great interview with Olberman in Salon

[Hamlette]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/09/11/olbermann/

my favorite part:
Is there anyone over in corporate headquarters who's seeing what happens as you take this approach and saying, "Keep doing this, it's helping you"?

Oh, yeah. If there has been any negative reaction to it, it has been kept from me. In other words, they have the way you would want employers in this situation to approach it. They have been supportive. They have been interested in what they are supposed to be interested in on a corporate level, which is making money. More ratings, of course. More money. It's not a complicated solution. It's the reason that Fox owns Fox News Channel and, say, "Family Guy." Wherever you can make the money is what interests them and it's -- ironically, given the flaws in commercial broadcasting as opposed to some other models, such as commercial-free broadcasting -- it is one of the protections of our liberties that the people who are owning most of it are at bottom line interested only in making money, and whatever makes money is what they will go for. That's one of our great protections ... In fact, sometimes I have to turn to them and say, "No. I know you like this and I know you think this is going to do real well for you in the ratings, but just don't pull the gun out of the holster every 35 seconds." If anything, I have to calm them down, rather than the other way around.

(and more, plus a link to cable news ratings. Fox down, the other two up.)

[bleever]

1. KO is OK.

K&R.

[DianaForRussFeingold]

2. Thank You,I Really Love Keith Olberman, He Is The Very Best !

:hi: :applause:

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

3. And here is my favorite part:

"...Also, if you suddenly find yourself in a position, unintentionally, of being somewhat adversarial to the secretary of defense and the president of the United States, then there's some truth in the joke that I used last night. I've got bigger fish to fry at the moment. Harry Reid's reading part of my script into the Senate record. Arguing with Bill O'Reilly is a waste of valuable arguing time. ..."

[Hamlette]

5. I loved that too! Even went and read Reid's speech. n/t

[Laurab]

4. Thank you - good interview

I like this paragraph as well - particularly the "trained monkey" line:

"There is a public platform afforded to you. If you spend your entire time on it trying to bend the ordinary rules of news to encourage people to ask what's really going on, if you do that nonstop, it necessarily becomes an act. You really should have that weapon close to you, but you should keep it holstered as much as possible. If you don't have it, or you don't ever use it, you might as well be a trained monkey doing the news, which unfortunately is the case in a lot of places."

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

6. Me too! n/t