What the Hell Happened to Keith Olbermann? (Robert Parry, ConsortiumNews.com)

[Octafish]

A reporter asks a pertinent question about Corporate McPravda:

What the Hell Happened to Keith Olbermann?

By Robert Parry, Consortium News
AlterNet
Posted on January 23, 2011

Though Olbermann hosted MSNBC’s top-rated news show, “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” he disappeared from the network with only the briefest of good-byes. Certainly, the callous treatment of Olbermann by the MSNBC brass would never be replicated by Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing Fox News toward its media stars.

At Fox News, the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have far greater leeway to pitch right-wing ideas and even to organize pro-Republican political events. Last November, Olbermann was suspended for two days for making donations to three Democratic candidates, including Arizona’s Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in the Jan. 8 shooting in Tucson.

Now, with Olbermann’s permanent departure on Friday, the remainder of MSNBC’s liberal evening line-up, which also includes Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Lawrence O’Donnell (who will fill Olbermann’s 8 p.m. slot), must face the reality that any sustained friction with management could mean the bum’s rush for them, too.

The liberal hosts also must remember that MSNBC experimented with liberal-oriented programming only after all other programming strategies, including trying to out-Fox Fox, had failed – and only after it became clear that President George W. Bush’s popularity was slipping.

SNIP...

In 2009, the New York Times reported that GE responded to this pressure by having GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt strike a deal with Murdoch that sought to muzzle Olbermann’s criticism of O’Reilly, in exchange for O’Reilly muting his attacks on GE.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/149639/

Any thoughts to add?

[eleny]

1. The "eliminationists" are on schedule for getting rid of our pesky voices

That was a really good article. Thanks.

[SheilaT]

2. Maybe we need a new network,

one financed perhaps by George Soros, that would push the liberal agenda just as Fox pushes the right-wing agenda.

[nutsnberries]

10. i love that idea. it would make some heads explode!

:nuke:

[Uncle Joe]

3. Corporate supremacy happened to Keith Olbermann.

The American People and their government are becoming enslaved to mega-corporations.

Any political commentator bucking that trend can only push the envelope so far.

FOX News commentators don't have to worry about it because their ultimate clients are those same mega-corporations, the American People are just customers or consumers to be sold a product, candidate and down the river.

The law of agency, it's impossible to represent the best interests of two opposing parties, and the corporate media; first, last and in the middle represent commercial buying corporations, not the people.

Thanks for the thread, octafish.

[jbnow]

4. Someone like Maddow is unlikely to be endangered though. She is

perhaps the moist progressive of the pundits and I don't think that is what the disputes would be about.

any sustained friction with management could mean the bum’s rush for them, too.

Rachel and Keith have very different personalities. Neither would be likely to give in to pressure but they'd react to it in different ways. We've seen how Rachel can disprove some right wing talking point when she is on a panel. She strongly makes her case without being at all hostile.
Keith has a different reputation, even by his own report of how he'd acted in the past. I am not blaming him for this and I worry it sounds that way. What matters is how he does his job and the executives should manage not to be so prickly and demanding of the respect they think they deserve. Since their conflict didn't spill over to how Keith worked in front of the camera they should find a way to deal with it. A highly rated program for their station, a show and host that meant so much to so many people should have been what mattered.

[RamboLiberal]

8. Ed Schultz is another matter

He has clashed with management & has been told to tone down even though today he tries to pooh-pooh that. He IMHO will be the next to go unless he toes the corporate line.

[blm]

5. Parry knows. He was blackballed in MSM. Poppy Bush and his thugs repeatedly pressured

Newsweek and WaPo to get rid of him, accusing him of being a zealot on a crusade against Bush. Parry's crime....daring to report about IranContra crimes he discovered.

And now Bushes have even MORE control over newsmedia.

[monmouth]

6. "GE responded to this pressure by having GE chairman Jeffrey Imelt

strike a deal with Murdoch that sought to muzzle Olbermann's criticism of O'Reilly...blah, blah, blah. Is this the same Immelt going to work for POTUS? That says a whole lot to me.

[dpbrown]

14. Can't have a clear path to criticism of Imelt now that he's working for the government, can we?

Literally makes me want to vomit.

[EFerrari]

7. I will only add, political leadership in the nominal left is fine with this.

And we know that because they have made no effort whatsoever to become competitive in the media.

[Poboy]

9. Recommend

[EFerrari]

11. Kick

[robertpaulsen]

12. Cui bono? Here's an alternate examination.

Did Lyin Joe Lieberman Use His White House Connections to Get Keith Olbermann Fired?
Posted on January 21, 2011 by willyloman

by Scott Creighton



UPDATE: The liberal blog-o-sphere is a buzz this morning and it appears the spin is to blame it all on the Comcast merger. No one is talking about http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/20/keith-olbermann-on-lieberman_n_811450.html?ir=Politics">what Keith O said about Lyin Joe less than 24 hours before he got sacked. “don’t let the delusional liar door hit you in the delusional liar butt on the way out.” “goodbye, Joe Lieberman, and good riddance.” he accused Lieberman of “lying even on the way out the door.”

“The bizarre timing of the announcement has raised a number of speculations, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/05/keith-olbermann-suspended_n_779586.html">Olbermann’s suspension last November to the http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/24/jeff-zucker-leaving-nbc_n_738004.html">departure of NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker in light of the network’s http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/18/fcc-approves-comcastnbc-m_n_810495.html">recent acquisition by Comcast.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/21/keith-olbermann-countdown-over_n_812506.html">Huffington Post

You see? Not a word about the obvious friction between Lieberman and Olbermann. Not even on the fake “progressive” sites. Don’t buy into the “Comcast did it” crap. That’s just there to protect Lyin Joe. Well, actually, if Lyin Joe got Olbermann fired, he did it through his White House connections… which means… Obama did it. And THAT is why you won’t hear a peep about this connection from the fake “progressive” left. They don’t want to do anything that might hurt the great one’s all important approval rating even if that means turning their backs on their hero, Keith Olbermann.

snip

Today, Obama announced General Electric’s CEO will be heading up an important advisory council in the White House. This shit can’t be unrelated. GE owns 87% of MSNBC which means Olbermann’s ex-boss, Jeffrey Immelt, will be the man advising the president on policies that MSNBC will be reporting on. Even after the transition to Comcast slated for the end of this month, GE will still own 49% of NBC Universal which owns MSNBC.

I wonder how tough MSNBC’s journalists will be on Obama’s domestic policies, now that they know their boss (the guy who literally signs their paychecks) is the one who actually wrote those policies.

more...

http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/did-liebermann-use-his-white-house-connections-to-get-jeffrey-immelt-to-fire-olbermann/

I'm not sure what the truth is where the termination of Keith Olbermann is concerned. I don't know who Scott Creighton is and I have nothing but the highest respect for Robert Parry. Still the classic question "Cui bono?" resonates more clearly in Creighton's observation: "No corporation is going to come in with a new investment and kick out the big star just because they want to end net neutrality. That’s just stupid." Olbermann's popularity is the reason Maddow, Schultz and O'Donnell got their shows. Why kill the golden goose?

There is another possibility that money may not have been the primary factor, that this is something private between Phil Griffin and Keith Olbermann that we are not privy to. But whenever there is a scandal, I usually take Deep Throat's advice and follow the money.

[Shagbark Hickory]

13. FOX and MSNBC still have the same amount of right/left OPINION programming.

Unless Brett Braier (I have no friggin idea who he is so I'm assuming he is probably not an opinion show) is a right wing talker. In which case, Fox will now have 1 hour on MSNBC.
MSNBC may very well fill the gap with someone that we all like better than KO. Just the same as they found a replacement we liked better to Tucker and phil d.

Of course if you count the D.R. show, one could argue that there is still more opinion programming on MSNBC.

Therefore, I'm not convinced GE has abandoned its strategy to be the be the lefty network. The left still has a lot of opinion shows to watch on that network.