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[Thad]

Olbermann suspended without pay for donating to Democrats.

Now, here's the thing: I think news organizations having guidelines against advocacy is a great idea.  I think NPR was right to fire Juan Williams (though utterly boneheaded in how they went about it).

But coming from MSNBC, it's just silly.  We're going to pretend MSNBC doesn't have a bias?  Really?

Seems to me that Fox and MSNBC really should both just drop the pretense of being news organizations and acknowledge that they're driven by their advocacy programming.  Pretending they're not is frankly a little insulting.

That said, if you've got a guy on your show and you're donating to his campaign, you should disclose it, even if your political stance is well-known -- it sounds from the article like Olbermann didn't donate to Grijalva until AFTER he was on his show, but even then I think he should have mentioned it on-air afterward.

[TA]

Technically, it wasn't for donating to Democrats.  It was for donating to any political candidate, but without seeking the prior approval of management.  This is why they haven't also fired any of these people.

Whether or not MSNBC has a bias, was Olbermann's show ever claiming impartiality?  I don't actually know what all his role in the network was, but I've never seen a thing from him that wasn't clearly opinion commentary.  I thought that's entirely what his show was.

[Royal☭]

For what it's worth, Olbermann is not a reporter.  His purpose is to give opinion.

Also, since this is happening at all I take issue with the NBC and Fox are two sides of the same coin comparison.

[Thad]

They are in terms of each having a clear editorial point of view.  Aside from that, well, I think my opinions are probably well-known or at least easy to suss.

[Brentai]

I think he's hinting more at the fact that O'Reilly or Beck wouldn't have been shitcanned for something like this.  Hell, Limbaugh's been not-shitcanned for worse, though I don't think there exists a specific single network with the power to do so in radio.

You can hold several rallies to directly endorse a certain party, but god help you if you directly give a couple members of it about the price of a mid-sized 3D television.

[Thad]

I think he's hinting more at the fact that O'Reilly or Beck wouldn't have been shitcanned for something like this.

Well sure; figure that's implied.

And as TA points out, other dudes on MSNBC (and CNBC) have done the same; if we're to give NBC the benefit of the doubt, we can assume the difference is that they filled out paperwork first.

But Fox DOES bend over backwards feigning objectivity -- not just the slogan (which, remember, they sued Al Franken over), but remember that Daily Show segment where they said something snotty about people not being able to tell the difference between their news reporting and their editorial content?

(The difference, of course, is that the news reporting is on at hours people don't watch, features people nobody's ever heard of, and mostly reports on things people said during last night's 9 hours of "editorial content".)

Hell, Limbaugh's been not-shitcanned for worse, though I don't think there exists a specific single network with the power to do so in radio.

He DID get kicked off ESPN for casual racism, though.

And remember his TV show?  Yeah, neither does anybody else.

You can hold several rallies to directly endorse a certain party, but god help you if you directly give a couple members of it about the price of a mid-sized 3D television.

I think it's particularly interesting that he picked Grijalva and Giffords.  Shows some real concern over 1070.

[Thad]

So apparently at MSNBC the word "indefinitely" means "four-day weekend".

...so, uh.  Does anybody think this was anything other than a publicity stunt?

...no, me neither.

[Mongrel]

Maybe they were trying to beat the Arizona New Times.

[Thad]

Koppel weighs in.  He makes the same old MSNBC = Fox false equivalence (though, as I said above, it IS true in that each has a clear bias), but other than that he makes some very good points about how the news media have gone away from information and toward entertainment.

Koppel seems like one of the last of the old guard.  During the Sherrod story, I heard him interviewed on NPR; the interviewer (it may have been Juan Williams) asked him what he would have done if the story had broken when he was on Nightline.  Koppel responded that he would have called Sherrod for her side of the story, and if he couldn't reach her, he would have waited until the next day rather than report the story without having all the facts.

It's frankly a little disappointing that such a statement sounds like a wise revelation instead of just a "Well, no shit," but that's where we are now.  While I fundamentally disagree that Olbermann is equivalent to O'Reilly, I absolutely agree that our news media are pretty much fucked at this point, and running them for profit is the cause.

[Shinra]

I don't know. I think Olbermann is easily the equivalent. He's not as crazy and inflammatory because Democrats typically aren't; rather, he's snooty and elitist, which is absolutely the stereotype of the Democrat elite. I love Olbermann and everything he does, but you can't quote Olbermann with a straight face to a republican anymore than they can quote O'Reilly to a Democrat. Now, a comparison to, say, Glenn Beck would be unfair, but Glenn Beck is fucking crazy and I'm pretty sure there's nobody alive on the Left who isn't, like, a serial killer who you can really compare to Beck. (the unibomber maybe?)



 

[Classic]

That dude was a leftist? I thought he was a textbook anarchist and social cynic.
His manifesto rants about what he describes as a bullshit, crippling form of racism disguised as an attempt for equal opportunity from the left!

Am I thinking of a different crazyman?

[Royal☭]

MSNBC suspends Joe Scarborough for political contributions

This is obviously just a sad attempt to show that they are "fair" and "unbiased" or whatever - because Scarborough is conservative, see - but this affair just confirms how stupid the entire charade was in the first place.  Nobody cared or expressed shock that Olbermann donated to Democarts in the first place, and nobody wanted Scarborough to be suspended, they just enjoyed pointing out the hypocrisy of it all.  Right now MSNBC is just digging themselves a deeper hole.

[Shinra]

That dude was a leftist? I thought he was a textbook anarchist and social cynic.
His manifesto rants about what he describes as a bullshit, crippling form of racism disguised as an attempt for equal opportunity from the left!

Am I thinking of a different crazyman?

The Unabomber started mailing explosives to people because of an insane environmentalist agenda. He had a lot of opinions about a lot of things, and had plenty of negative things to say about leftists, but he also believed abuse of power, totalitarianism and violence were abhorrent. He was not exactly a practice what you preach kind of guy. Moreover, the actual definition of left vs right - big government vs small government - isn't anything near what we actually use left vs right for today. Being an anarchist does not make you a conservative.

[Thad]

Big-versus-small government isn't really the "actual" definition of left versus right either.  In the most general sense, "left" refers to support for change, while "right" refers to preservation of the status quo.  In that sense you could say the Unabomber is a radical leftist, but I don't think it's a particularly useful descriptor in his case.

[Shinra]

really, I was just reaching for the first example I could think of either way. The overriding point is, Glenn Beck is what happens when you give a dangerously psychotic sociopath a TV show.

[Classic]

Am I thinking of a different crazyman?

The Unabomber ... had plenty of negative things to say about leftists... big government vs small government - isn't anything near what we actually use left vs right for today. Being an anarchist does not make you a conservative.

I didn't mean to imply they were linked. When I read his manifesto those were the only things that stayed with me. For me, one of the most important differences between "the left" and "the right" is how well they support social safety nets, or how dogmatically they buy into Ayn Rand.

[Mongrel]

really, I was just reaching for the first example I could think of either way. The overriding point is, Glenn Beck is what happens when you give a dangerously psychotic sociopath a TV show.

That fellow concerns me a little, because he's actually got one thing figured out: The time for demagogues is coming. And he's trying to make himself into one, any damn way he possibly can.

Now Glenn's about as good at demagoguery as ol' L. Ron Hubbard was at being Moses. But he's smart enough to have seen the need and he's trying. Oh lord is he trying.

I'm not worried about Glenn himself. But I do worry about what's going to happen when someone smarter tries it.

[Shinra]

I'm much more worried about when someone dumber than Beck takes what he has to say a little too seriously.

[Mongrel]

I'm pretty sure that's already happened several times.

[Royal☭]

Olbermann suspends Twitter account after angry back and forth about Julian Assange with followers

I love Olbermann as much as the next guy, but sometimes he can be a real ponce.