Olbermann - a casualty of "civility?"

[Bgno64]

http://blogs.lancasteronline.com/smartremarks/2011/01/21/olbermann-leaves-msnbc/">Smart Remarks:

Now, Olbermann has the well-publicized tiff with MSNBC, when he was suspended for those campaign donations.

Nevermind the fact that half the staff at Fox News are candidates or will be candidates for public offices themselves. No, what Olbermann did was deemed a cardinal sin - but I also wondered if there was more too it than all that.

And indeed, I wonder to what extent that tiff had to do with the impending Comcast deal.

Comcast is occasionally accused of either discriminating against Democrats or conspiring against conservatives. I suspect actually they conspire against those who might impede their profitability and ability to expand their interests.

Conservatives are generally not going to stand against that sort of thing. Liberals - if they’ve got their heads screwed on straight - will.

Which is to say that maybe Olbermann gave more contributions to Democratic politicians. Maybe there’s something personal about it. Maybe Comcast has its own reasons for wanting him gone.

Or maybe he’s simply a casualty of the new civility, as the AP sort of alludes to:

He was particularly critical of Fox News Channel and his direct competitor, Bill O’Reilly, frequently naming him his “Worst Person in the World” in a segment popular with his fans. Bosses at NBC had discussed trying to keep the tone of the vitriol down.

Emphasis added.

Olbermann will land on his feet. I’ve never been a huge fan - I’ve never actually watched a whole show - but he has a following, and he helped prove that there’s a market for strident liberalism just as there has been a market for strident conservatism. Not as big a one, not by a long shot; and perhaps MSNBC/Comcast simply wants to “move to the middle.”

After all, that’s what a profitable organization and an organization bent on remaining profitable would do, right?

[onpatrol98]

1. Money in the middle...

I'm not sure the money is in the middle...CNN is still trying to find the middle.

[OHdem10]

2. Move to the Middle Right???+

[Bgno64]

3. Absolutely

...because as any winger will tell you, this is a center-right country...

And, as noted - conservatives in general won't stand in the way of Comcast further consolidating/increasing its power

[Moostache]

4. Fuck Profits.

I am so sick to death of our entire twisted culture's manic, slavish devotion to the profit margin that I could spit bile for decades to come. Olbermann's show was attractive to me as a viewer precisely because he made great hay out of pointing out the duplicitous nature of today's politicians - Dem or Rep.

This is a power play by a corporation and nothing less. The PTB do not like having the populace gaining access to unvarnished facts or non-approved spin. When someone proves that they are beyond the control structures, then they have to go down...which makes me wonder, how great would a show on CNN with Spitzer and Olbermann be? Must See TV for real in my eyes... Bring in Feingold and Grayson as Senate and House correspondents respectively and give Fox hell every night! I would watch THAT show religiously!

I will NEVER buy anything from any advertiser on MSNBC from this point forward. I do not care if it forces Maddow and Schultz off the air sooner...cable TV news just got further into the muck and the sooner we liberate ALL the viewers from that quagmire, the better off we will be in the end.

Rachel, Ed....good luck. I still love your shows; but, you now work for an employer beneath contempt, and as such, I will no longer be supporting your shows on said employer's network. I will watch clips online and I will read reposted blogs or listen to radio appearances, but I am finished with MSNBC and everything that vomit onto the air in between weekend prison show marathons.

[BobbyBoring]

14. Agreed

Let MSNBC KNOW you will not patronize their sponsors. Let their sponsors know as well. We do have some power IF we exercise it~

[jillan]

5. Eh - this is just some blogger's opinion. Nobody knows the truth yet.

[PatrynXX]

6. So..... Keith Reports some want Giffords out or to resign and he's fired the next day.

Ouch. I'm not sure how many times NBC want's to look worse than fox. Guess I'll have to rely on the huffington post for news. So I have klonosapam (sp) for panic attacks and this set one off. Thanks MSNBCFUCKYOUFOX . SHall I assume them. only John McCain is left for acting civil. Thanks John Stewart....

[Paka]

7. Moving to the middle means...

Rachel is next.

Living outside the US, I watch them on line, so I don't know who their TV sponsors are. I turn off the on line sponsors between segments,and don't use any of the products anyway, so I can't vow to boycott, except in spirit only. :toast:

[Enthusiast]

8. I am a huge fan and I couldn't

be more disappointed.

[noel711]

9. MSNBC is going 'belly up...'

Keith was THE reason we got hooked into the network,
much of what it broadcasts is pig swill.

But watch... those with integrity will find other offers:

Rachel can go back to radio.. but I see bigger things for her.

Laurence O'Donnell will end up at CNN, he's a 'team player,' (gag!)

Ed will go back to North Dakota, and take on the Tea Party in the Northern midwest.

Chris will end up hosting "Meet the Press" because David Gregory is a wuss.

And the 'news' people will keep on stumbling.

As for "Morning Joe"? Watch that to be the centerpiece
until the network goes off air in about a year.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. I think he took a hit for us.

[Anna Marie]

11. "Civility" is fake

Civility these days = being silent or politely respectful of someone's "right to post gun targets" on a voting district, or Beck's/Limbaugh's "right to inflame racial hatred" day after day. In other words, civility the CNN way. Olbermann was THE strong voice against this kind of outrage. He spoke for true civility; no, he fought for it. I have seen Rachel, Matthews, Ed do the same... but KO did it with the most style, grace, and consistency. Keith Olbermann in fact has been the voice of civility exactly because it fought for it without compromise.

[Bluenorthwest]

12. Ok. just for fun.

I've thought for sometime now that KO was feeling itchy of foot, somewhat constricted, and was remaining in place for reasons of talent cultivation, which is to say, with others in mind. I've thought that if I were him, I'd be shot out on the format by now, sick of playing in the minors, and pining away for a fresh field, broadcast network and subscription cable would each look sexy as hell to me for different reasons, and I'd be pacing around NYC winters thinking about how fun it is to be on Bill Maher's show, the one Bill got after all his fears came true and he got fired, the one that pays more, has more viewers and on which one is allowed to speak freely. I've been assuming that all those days off he's been taking are indicative of all of that. It is possible, my friends, to have your dream job, one the world sees as success, and still be sick and tired of it, ready to move on, and that is just the fact.
Cable News is a tiny niche market. I know it is all very important to DUers, but the whole of the cable news audience can fit into Katie Couric's limo.
So if I were KO, I'd personally not be floating from doing well in a market where I'm second to my competition who in turns loses to cartoon reruns. Not only is cable never number one, being number one in cable news does not even make you number one on cable in your own hour.
But that's me.

[kaygore]

13. I hope that KO is going on to much bigger things!

[Bgno64]

15. maybe

But I'm more concerned about the loss of a strident liberal voice on cable news at a time when strident right-wing voices pointedly are NOT being reined in; and we edge closer to an era where liberalism is simply written out of the national conversation. If Comcast ultimately decides it wants its network to be more "centrist" or "moderate," whatever the hell that means - you'll have your nightly right-wing commentary on Fox, your "balanced," little bit of both maybe on MSNBC and CNN, and liberals? Well they can go on the Web or subscribe to HBO or whatever, they can go carve out their own little niche but the mainstream media, no, liberalism can be persona non grata.

As noted in the piece - this is or may be a direct result of the corporatization of this country. Liberals simply are the ones who will most often question rule by corporation; from the perspective of the power elite, they must not be permitted to do so. And you KNOW no one on Fox is going to go to bat for things like unions. That's what our corporate overlords want - acquiescence.

[JohnWxy]

16. NO. He's a casualty of corporate information control. CEO Comcast is a big RepubliCorp player.

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