David Zurawik takes another swipe at Keith, hours after Reliable Sources

[highplainsdem]

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2011/01/a_hot_debate_and_final_thought.html

This loser can't shut up about Keith. Supposedly he waited till now to "to try and find something positive to say" because he "wanted to be fair" -- yeah, this "fair":

But here is the bottom line: After two days, I cannot think of anything positive to say about Olbermann. He was/is a destructive and dangerous force in the conversation of American politics.

He also says at the end of the blog that the reason he started focusing more on Olbermann, starting two years ago, was "the way President Barack Obama and his White House played Olbermann -- and the way he, in his narcissism and self-importance, allowed himself to be played."

I'll be checking for anything else Zurawik has written on that subject. But first I want to point out that Zurawik apparently is lying in this blog when he says -- after giving the background that Olbermann criticized him in May 2009 for a Reliable Sources appearance when he said MSNBC is dangerous -- that he "included Bill O'Reilly, of Fox News, in that complaint at the time."

Zurawik had focused specifically on MSNBC in his comments in the video of that May 2009 appearance, which I'd seen on the Crooks and Liars website. So I looked for the CNN transcript:

http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0905/24/rs.01.html

I've looked over Zurawik's comments there several times, and there's no criticism of O'Reilly. Where he's not making general comments, he's specifically criticizing MSNBC and he's particularly nasty about Olbermann. This comment in particular, from that May 2009 show:

Howie, they're speaking for a visceral response. And honestly -- I don't want to overstate this, Howie, and you know from time to time I do -- risk that. But it's really that path lies fascism.

I mean, what we need as a democracy is reliable information. This is the opposite of it.

And by the way, that clip of Olbermann just really, I think, encapsulates it. This is a bizarro world or cartoon version of Edward R. Murrow with the cadence and this arch rhetoric and all this, but he is saying madman stuff.

Nothing at all on that show, from Zurawik, attacking O'Reilly. But Zurawik is apparently counting on no one being able to fact-check him.

Fact-check him, and point out when he deserves to be listed as one of the worst persons in the world.

[highplainsdem]

1. Link to the earlier topic on Reliable Sources, with info on Zurawik in the later replies:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x255354

[highplainsdem]

2. Some of Zurawik's earlier blogs attacking MSNBC and praising Fox:

February 26, 2009:

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2009/02/cramer_matthews_town_hall_bair.html

First of all, I thought that MSNBC management had banished Matthews and Keith Olbermann from the anchor desk during grown-up political events after the sophomoric antics of the two during the national political conventions. Apparently, that was just more PR lies from the worst cable news managers in television. (And I say that with all due respect to the men and women running the Fox News Channel).

July 1, 2009:

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2009/07/fox_news_obama_ratings_dominan.html

I believe this current ratings surge is related to the relentless watch Fox News is keeping on the White House. Viewers are responding to Fox as the cable channel speaking most effectively to citizen questions and concerns about the breakneck pace at which American life is being tranformed. Meanwhile, few hard questions are being asked of the administration elsewhere on television.

September 28, 2010

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2010/09/post_6.html

I was in the middle of it, a little lonely at first as one of the only mainstream journalists denouncing what the White House was up to.

-snip-

It got nasty before journalists at other cable channels and networks who understood the principle stepped up and spoke out against an executive branch trying to bully and browbeat a competitor.

-snip-

UPDATE: 8 p.m. Check out this report of White House spokesperson praising MSNBC and Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow if you don't think the White House is on the attack against Fox again just as it was last fall -- while shutting its eyes to MSNBC committing the same sins of bias of which it accuses Fox News. This sure looks like playing to the base to me. The White House spokesman says the president believes Olbermann provides an "invaluable service" to the country. He helps keep government "honest." And this, while the president is saying Fox News is "destructive" to the country.

FWIW, he also has a column slamming Hannity for his Tea Party rally in Atlanta.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2009/04/hannity_atlanta_tea_party.html

But even while criticizing Hannity for that event, he praises him and Fox News: "one of the leading journalistic institutions in the country lets one of its most charismatic and ideologically-charged personalities help stage one of those rallies..."


So, overall, he seems to praise Fox and criticize MSNBC, with Olbermann a particular target.

UNTIL Olbermann did a special comment critical of President Obama in December. Zurawik liked that:

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2010/12/olbermann_finally_gets_the_hyp.html

I know, Olbermann is the last guy regular readers of this blog might think I would highlight at a time like this. But I really admire the passion he brings to this commentary -- and this is the level of intensity at which the press desperately needs to engage the political process these days. Please check it out, and let me know what you think.

(And if you can't take 12 minutes, start at 7:45 and pay close attention to what Olbermann says about how a White House official reacted to him when he didn't buy the hype the administration was trying to pump into the public discourse through him.)

Notice how this contradicts what he said about Olbermann in his most recent column.

[randr]

3. Proof Keith struck a nerve

Zurawik is the kind of person who loves to kick people when they are down. Assuming Keith's departure to be a cause to celebrate he is taking his best shot at his 15 minutes.

[ellenfl]

4. zurawik is an obvious rightie. eom