Even Though The Nightly News Still Stinks… Olbermann Rules!
The launch of Katie Couric a year ago as the anchor of the CBS Evening News was hailed by CBS as the biggest thing in news since, well, the invention of denture fixative commercials. It was also the biggest flop. The CBS Evening News Without Dan Rather or Bob Schieffer had its lowest ratings since Nielsen began tracking evening news shows in 1987. This turn of events stunned CBS executives–who had given her the famous “Kiss Me Kate” contract, which paid Couric $15 million a year–and the news consultants who thought she was the answer to CBS being mired in third place in the network news race for the past ten years. The news doctors who have been paid millions trying to fix the show for the past year have only made it worse. It didn’t matter how many times the consultants got it wrong. Remember what they did to poor Dan Rather? Smile, don’t smile. Wear a sweater, don’t wear a sweater. Stand up to deliver the news, sit down. It is a law of the news consultancy/network relationship: If we are paying so much money, it must be right. Otherwise, why are we paying so much money?
So, as a TV critic who has logged millions of hours of viewing to help save one of my three favorite commercial networks, I decided to volunteer my services to the Save CBS Campaign. Here’s what I would do: First, I would dump the Walter Cronkite school of reporting, of which Katie Couric is the latest practitioner. The objective that’s-the-way-it-is style they use at all the network evening news shows is so old, so over. No wonder all the network news programs are falling in the ratings. Katie Couric is just the hardest hit.
What the evening news shows need is less “objectivity” and more analysis. The problem with objective journalism is that it doesn’t exist and never did. Molly Ivins disposed of the objectivity question for all time when she observed in 1993, “The fact is that I am a 49-year-old white female, a college-educated Texan. All of that affects the way I see the world. There’s no way in hell that I’m going to see anything the same way that a 15-year-old black high school dropout does. We all see the world from where we stand. Anybody who’s ever interviewed five eyewitnesses to an automobile accident knows there’s no such thing as objectivity.”
What I’m proposing is nothing new. Before Walter Cronkite became the model “objective” newsman, there was Edward R. Murrow. In the late 1930s Murrow started the tradition of reporting the news and analyzing it, giving his opinion of what it all meant. The Murrow legend was built on his opinionated analyses on the CBS Evening News.
For those who never saw Murrow’s news show, here’s how it would go: After running through the headlines, he would call on reporters at home and abroad to give reports on the scene. These so-called Murrow’s Boys were real TV journalists, not actors who played them on TV. CBS News in the Murrow years had people we respected because of their expertise, not because they were famous TV names. The foreign correspondents weren’t empty trench coats but real experts like William Shirer, who reported from Berlin on the menace of Hitler in the 1930s. It didn’t matter that Murrow’s Boys were bald like David Schoenbrun, who reported from Paris in the glory days, or older than the 18-49 demographic like Dan Schorr. They were specialists in specific areas.
Then Murrow would do his closing essay, in which he would comment on some hot issue, continually treading dangerous waters: McCarthyism at home, apartheid abroad, J. Edgar Hoover, the atomic bomb, stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction–all of which he opposed. He was pro-union and anti-business. He was a dissident on US foreign policy post-World War II. He spoke out against the Truman Doctrine, which had America supporting fascist dictatorships in Greece and elsewhere because they were anti-Communist. He was against funding Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist army, which John Foster Dulles told us would retake the mainland someday, if they didn’t die of old age first. He was hard on Douglas MacArthur when he took his troops across the 38th Parallel in the Korean War. He criticized the Pentagon snafus that were getting our troops killed. He was critical of US support for the French in Indochina (pre-Vietnam) and of the Eisenhower Administration’s embrace of the French puppet government in Saigon led by a Riviera playboy, Bao Dai. He was against Red Channels and blacklisting and the House Un-American Activities Committee, which identified a Communist under every bed. He even attacked television itself, warning that it had the capacity to “distract, delude, amuse and insulate us.”
“No one can eliminate prejudices–just recognize them,” Murrow said. His approach was so successful that all the other network news hours copied him.
Finally, CBS president William Paley made Ed Murrow shut up–by canceling his shows. In the dark ages after Murrow, the most powerful commentary on network news was the raised eyebrow of David Brinkley after reading a piece of news on NBC. A generation of telegenic and totally uninvolved journalists followed.
In short, what CBS (and all the others) need is a new Ed Murrow. Good news! There’s already one out there on the launchpad who has demonstrated his qualifications. I’m talking about Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. He has the journalistic chops and the mind, heart, instincts and courage.
Olbermann, who anchors a one-hour nightly news show on MSNBC called Countdown With Keith Olbermann, closes his show every night by saying “1,547th [for instance] day since Mission Accomplished in Iraq,” an hommage to Ted Koppel’s “Iran Hostage” coverage, which evolved into Koppel’s late-night ABC news show Nightline (the MSNBC show was originally Countdown: Iraq). Then Olbermann throws his crumpled script at the camera, which shatters, a simulated digital effect (something Koppel never did).
“Our charge for the immediate future is to stay out of the way of the news,” he explained when the show debuted on March 31, 2003. “News is news. We will not be screwing around with it,” a reference to Bill O’Reilly, his rival over at Fox News in the 8 pm time slot. “It will not be a show in which opinion and facts are juxtaposed so as to appear to be the same.”
Olbermann, who looks more like a high school teacher than a glitzy TV anchor, is the one who cuts and dices the news of the day into five segments, what he and his staff consider the day’s top stories, illustrated with news reports from NBC News correspondents, interviews with newsmakers, whom he treats courteously, interspersed with signature witty interjections (calling 9/11 Rudolph “Giuliani’s red badge of courage”), further interrupted by new ways to look at the news.
Olbermann does news quizzes and a puppet theater. Beginning with the Michael Jackson trial, he created comedic puppet “re-enactments” of news stories, using printed photographs glued to popsicle sticks, hand-held in front of a blue screen. Olbermann did the voiceovers himself. My favorites were the “Karl Rove Puppet Theatre” and the “Anna Nicole Smith Supreme Court Puppet Theatre,” although the Mel Gibson and Paris Hilton puppets were not too shabby.
A segment called “Oddball” regularly assays the day’s collection of weird videos, goofy stories with goofy clips of people behaving like idiots, announced with the clarion “Let’s play Oddball!”
Each night he picks the Worst Person in the World, awarding a bronze medal (worse), a silver (worser) and a gold (worst). Bill O’Reilly has the distinction of winning all three top spots on a single broadcast (the night of November 30, 2005); as of June he had gone gold fifty-seven times.
What I like about Olbermann as a newscaster is that he makes the evening news look like life itself, very absurd but serious, very angry, very stupid, very silly, very snarky, very much about pop culture. He gives the news in a language that can be understood by news audiences today. It is refreshing to hear a straight newsman making cultural references. If the voting goes heavily Democratic, he told the co-anchor of MSNBC’s election night 2006 coverage, Chris Matthews, “you might see some sort of shift toward getting out of that war faster than Britney Spears just got out of her marriage.” His was the only show where I could stand to hear about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Brangelina, Britney and estranged husband Kevin Federline, American Idol results or other stories he always told us his producers were forcing him to cover.
This is Olbermann’s second stint at MSNBC. In 1997-98 he hosted a talk show called The Big Show, but he left the network after clashes with management over an edict from the suits to focus on the unfolding Monica Lewinsky scandal, which especially sickened him.
This time around, MSNBC execs gave him the freedom to do the news his way, since they had nothing to lose. Nineteen other shows had already failed opposite The O’Reilly Factor since 1996. Countdown is now the highest-rated show on MSNBC, which doesn’t say much, as MSNBC is ratings-challenged. Still, his ratings in July were up 88 percent over last year.
What I like most about K.O., as he is called offscreen, is his passion. He goes after the dragon–which, as Murrow’s producer, Fred Friendly, used to say, is the real function of news.
Olbermann’s Special Comments, as they are labeled, make up the core of my pitch as his volunteer advocate. They were off the radar scopes until September 2006, when Rumsfeld said anyone who was critical of the “war on terror” or the war in Iraq or of Administration policies was the equivalent of the people who appeased Hitler in the 1930s. “I’m not a big fan of being called a Nazi appeaser or even a parallel Nazi,” K.O. said. “I took that personally.” And he began eviscerating Rumsfeld.
He has done twenty-two of the “specials” (as of July 19), all of which earn a place for him on the Mount Olympus of commercial TV anchors. The July 4 special on his reaction to Scooter Libby’s pardon, explaining the historical imperatives for Bush and Cheney to resign, was the Gettysburg Address of K.O.’s commentaries:
I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war. I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient…. I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent. I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought. I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents. I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience and letting him run roughshod over it….
For ten minutes, Olbermann spoke with fierce clarity and surgical precision, drawing a comparison to President Nixon’s resignation. He had obviously done his homework. His recitation of Bush’s crimes concluded with his observation that the President had been “an accessory to the obstruction of justice” in the Libby case. “From Iraq to Scooter Libby,” Olbermann said at the time, “Bush and Cheney have lost Americans’ trust and stabbed this nation in the back. It’s time for them to go.” The highest praise I can give is to say I can imagine Ed Murrow speaking those words.
I’m not saying Olbermann is Ed Murrow. He is, however, what Ed Murrow might sound like today, changing with the times as a good newsman should.
I also realize the format of Countdown, with its mix of serious and lite news, might seem a little schizophrenic to older folks who haven’t kept up with the crazy way the culture is evolving. But it’s what has to be done to get the literally tens of people who watch MSNBC to pay attention.
My final recommendation is that what would make The O Factor–or whatever they would call the Olbermann-anchored evening news–work is for CBS News to bite the bullet and be the first to go to an hourlong format, something the network began debating in Walter Cronkite’s day. The network under Bill Paley wrestled with its conscience and always lost, preferring a half-hour of lucrative syndicated trash following the news.
Would it work? There would be gnashing of teeth, rending of garments at Black Rock. There would be outrage from the on-the-air zombies now doing the news from the Land of the Living Dead. If the new concept caught on, they too would need to find something to say about the news they are mindlessly reporting. It would change the face of network TV news.
TV is an art form that suffers from kleptomania. They would rather steal something that works than try anything original. So much attention will be paid to The O Factor that the other networks will be looking for their own Olbermanns, newsmen with differing values and opinions. After all, in Ed Murrow’s day, right-wingers Fulton Lewis Jr. and Walter Winchell were also on the air.
A whole new audience will emerge for the network evening news when it stops being, as Arianna Huffington put it, “the referee, pretending there are two sides to every issue.” As Murrow suggested, there actually could be three, or even one.
Naturally, CBS won’t buy the Kitman Plan, because I’m giving it to them free of charge. In TV news, they don’t believe anything is good unless they spend millions to ruin the likes of Couric and Rather. And that’s the way it is.
Marvin Kitman is the author of The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O’Reilly. He is currently the media critic of the Huffington Post, and was media critic at Newsday for thirty-five years.
© The Nation
K.O. is my hero, too, primarily because his passion reflects that of millions of Americans. No other newscaster can approach him.
But this article also discusses what I’ve been steaming about for years.
Let me also say that FoxNews has plenty of “analysis”, but the news they first present before their “analyses” is often wrong or omits the meat or is inconsequential. Or is unverified and a lie.
We also need ALL the news, including what the MSM refuses to report. For instance, at least five years ago some internet sites published news about the US government’s requirement that the Iraqis must agree to allow the Western oil giants to develop their oil fields and earn astronomical profits off Iraqi oil. Bush doesn’t intend to leave Iraq until that’s done. Only recently has the MSM addressed this issue, when it was known before the 2004 elections.
We must have the full news if America’s news programs are to revive any trust in them.
And yes, analysis of the news, with the understanding that analysis always derives from a point of view.
I made many calls to CNN when they were running the Swiftboat ads, absolutely enraged at the level of lies that were thrown out. I don’t recall even ONE MSM news reporter addressing that ad and pointing out the lies.
Until lightning strikes corporate and political America so they are no longer willing to lie, news reporters will stay wimpy unless they have the guts and intelligence of Olbermann and are enthusiastically embraced by Americans. That’s when the media ratings rise…
Substance over appearance, that would be refreshing in the news, and my hat is off to Olbermann. He is the Murrow of our time.
“I don’t recall even ONE MSM news reporter addressing that ad [Swiftboat ad on CNN] and pointing out the lies.”
I’m not sure this would pass for MSM, but Ted Koppel did a piece on the “Swifties”. I’m not sure, judging from the 2004 election results, that anyone was watching.
let’s not forget lou dobbs.
he is constantly vilified for the greatest of all amercian faux pas:
he tells the truth
and unlike KO, whom i like very much, many people watch lou.
To fix the news, maybe they should start reporting the news. If you watch any international news you know the fluff on any of the three major stations is just that. Maybe if they got real it wouldn’t matter if someone wears a sweater or stands up.
I have been saying this for years now, it is about time the rest of the people figured it out. Power to the PEOPLE, at least the ones who can reason a single thought or more at any one time.
I don’t watch the corporate media on TV. However, whenever someone posts Olbermann online I do watch those clips as they are excellent. I suggest others do the same. Don’t support the corporate media and please turn off your TV!
Maybe Keith should interview Admiral Fallon? Since the msm is not reporting this I thought I’d cut and paste it here. Comcast did have it in their headline news section but then it disappeared.
Military Chief: ‘No War’ With Iran
By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer
Sun Sep 23, 3:31 AM
BAGHDAD - The commander of U.S. military forces in the Middle East does not believe current tensions with Iran will lead to war and urges for greater emphasis on dialogue and diplomacy.
“This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me which is not helpful and not useful,” Adm. William Fallon said in an interview with Al-Jazeera television, which made a partial transcript available Sunday.
Fallon, the head of U.S. Central Command, wraps up a seven-nation tour of the region on Tuesday that included stops in Persian Gulf countries, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Many of the talks with military and political leaders were dominated by worries about expanding Iranian influence and U.S. accusations that Iran is supplying arms and training to Shiite militiamen in Iraq.
“I expect that there will be no war and that is what we ought to be working for,” said Fallon during the Friday interview at Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar. “We should find ways through which we can bring countries to work together for the benefit of all …. It is not a good idea to be in a state of war. We ought to try and to do our utmost to create different conditions.”
Al-Jazeera was expected to broadcast the complete interview later this week.
You know things are getting bad when military leaders have to plead for diplomacy! Keep in mind this man is General Petreus’ commanding officer, yeah, the same one that it is rumoured called Petreaus an “asskissing little chickenshit”…
I’ve got an original idea to improve MSM news and current affairs. Try do something totally outrageous and innovative. It will make the Public SO totally fixated you won’t be able to get rid of them….
Why not try telling the TRUTH…..
Our endorsement could get him kicked off the air.
Right on the money! Olbermann DOES RULE!
I swear I would have gone totally ’round the bend by now if not for K.O., Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. Speaking the truth takes some major cojones these days and these guys fill the bill.
milesofmusic,
Lou Dobbs is not in the same journalistic field as Keith Olbermann. I will take K.O. over Dobbs any day. Despite the fact that Dobbs is trying to point out the idiocy of our Congresspeople, he still is a conservative who takes any opportunity to take a swipe at the left. I do applaud him for trying to bring the salient issues back into focus, but he occasionally angers me with some biased, right-wing comments.
Let me be the first in this thread to plug Amy Goodman’s hour-long daily news show Democracy Now, which she has painstakingly built over more than ten years into an ever-growing threat to phony newscasts. Millions of people every week now listen or watch Amy in her many manifestations on radio, TV, and the internet. DemocracyNow.org
Amy’s schtick is that she actually reports - when a story is breaking, she doesn’t find talking head blowhards with recognizable names, she finds people who are involved in the story, gets them on-air, interviews them and lets them talk. And she reports actual news that affects reality, not celebrity nonsense or the latest phony Beltway uproar following Republican talking points.
If the big networks had independence, or at least guts and decency, Keith Olbermann and Amy Goodman would be anchors of competing nightly hour-long newscasts.
Since I can’t afford both cable and the internet, I have opted for the Interrnet. I do watch the video clips of KO when they are available.
I’m old enough to remember Ed Murrow, and sure do miss real journalism, not only on TV, but also in the big, corporately newspapers.
What about the Colbert Report? Colbert is absolutely brillant, he skewers everyone but especially the Right while pretending to be one of them. No one comes close to his brillant current events satire.
Bless Olbermann for countering the likes of O’Riely and Rush.
Webwalk has it right.
For an indepth news, you can not beat Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. She is on cable and dish, and FM radio, if you can’t get her on any of these go to www.democracynow.org. Amy and her fellow reporter Juan follow stories that rarely get told in the mass media and she does not waste any time with fluff peices or pushing herself.
Jim Hightower’s news reports are incisive and sometimes humorous, but he is only on radio and the Net. www.jimhightower.com
I’m with you, Kittyladyoregon, the cost is becoming a bit much to hold on to cable tv, so I’ll soon be down only with the internet.
I am a daily watcher of Keith Olbermann, and will miss rushing home to watch him at the end of the day, but will look for snippets on the web. The only parts I do not like are the celebrity “news.” Leave those poor girls alone! The TV viewer feels like a stalker!
What I want on the news are able journalists like K.O. Here on local tv we have a lot of talking heads, who smile when they talk about the death toll in an earthquake and frown and shake their heads, when they “report” that the local sports team lost the last game. According to my count, we have one decent newsman giving the news, and when we had some serious flooding, he covered it without the emotive exaggerations of the rest, so it was easy to stay tuned to his station to learn when the waters were receeding, and it became safe to return to work, school, or the store. He was reassuring and deliberate in his delivery. His name is Randy Beamer. I am sure there are other spots of light in other cities to fill the “vacant” news anchor positions on the national news shows.
Good article, but I disagree with the notion that the networks are anything close to “objective.” Their choice of what issues they cover and even their tone of voice and facial expressions expose their lack of objectivity. They are there to further the interests of their owners and sponsors and that’s exactly what they do!
I imagine the turds running the big SHOW are conspiring to have Keith back broadcasting sports.
I’m glad for KO, Stewart, and Colbert as antidotes to O’Reilly and others, but don’t forget that grand old man of reporting, Bill Moyers. If you get PBS, he may be on your local affiliate. I download Bill Moyer’s Journal and his offspring but shortened show NOW from the internet and listen on my MP3. This is NEWS with a difference. MSNBC killed their other voice of sanity at the run-up to the war when they cancelled Phil Donahue, at the time their HIGHEST rating show.
well I think this is a case of, how does it go? something like; I think you protest to much. I’m not talking about the author of this piece, Marvin Kitman or K.O., but the major networks. Just as we’re wrong to think that the conflict in Iraq is going all wrong, on the contrary it’s going just the way the administration wanted. We are wrong to think that major networks are concerned about the ratings of their news shows, it’s just the way they want it. I reminds me of something Gore Vidal related about a conversation he once had with a diplomat from the former cold war Soviet Union. He had asked why they were so concerned with suppressing dissent and speech. He suggested that they take a page from the U.S. playbook. Let folks say anything they want because generally nobody listens, once you start trying to hide something folks start wondering just what it is you’re trying to hide. We’ve just entered a new era post cold war. Now that they have the sheeple believing that the news is honest and objective they really don’t want us paying attention, but just in case anybody is listening they promulgate lies and obfuscation. They care nothing about the ratings. They wouldn’t be paying Katie 15mil a year if they actually thought anybody was paying attention. They’re paying her that much to convince people that they have the option of paying attention, when in fact they’re not delivering anything worth paying attention to.
I click through every news channel every few hours. The announcement I see most often is: “Head On, Apply Directly To The Forehead”.
Now they have three other ‘apply directly to the whatever’ “medications”, available at your local oil company owned drug stores. Are we Americans so utterly stupid, to spend our hard earned money on such idiotic merchandise? ___ Must be, the ads run on every channel and have been for over a year now. Incredible,___ the news fits our sociiety, ___ we get what we deserve.
My parents watch K.O. (great nickname for him) every night.
He IS very entertaining and usually on target, although I think he spends too much time poking fun at pop culture, which is a waste of time and akin to a canned hunt. I mean, I can watch VH-1 if I want to see that, and I don’t as it tends to make my brain turn into tapioca pudding.
I could do without some of his talking heads, especially the ones that seem so obsessed with tabloid fodder. I cringe everytime I see Mo “I’m so dorky, I’m hip” Rocca on TV. I’m a Gen Xer myself, and irony and snark imo got old at least ten years ago. And do we need some magazine writer give us more analysis on Britney Spears? Who Cares?
As for Amy Goodman, I catch her when I can. She does good work, and in a just world, would be in a similar position as that of Katie “i think navy seals R teh hawtness” Couric.
I like and respect KO, greatly. Unfortunately, I can only watch him on the nights Jon Stewart is a rerun at 8PM
anney September 23rd, 2007 10:57 am
“K.O. is my hero, too, primarily because his passion reflects that of millions of Americans. No other newscaster can approach him.”
Siouxrose September 23rd, 2007 11:02 am
“Substance over appearance, that would be refreshing in the news, and my hat is off to Olbermann. He is the Murrow of our time.”
anney and siouxrose, thanks for your many informative comments..hope being plagerized is complimentary.
I’d like to add one more to the Olbermann/Dobbs duet for telling it like it is….Jack Cafferty. His comments on Wolfie Blitzer’s Situation Room frequently make watching Wolfie worthwhile. Jack has a new book, “It’s Getting Ugly Out There” that is an absolute riot….if you like his curmudgeonly style. BMA/Texas
Keith Olbermann rules. I add my hearty endorsement to this article. I watch Countdown every day — record it so I can skip commercials and (often) the celebrity news that his “producers are forcing” him to cover. But, it is the best news coverage on TV. I only watch network news for local stuff and to have a snark at how the uninformed remain so.
Amy Goodman tops KO, Jon Stewart, Colbert, and Bill Maher combined. I am especially disappointed in Maher’s increasing appeasement of his obligatory fascist-an-episode guest. He never used to do that on Politically Incorrect..
I was watching NBC and they were showing clips of NFL games played today. A commentator was reading off the stats and whatnot as the clip was shown. When they were going over the Atlanta Falcons game, a falcon was shown sitting on a perch. The commentator made a comment about how protesters will now probably start up about the falcon or something to that effect. Anyone making light of people protesting Michael Vick’s dog fighting enterprise on national television is not really a great thing especially for a news person. I thought I recognized the voice so I waited until they showed the commentators. I thought it was Keith Olbermann and sure enough he was sitting next to Bob Costas. I know they mostly just read whatever they are told to say and I’m not trying to kill everyone’s buzz over Keith Olbermann but I thought it was worth mentioning.
KO is allowed to do what he does so that We The People ignore the fact that NBC, er, make that General Electric is the largest Pentagon contractor and top of the Cheneybush enabler list. He works for the same loyalbushies who canned Donahue because he was seeking truth.
Plus, MSNBC is well aware that the KO’s tiny audience is as relevant as Jon Stewart’s or Common Dreams’ - as in, not very.
I agree with what Anney says about Fox does analysis but it is skewed.
The news clip here on Commondreams is the first time I ever saw Olbermann.
Amy Goodman is the person whose news make me think most about things. I know she reports from a specific perspective and sometimes I don’t agree with her, but the news and views she tosses out often represent an unheard voice and under-represented viewpoint. I like it when she interviews people who challenge her view point and she lets them but she gets her licks in. The best think about Amy is that she is not afraid of complexity and she doesn’t rely on the sound bite.
Hurray for Keith, Lou Dobbs (hasn’t anybody here noticed how he keeps attacking those damn electronic voting machines?) and yes, Jack Cafferty, who’s getting bolder by the minute! My only disagreement (a slight one) with Marvin Kitman is that he hasn’t promoted the idea of putting Keith on at 6:00 or 6:30, directly COMPETING with the network news programs. His current 8:00 show ensures that millions of loyal viewers of dramas, comedies, reality shows, etc. in that popular time slot will never venture over to MSNBC and discover him.
I second the vote for Amy Goodman as #1 –
and I agree with the suspicions about why
MSNBC is letting Olbermann spout liberal.
I think you can only watch either KO or Jon
Stewart/Daily Show so MSNBC might be looking to
crack that audience and get Stewart out of the
way????
Jon Stewart is also losing some of his vigor –
whether it’s burn out or something else, I
guess we’ll have to see. I don’t get the
Colbert Report, although I loved Colbert when
he as on the Stewart show. It WAS a smash show
now broken up.
My best advice is TURN IT OFF, FOLKS!!!!
“Let me be the first in this thread to plug Amy Goodman’s hour-long daily news show Democracy Now, which she has painstakingly built over more than ten years into an ever-growing threat to phony newscasts. Millions of people every week now listen or watch Amy in her many manifestations on radio, TV, and the internet. DemocracyNow.org”
Amy Goodman still has faith that the American people would have rejected the invasion if they could’ve seen the same footage that was broadcast to world audiences on CNN International. I honor for that faith, which don’t share.
Ironically, after letting Keith go as far as he’s gone, Dan Abrams went after Dan Rather for his lawsuit against CBS. The suit intends to demonstrate that the exposé of the Smirk’s actual military record was entirely true; he now has proof that Sumner Redstone was furious with him for Bushit backlash against his profits for airing the story. The MSNBC execs are trying to do a Toby Keith, to demonstrate that they were really against the war all along, when they were trying to maximize war profiteering.
Lou Dobbs only markets a different brand of hatred, geared towards those coming from south of the US border, as opposed to those half a globe away.
I agree with just about all of the comments posted with a few exceptions. Lous Dobbs has always been a conservative and I do not condemn him for his views as I practice democracy every chance I get, but I cannot agree that he fosters hatred for those south of our border. He constantly reminds viewers that he is against ILLEGAL immigrants. Amy Goodwin, unfortunately seems to feel that the US and its’ taxpayers can afford to support an infinite number of them flooding into the country and that attempts to stem that flow are “racist” ignoring the fact that turning a blind eye allows people who wish to do us harm free entry into the country as well. Other than Amy’s contribution to the obliteration of the difference between legal and illegal immigration she is to be commended for the good work she has been doing since before we both were affiliated with Pacifica Radio.
I do wish Keith would downplay his O’Reilley feud. We get it, Keith!
Dan Abrams is a lightweight sensationalist of whom Dan Rather need not be afraid.
My ideal newsroom would consist of Dan R., Keith O., Amy G., Jack C., Lou D., Ted K., & Bill M., with commentary from John D., Stephen C. and Bill M(aher)
Not truly balanced but packed with truthtellers.
I think it is important to remember that Lou Dobbs, three years ago, was one of the biggest proponents of invading Iraq. He, Matthews, Blitzer, and others were among the biggest war supporters. It was not until the wheels started coming of the Bush Administration’s wagon that Dobbs began coming around to common sense. I guess I don’t forgive these guys as easily as others who post here. But if they peel away from the war mania that consumes the MSM and reintroduce objective and responsible journalism, then I will soften my view.
My husband watches 15 minutes of our local area news. That he likes because he doesn’t get much of it through the day. After his 15 minutes of news I watch Keith Olbermann for the next 45 minutes he is on. I never fail to enjoy his show. That is the only news show that gets watched in our house. I especially enjoy his special comments. Perhaps if the other networks would come up with something more in tune with what most American’s are thinking instead of regurgitating the same right wing lies that come straight out of the White House. They might find a lot more of us watching.
milesofmusic “let’s not forget lou dobbs.
he is constantly vilified for the greatest of all amercian faux pas:
he tells the truth
and unlike KO, whom i like very much, many people watch lou.”
Oh spare me that St. Lou Dobbs crap will ya! Lou Dobbs is a vile racist who hates people that are Mexican or brown (yeah I know his wife is Mexican but that still doesn’t stop his racism). Mention the words, “La Raza” and he froths at the mouth. He also hails the racist and violent Minuteklan, er I mean Minutemen. You never hear him rail about illegal Irish immigrants or about the Canadian border do ya? Lou Dobbs also embraces Bush shills like Judy Miller and he praised that despicable John Bolton as someone we need in the UN. I’ll take Keith over Lou anyday! Lou Dobbs is a Bill O’Reilly wannabe, and even some Common Dream readers can’t see Lou Dobbs for the demagogue that he is, which is pathetic to say the least!
Just a PS on Dobbs and other who may have awakened after “the wheels came off” but originally supported an attack on Iraq . . . .
Well, that’s the basis of where the exception should be made and understood — that Iraq is an illegal war; that it’s a war of aggression; that’s it’s a fascist and imperialistic war –
that Cheney and Bush lied their asses off about Iraq and 9/11, Iraq and WMD, Iraq and biological weapons!
If you don’t object to that; if you don’t object to what we did in Gulf War I; if you don’t care that we’ve killed 1.2 innocent Iraqis and 4,000 of our own troops; bombed all their infrastructure and left depleted uranium everywhere . . . . who cares what else you think — ????????????????????
Lou Dobbs. #$%^ THAT PUTO!
Just one thought … when was the last time that Keith asked his audience to actually DO something about the situation?
I like his comments and the fact, that he basically the one guy in mainstream media challenging Bush & co. on a regular base … BUT what are the consequences of his work? When was the last time he asked you to go on strike? Isnt he avoiding the really necessary step - remind the american people that THEY have to get out of their sofas if they want change?
Sometimes I think that KO is the one dissenting voice that mainstream admits itself … just to give an impression of diversity - but without any danger of actually changing anything. Read “manufactoring consent” and you know what I mean.
I agree with Thenihilist Moyers is very inconsistant. Sometime he will do an absolutely fantastic series, like the interviews he ran with Joseph Campbell, the famous mythologist, but then soon after that he does a panel with a bunch of Bible thumpers and agrees with them.
He did a great show with guests from the left and the right both saying Bush needed to be impeached.
Then recently he argued with his guests, again a righty and leftist who both think the Constitution is in peril and talked like he thought it is fine for Bushco to trash the Constitution, in order to “protect us”. I have to wonder is he really that fearful and unable to retain information or is he being pressured from above?
Thanks to you, Marvin Kitman.
Keith Olbermann is the only journalist on tv speaking truth. While I am not crazy about the junk aspects of the show, they’re still worth the price of admission.
Chris Matthews is always getting better the more annoyed he gets about the propaganda. Tim Russert continues to disappoint.
Where is everybody else? Reading the press releases from the WH, blathering the “patriotic” line ad nauseum, and generally hanging out. It’s a joke to hear these people call themselves journalists.
They’re just sellers of the line.
Although I am a great fan of KO, and try to spread the word to friends to watch him, I still have to consider the MSM is right-wing corporate controlled, and as such remain on defense that we are still being manipulated. In this country many people view news programs as a voice of authority, and having lived through the vile Nixon years I still hold firm on the belief we should always challenge & be skeptical of authority. This is an un-written duty of my generation, and I would hope those younger than myself, after the disasterous Bush years, will feel the same. What kind of sick world is this we live in that we can’t trust those using “our” airwaves to disseminate truth instead of lies? Of course with this piece of crap for president, who lies to us incessantly, as a role model, or other members of the establishment as well, why should I expect a corporate controlled Zionist influenced media to be any different.
Well, I DO EXPECT IT TO BE DIFFERENT. As I mentioned before they are “our” airwaves. Domination & control of the media is one of the fourteen steps toward a country becoming a fascist state. We are well on our way, in fact I think that step was pretty much accomplished some time ago.
The saving grace is a statistic I saw a short while back claiming a full 25% of Americans now get all their news from using the internet. This is encouraging because it represents an amount equal to the much touted Republican ‘base’. Although some of this 25% are surely Republicans I would imagine the greater percentage to be not, or even a goodly number of them true progressives unwilling to accept the ‘big lie’.
We will all pretty well know this country has gone to hell in a handbasket when the internet gets shut down or compromised through corporate censorship, and there are people with that aim now (and have been). We can’t let that happen, right?
Whether those who control the airwaves are allowing Keith Olberman to speak truth to power because they sense a shift in their market, and want to cash in on it, is maybe not that important, but at least someone has the liberty to call some of our corrupt government, political, & corporate leaders to task for their wrong attitudes & actions, so this seems a small step in the correct direction. Please note I didn’t say ‘right direction’ because it is now readily apparent the left is right, and the right is wrong.
What we must do now is insulate KO through ratings, the same way Bill O. has been, so spread the word. In addition to the 88% increase in share that KO gained from last year, I also heard Fox “Noise” lost 20% in the same time peroid, so something seems to be working, and maybe this is reason to hope for a return to sanity, decency, & truth. I’m hoping this is true, but I also realize it took a long time to dig the societal hole we are in, and it will probably take a longer time to dig ourselves out.
obmaj-
I just listened to Moyers on the Constitution. I thought he was playing devil’s advocate (I have seen him pose opposition arguments before) to provoke an answer from the interviewee. I don’t think it is HIS question as much as an argument that he knows is being used to criticize the person he is interviewing.
Anyway, he is an old man and he is a man of faith as well. He delves into issues with a sensitivity to the humanness of all his interviewees regardless of the dominant wing they have (left or right). That is rare.
Did you catch Moyers interview Jon Stewart? golden…