can interfere with personal decisions about them than on post-Katrina rebuilding? Or is his current "pet interest" being ridiculed and trivialized merely because it has to do with his favorite sport...and we all know "sports aren't really important"?

I can't hate this Sally, either, for caring so much about what happens to her city. It matters. I can't even blame her for feeling that the media in general just don't care "enough." I just wish she hadn't allowed it to make her so bitter that she can't even see that she's not discussing issues fairly with people anymore, and has resorted to twisting their statements and calling them names in order to win her point. That's not fair fighting. It's just not.

If you're going to be bitter, be constructively bitter. Not destructively.

It's also not fair to expect ANY person who covers and reports news--be it Keith or anyone else--to always report on only the issues and the stories that you, personally, think matter. Especially at the national or world level. The country is too big. The world is too big. Yes, some stories are bigger than others. But lots of stories out there matter.

The person who thinks that the news should focus more on post-Katrina rebuilding has no more moral force than the person who thinks it should focus more on cancer research, or education for poor children, or punishing corporate crooks, or any number of other issues that matter. All of that stuff is floating around out there, and each day news people sift through it and decides what deserves coverage today and what they will have to skip, what will be played up big and what will be played down. That's just the facts of journalism. There isn't space and time to give a fair amount of coverage to it all. There's always going to be a problem YOU live with and face every day, that "nobody" else seems to care about--be that Katrina, or the fact that you just lost your job, or that your child went to Iraq and didn't come back.

Will journalistic choices not always be to your liking? Sure. And you have a right to say so. But if you've decided one of those sources is not to your liking anymore--not that you feel it is dispensing outright lies or mistruths, but that it simply isn't covering the news the way you would like to see it covered-you can always switch to some other source. There's no need to attempt to recruit other droves of people to agree with you to do the same.

And there is no need to act like a scorned lover about it.

Because when you do, you sure don't come across as being more intelligent or emotionally impartial than the very "drooling groupies" you mock so sarcastically.

[crispini]

8. Damn, girl, quite a rant! You go!

The OP -- not here, the blog-- well, that's just sad, that's all. :D