Olbermann Fired and the NBC Rift
Keith Olbermann's Firing Reveals Tensions at NBC and MSNBC
Sep 15, 2008
Olbermann Fired
As the RNC began, MSNBC’s ratings rose because of what has hailed as the ‘experiment’. The ‘experiment’ was teaming up Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, both openly Obama supporters, to chair MSNBC’s coverage of the presidential race. This meant they would have to act as objective journalists rather than in their usual roles, Matthews as a biased political analyst and Olbermann as a talk show host, on their respective primetime shows.
This resulted in a boost in MSNBC’s ratings due to their respective liberal fan base combining with cable viewers wanting to see the national conventions that normally wouldn’t watch cable news. It didn’t last long.
As usual Olbermann and Matthews took every opportunity to defend democrats and attack republicans. This incited many Americans who had turned to MSNBC’s election coverage expecting fair journalistic coverage to complain about the biased coverage and change the channel.
This prompted thousands to chant ‘’NBC! NBC!’’ and hold up signs criticizing the network when Sarah Palin mentioned the liberal media at the RNC.
The final straw came during the RNC just after a tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks was aired on MSNBC. Olbermann apologized that MSNBC had decided to honor the victims by airing the tribute and stated that the tribute was ‘’not appropriate to be shown,’’ and that any who participated in showing it should be ‘’eviscerated’’.
Olbermann and Matthews were removed from covering the election that weekend and MSNBC announced that David Gregory would replace them for the remainder of the election, including at the debates and on election night.
Rift Revealed
While officially NBC stated the removal of both Olbermann and Mathews was only because of a ‘’perceived shift to the political left”, NBC and MSNBC insiders were more direct and revealed a much more compelling reason.
MSNBC’s blatantly liberal pundits have caused ratings to tank and viewer backlash. This has created a rift between the network and its parent company NBC.
“MSNBC is behaving like a heroin addict. They’re living from fix to fix and swearing they’ll go into rehab the next week,” one senior staff member said, describing the constant bashing of those that do not agree with their liberal views and the warnings from NBC to halt them. Interviews with 9 others revealed the same assessment of the longstanding tensions between the two stations.
Apparently the tension has gotten so bad that long time NBC anchors Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams even spoke up, saying that defending NBC from MSNBC is becoming, ‘’tougher and tougher.’’
MSNBC President Phil Griffin was quick to defend Olbermann and Matthews though, saying ‘’…the change is [simply] designed to free the MSNBC stars to state their opinions on air more freely.’’
Of course it is.
The Truth
Make no mistake, the people running NBC are liberals and they are biased. They like MSNBC’s bashing of anyone who supports war against terrorists, anyone who is not a liberal or that isn’t an Obama supporter. They just don’t like getting called on it.
Olbermann had worked for FOX News Channel before he was fired by Rupert Murdoch, who said ‘’He was crazy.’’ Olbermann has certainly proved that by constantly ranting about Bill O’reilly and his hatred of FOX News Channel since being canned. Call it a fatal attraction.
Olbermann has long been a critic of the US effort to rid the world of terrorists; his comments regarding the 9/11 tribute are no surprise.
NBC will probably never deliver balanced news but hopefully they will cancel Olbermann’s show. If openly insulting his employer and his disrespectful comments towards 9/11 victims, and those that endeavor to honor and remember them, didn't prompt that decision though; it is doubtful anything could.
