Olbermann Suspended From MSNBC

by

55

CBS News, Political Hotsheet reports the glorious news:

Keith Olbermann has been suspended indefinitely without pay from MSNBC for making donations to three Democrats in violation of NBC’s ethics policy.

“I became aware of Keith’s political contributions late last night,” Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC, said in a statement. “Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay.”

Olbermann, who does not hide his liberal views, has acknowledged donations of $2,400 each to Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway and Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords during this election cycle.

NBC’s ethics policy generally bars political activity, including contributions, without the approval of the president of NBC News, Steve Capus, according to a 2007 story on MSNBC.com.

Ed Morrissey doubts the suspension will last past the weekend.

See also

Olbermann Watch: Olbermann Caught! Gave Thousands to Dem Candidates Then Anchored Election Coverage!

The Blog Prof: MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann suspended without pay for Democrat campaign contributions

I don’t get this one. MSNBC has suspended Keith Olbermann because he contributed  to several Democrat campaigns. Apparently, MSNBC wants to maintain it’s image as a non-biased news organization. Which engenders this response from me: WHAT?!? Are they kidding? The man’s 8pm show ought to be listed as an in-kind contribution to the DNC. Good grief. Really – is this a big deal? The cat’s been out of that bag so long ago that it’s dead.

Drew says: Schadenfreude overdose.

Newsbusters: BREAKING: MSNBC Suspends Keith Olbermann Indefinitely

Tweet ‘o the day: @Doc_0: Olbermann suspended? Hey, this “Restoring Sanity” thing is really catching on!

AnnCoulter‘s having too much fun on Twitter:

Olberdork indefinitely suspended????? very sad. I will miss watching the pompous, know-nothing fruitcake.
—

I can’t believe they’d treat a graduate of Cornell’s agricultural college this way.

—

(LOL!)

Great – now, how are we supposed to know who the Worst Person in the World is? Thanks, MSNBC!

MORE:

Egad…A disturbing replacement idea has emerged….

Michelle Malkin: Support Olbermann? No freaking way; Poll added: Who should replace Olbermann?

I like RS McCain’s take: Stunning Discovery: Shadowy Corporate Donors Contribute to Political Campaigns

I was not shocked to learn that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann had contributed to Democrats. What truly shocked me? Finding out that NBC has an “ethics policy”!

See Da Techguy for some “serious snarkitude”.

UPDATE:

Hot Air: TV Newser: “Insiders” say Olbermann won’t be back

Allah makes some great points:

What bugs me about suspending Olby for “ethics” infractions is that, if only in a nominal way, it lets MSNBC go on pretending that its commentators are journalists. It’s like when a major paper runs a “news” story that’s obviously slanted to the left and which happens to contain a spelling error. They’ll happily issue a correction for the misspelling but the bias goes unmentioned; that’s their way of signaling to readers that they’re scrupulous about accuracy even while they’re dropping hatchet jobs on conservatives while professing impartiality all the while. As Ed noted earlier, it’s a sick joke to suggest that Olby throwing a few thou to Democratic candidates is an unpardonable journalistic sin while that horror show that MSNBC happily aired on Tuesday night is just good reportorial funsies for the viewers at home. I don’t care how many posters of Murrow Olby has on his wall: He’s not a reporter, he’s not a journalist, and no one but no one but no one thinks that he is, so why are journalistic ethics being applied to him?

Linked by Michelle Malkin, thanks!

Share

55 thoughts on “Olbermann Suspended From MSNBC”

  3. why can’t he make political contributions. that what he was taught at the joseph gobbels school of journalism.

    Like

  4. Bless all of you who suffer watching KO and his ilk, then report it to us so we don’t have to endure it. Thank you so much!

    Like

  6. Pingback: Ruby Slippers

  8. Why doesn’t MSNBC just man-up and tell us the real reason Ubermunch got bitch-slapped is because his ratings are in the toilet? Heck, if making a political contribution to a Democrat will get you fired at MSNBC then their broadcasts would be nothing but tumbleweeds rolling past empty desks for hours on end.

    Like

  9. This is AWESOME !….and Funny !

    Having a big party in my head.
    😀

    I wonder how many others at msnbc might be sweating bullets if they, too, donated….just haven’t been found out yet.

    Like

  11. True, Olbermann shouldn’t have done it. But it’s accepted practice at Fox News:

    …and I assume that if it bothers the management at Fox, they’ll do something about it. We didn’t suspend Olbermann, MSNBC did. We just think it’s funny.

    Like

  12. Yeah, I noticed the ‘but-but-but Fox does it too’ meme emerging on Twitter, earlier.

    I personally don’t care if Fox employees donate to politicians, and I don’t care if MSNBC employees do.

    I am disgusted by the rank hypocrisy of railing against your competitor for doing the same thing you do, though.

    Maybe that’s ultimately why he was suspended – for being such an embarrassingly dishonest hack.

    And yeah, this story is a hoot!

    Like

  13. As I said, Olbermann shouldn’t have done it, and I have no problem with him being suspended (or fired). But Fox’s policy is a bad one for any organization with “News” in its name.

    Like

  15. It’s no secret to anyone that MSNBC is a left-wing news organization. Why pretend otherwise?

    Why stifle a private citizen’s right to support the candidate of his choosing?

    Like

  16. “It’s no secret to anyone that MSNBC is a left-wing news organization. Why pretend otherwise?”

    Agreed, just like it’s no secret that Fox News is a right-wing organization. But if you’re going to pretend to be an unbiased “news” organization, you shouldn’t be pimping for–or financially supporting–the people you’re interviewing.

    Like

  17. By the way, MSNBC wasn’t always a left-wing organization. At first they tried to copy CNN. Then when folks there saw the success of Fox, MSNBC turned conservative–firing Phil Donahue and bracketing Olbermann, then the only remaining liberal, with shows hosted by Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough.
    When they realized they couldn’t out-”Fox” Fox News, they then lunged left, moving Scarborough to early morning and bringing in liberals for prime time.

    Like

  18. Fox leans to the right, which is right where this center-right nation likes it, apparently, since they’re whalloping their competition.

    Michelle Malkin notes:

    Unlike Fox News (pay attention, Media Matters Soros-bots), NBC ethics guidelines (yes, they do have them) bar their employees from making political contributions. (FNC’s real-world, pro-free speech rules allow donations as long “as long as the activity does not interfere with or impair the performance of the employee’s duties for the Company.”)

    That’s a common sense policy, and I don’t have a problem with it at all. I don’t understand you’re argument – If a reporter gives to a Republican or Democrat candidate, it somehow disqualifies him from being objective? Should he barred from voting, too, then?

    Like

  19. Let me put it to you this way: If a reporter gives to a Democratic candidate, does it make you more or less likely to believe s/he’s objective?

    If you say it makes no difference, good for you–but I think you’re in the minority.

    Like

  20. If a reporter gives to a Democratic candidate, does it make you more or less likely to believe s/he’s objective?

    Good grief… I already don’t believe the the MSM is objective!

    Maybe it doesn’t bother us conservatives because we’re so used to blatant left wing bias in the news, and we don’t think for one second that banning folks from making contributions, is going to have any effect on that.

    If you say it makes no difference, good for you–but I think you’re in the minority.

    Show me that poll.

    Like

  21. Pingback: Stacy on the Olberman story « Da Techguy's Blog

  22. Apparently there’s no problem with Fox News donating a million to the GOP, but a perfectly legal donation of much less to a few democrats by public figure who happens to be liberal is just beyond the pale. What cretinous twerps you are!

    Like

  24. The suspension, seems to me, as has already been stated, might not last too long… He does have his die-hard supporters and apparently contributions at his network are permitted so long as they are disclosed — MSNBC needs him as he is one of their main bashers of all things FOX and conservative…

    Like

  25. Pingback: Video:Reason TV bids A Fond farewell To Keefums « Nice Deb

  26. Pingback: A Focused, Non-Terminal Repeating Troll « NoOneOfAnyImport's Blog

  28. What do you want to bet that this Palin-hating hack brings his left-wing biases into the classroom (which is full of impressionable empty slates, unlike cable news viewers), while bashing Fox for leaning to the right.

    Like

  29. nicedeb said, “What do you want to bet that this Palin-hating hack brings his left-wing biases into the classroom (which is full of impressionable empty slates, unlike cable news viewers), while bashing Fox for leaning to the right.”

    Ohh, to be sure. I have been dogging him for two days to fess up to his spam activities and explain why he felt FOX was pertinent to a discussion about MSNBC, needless to say , weasel is too kind a word for his response.

    Back to more serious issues, I like your blog. =)

    Like

  30. Thanks. I kind of suspected he was spamming blogs based on the fact that his comment wasn’t addressing anything we had said here. His comments were so bizarre and out of place, I featured them in a subsequent post.

    I wonder if spamming blogs with Media Matters links is something this Prof of communications recommends to his impressionable students.

    Like

  31. “Palin-hating”? Hardly. We were born a few miles apart, and while I disagree with her about most things, we’re both Idaho natives (born a few miles apart), and there are few people I hate.

    Besides, I have an attachment for Palin because I wrote on my blog in June 2008–more than two months before she was chosen and before most people had ever heard of her–that she should be McCain’s VP nominee.

    As for “impressionable empty slates,” I’ve never met one of those in a college classroom. I am surprised at how little credit some people give college students for having intelligence and/or values.

    Because I a teach at a Christian university, most of my students are conservative when they arrive as freshmen and most are still conservative when they graduate. And yes, they know my politics–just as they know the politics of my conservative Southern Baptist friend and faculty colleague, with whom I will co-host a radio program this spring.

    By the way, when I teach media criticism, I always ask the student who disagreed with me most often the previous semester to serve as a teaching assistant so that s/he can encourage an open classroom dialogue. Perhaps that’s part of why media criticism–despite my liberal views at a conservative university–has become my most popular class among students from a variety of academic disciplines.

    The guy who has agreed to TA for spring is a very conservative Christian who just passed his exam to be a state patrolman–hardly an “empty slate.”

    Fleeceme, thanks for the plugs. As I wrote you elsewhere, I offered the comment several places–because they were all talking about the same thing. Each then had the option of approving my comment, or not. Each, for reasons of his/her own, did so, just as you did, and as I did with yours.

    In some cases, the two sentences just lie there, ignored by others who go on with to other things. In other cases such comments prompt more discussion with interesting folks (some I agree with, some I don’t–you’ll note that some of the blogs above are liberal, some conservative) with whom I would not have normally interacted.

    Some of those folks have blogs that I will now read regularly, and with whom I expect to interact in the future. Some get irritated and/or defensive, and so I have no interest in going back. There’s obviously a place for that–or the Internet wouldn’t be full of nastiness–but life is too short for me to want to spend much time with it.

    If you want further clarification of the kind of interaction I do enjoy, I’ll refer you to a very old post of mine that I posted on your blog: http://jmcpherson.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/begging-to-differ/#comment-2698

    Like

  33. “Palin-hating”? Hardly. We were born a few miles apart, and while I disagree with her about most things, we’re both Idaho natives (born a few miles apart), and there are few people I hate.

    Right, you demonstrate your respect for her on a regular basis, then, your birth places notwithstanding, and hardly relevant. Also not relevant is your repeated assertion that you wrote about her in June 2008, as if that makes you some kind of Palin authority.

    Not to brag…but I was writing about her in FEB 2008, yet I don’t lay claim to any special bond with her. Jeez.

    As for “impressionable empty slates,” I’ve never met one of those in a college classroom. I am surprised at how little credit some people give college students for having intelligence and/or values.

    My point is college aged kids simply don’t have enough real world experience to challenge the propaganda lefty professors dish out on a day to day basis.

    What more, I notice that you give them more credit than Fox’s adult audience.

    Some get irritated and/or defensive, and so I have no interest in going back.

    Could it be that they don’t appreciate getting a spammed comment from someone who obviously hasn’t read their post?

    Like

  34. “Could it be that they don’t appreciate getting a spammed comment from someone who obviously hasn’t read their post?”

    Or it could be that I didn’t make the relevance clear enough after reading your post. Sorry about that, and my apologies if you feel “spammed.”

    By the way, I didn’t say I respected Palin (though I do for some things, not for others). I said I don’t hate her. And I still don’t think you give college students–or the parents who raised them–enough credit for their intelligence or their values.

    Like

  35. Or it could be that I didn’t make the relevance clear enough after reading your post.

    Or it could be that you’re really trying my patience.

    Your spammed comment started off:

    “True, Olbermann shouldn’t have done it.” – as if agreeing with some assertion in the post that conveyed that I was against his making political donations. There was no such assertion. I was actually surprised that MSNBC would even have such a policy with an obvious partisan like Olbermann, and was enjoying the fact that he was suspended.

    So the fact that your comment didn’t actually pertain to anything I said, along with the fact that you posted the same exact comment on a number of other blogs would strongly suggest spam.

    And I still don’t think you give college students–or the parents who raised them–enough credit for their intelligence or their values.

    As the mother of 2 college aged kids, I give them plenty of credit. But their world views are simply more malleable than yours or mine because they have less real word experience.

    Like

  36. I wasn’t using the word “true” to agree with you–I was doing so to agree with MSNBC. Obviously I shouldn’t have used it at all, since it muddied the issue.

    As for “spam,” I’ve already addressed the point above and see no reason to try your patience further by repeating what I’ve already said.

    Like

  37. So it’s not what it looked like?: You targeted a number of conservative blog posts which you didn’t bother to read, with a cut and paste comment agreeing with what you incorrectly had figured was our hypocritical take on the Olby suspension, pathetically projecting your own hypocritical impulses on us?

    Thanks for straightening me out.

    Like

  38. You’re welcome.

    To clarify however: I sent my comments to several blogs–some conservative, some liberal–and had read them all. All had the option, of course, of simply blocking or ignoring my comment.

    All had discussed the issue (as I had myself, in a post that I believe was written before yours), and I was attempting to add context and stimulate discussion about a bigger issue than Olbermann’s apparent idiocy.

    Apparently I succeeded in that, though not here in the way (or with the issue) intended. After all, this “conversation” has lasted about as long as Olbermann’s suspension. 🙂

    Like

  39. I have no idea why you thought you were adding context with your spam. All you did was make yourself look silly.

    Here’s something that actually adds context to the discussion, because it addresses the hypocrisy we so often see on the left:

    Like

  40. Give up nicedeb, he truly is a moronic weasel. I love the statement, “I wasn’t using the word “true” to agree with you–I was doing so to agree with MSNBC. Obviously I shouldn’t have used it at all, since it muddied the issue.”

    Associate Professor of Communications Studies huh? Is that kind of like the democrats having a messaging problem? I think you need a little more training in the “effectively getting you message across” department.

    HAHAHA, I just reread that stupid “true” comment you made professor, you are the biggest freaking dumb-ass in the world. LMAO

    Like

  42. From “fleeceme” to me just this morning: “This is the last I am going to address you on this topic or anything else.” Like the one above, his previous comments were more invective than rational discourse.

    Gee, it puts one in the awkward position of either calling someone a liar to his face, or … well, never mind; everyone else has long since stopped caring about this silliness, anyway. Though please, carry on the “discussion” with your choir.

    Like

  44. Really? How did you read the words, “I just reread that stupid “true” comment you made professor, you are the biggest freaking…”?

    Maybe I’m just being paranoid, or overly sensitive? You know how we liberals are. 🙂

    Like

  45. I couldn’t act that stupid if I tried. He must have gotten his degrees from the University of Northern Puget Sound Juco, and only got accepted there because of the very progressive affirmative action program for bearded ladies.

    I wasn’t addressing him, my “you” and “professor” comments were directed at Professor Saul Alinsky. Obviously I shouldn’t have used it all, since it muddied the issue.

    Like

  47. “Palin-hating”? Hardly. We were born a few miles apart, and while I disagree with her about most things, we’re both Idaho natives (born a few miles apart), and there are few people I hate.

    That’s a pretty amusing paragraph. “My proof that I don’t hate her is that we were born a few miles apart (twice!!) and that I don’t hate very many people.” Well that’s good enough for me.

    We don’t hate you either, because we ate oatmeal for breakfast and saw a red car.

    Like

  49. Now you’re just piling on, Geoff.

    Somehow that doesn’t bother me in the least. When a supposed academician stumbles that badly in constructing a logical argument, he should be bludgeoned with it until he repents or retires.

    Like

  52. Where the hell’s Jackstraw? He would have had so much fun with this guy.

    He’s getting ready for the meetup in Boston this weekend.

    Like

  54. Aw, he never comments here, anymore.

    He’s been hanging out at The Hostages a bit. But he’s not very prolific. Of course you’ve been scarce everywhere, so you can’t talk…

    *and nor can I

    Like

  55. As I’m sure you realize, when you have your own blog, it cuts down the time you can spend on other blogs. Especially if your blog is a solo effort. If they miss me at the hostages, they can always visit me, here. They don’t, which is fine, but there’s about 90 of them , and just one of me.

    Like

Leave a comment