Counting Down on MSNBC's Keith Olbermann

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16517458

Counting Down on MSNBC's Keith Olbermann

by David Folkenflik

Listen Now <5 min 14 sec> add to playlist **at link**



Not by the numbers: Keith Olbermann isn't your ordinary news anchor. Getty Images


Morning Edition, November 23, 2007 · Each night on MSNBC's Countdown, anchor Keith Olbermann presents the world's news as a series of bullet points.

As an experiment in form, we thought we'd profile Olbermann in the same fashion.

So here's a countdown of things you should know about one of cable's most talked-about talkers — and one of TV's most prominent critics of the Bush administration.

No. 5 on the Countdown: Unabashed, Unashamed, Liberal

In Olbermann's view, waterboarding is unquestionably torture, and Vice President Dick Cheney is about two millimeters shy of pure evil. In an interview at his new digs at Rockfeller Center, where MSNBC has joined the rest of NBC News, Olbermann expands on why he feels compelled to speak out about such things on the air.

"We gave these people every benefit of the doubt," Olbermann says. "Our naturally contentious political arrangement in this country was silenced for well over a year after 9/11. We got hosed. We were manipulated. That trust that we put in these people, they did not deserve."

Countdown started on March 31, 2003, right after the invasion of Iraq. CBS News senior correspondent Jeff Greenfield has covered politics and media for years, and he briefly overlapped with Olbermann when both worked at CNN. Greenfield says that as the war soured, Olbermann found his voice — and a following.

"By becoming a full-throated, unapologetic opponent of all things Bushian ... he served a market that wasn't being served," Greenfield says.

Olbermann built that market in much the way Fox News built up its audience, Greenfield notes — by appealing to conservatives who felt the mainstream media overlooked their concerns. But he notes that both MSNBC and Fox need play only to niche audiences; neither channel draws the same crowds their broadcast peers do.

more...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16517458

I'm going through Olbermann withdrawal. No Keith until Monday!

ack.

Or wait for him to show up on the Simpsons. He's a guest celebrity this week.

safety. The football audience is much bigger than the Countdown audience, which makes it less likely that he will be terminated with extreme prejudice-too hard for the government to explain.

think he is an American. Any American that doesn't know or understand that waterboarding is torture, is in my opinion, not American. I think Keith is where the rest of msm should be.. telling the news the right way.. His commentaries are obviously that, but the rest is insightful and investigative in nature. To me, he represents what news ought to be.. the rest are right-wing hacks who read the news. Actors who never made it on the silver screen. Paid to be CNN bobbing, talking heads.

Anyway.. this article seems unduly biased once again and seems to smear liberals. The thing is people like Olberman and Kucinich is that they are the middle. They are what it means to be American and interpret the constitution the way it was intended, and that is for the people. Unfortunately, msm, is controlled by huge corporate conglomerates. And they spin the average to look like a kooky liberal. Up is down, and Down is up.

Interrogation techniques are now being designated by political slant?

If you're a liberal, waterboarding is torture.
If you're a con, waterboarding is effective?

HOGWASH! and sneaky how he puts that suggestion in there...


I mean, that's the center, the majority opinion. Not just Olbermann's view.

reporting the correct way... I know way more than Olberman who are liberal.. living in the trees and all.

but I was chiming in with you re: waterboarding, and the ridiculous suggestion that only a liberal could declare waterboarding to be torture with absolute certainty.

I agree that Olbermann isn't especially liberal. I think he is mainstream as far as the population goes. I think he is reflecting the heart and conscience of America. He's in the center with the majority, but they (the corp/media guys) refuse to admit it.

to make sure it sounded right... sometimes I get fired up and don't articulate correctly.