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Howard Kurtz attempted a valiant face-save for Keith Olbermann after the scalding Jason Linkins story at the Huffington post accused Olbermann of having "lied" to his viewers. (BTW, Dan Froomkin new Washington DC editor, way to go HuffPo.)
Kurtz claims that Olbermann’s decision to stop talking about Bill O’Reilly actually precipitated the negotiations between Fox and GE:
The day after Olbermann’s comments about the Tiller slaying, executives convened a large meeting and talked about Fox and the importance of striking the right on-air tone. Olbermann later expressed a willingness to make minor adjustments in his style, but he and his allies, concerned about setting a precedent, dug in for a fight.
Not so, says Brian Stelter of the New York Times:
Mr. Olbermann told viewers on June 1 that he would halt his jokes about Fox News because he believed that Fox had played a part in inciting the death of the abortion doctor George Tiller. Inside Fox, executives chuckled. They knew that a pact had already been struck by Mr. Olbermann’s bosses to end the feud.
It’s like the teenager busted for a big bag of weed in his backpack whose story just keeps getting better and better.
If it turns out that Kurtz’s "source" played him like a Stradivarius, do you suppose he’ll salvage his credibility by giving them up?
50 Comments
If it turns out that Kurtz’s “source” played him like a Stradivarius, do you suppose he’ll salvage his credibility by giving them up?
No!! It seems that Kurtz enjoys getting played. After all, he is married to a wing-nut “strategist”.
leave howie alooooooooone!
he’s a real journalist
No Kurtz won’t even if a source burns you and makes you out to be a fool with blood on your hands the NY Times Judy Miller Code of Ethics says you go to prison for that source.
I don’t know who is lying but is Keith holding back on O’Reily? No tv here but Keith was one of the good things about tv news I would hate to hear he has gone soft.
BTW, jane. you, GG, sirota, and maybe a couple others, have done a great job with this story. it really separates the wheat from the chaff as far as i’m concerned. i like KO, but not as much as i like the unvarnished truth.
The Times has twice the hack Credentials of Howie! How many wars without evidence has Howie started? Has he ever got a Pulitzer for lying a country into war?
I think not!
After the lie was found out did Howie ever go to jail to protect the liar that ended his career as a journalist like Judy did?
I think not!
Would Howie have the Nerve to keep that Pulitzer after all those innocent Iraqi’s were killed in a war he started with lies?
I think not!
@ ThingsComeUndone
howie commits hackery of the 1st degree. he’s like tweety in that he can’t help but suck the arsehole of establishment power.
remember we are talking about stelter not judy miller. i know miller is full of shit. but by your reasoning i should conclude that because the majority of WaPo is full of shit, ezra klein is also. i’m not buying it. stelter has not shown himself to be judy miller yet. he has done some solid reporting by all accounts, which has been backed up by jane and glenn greenwald and a few others.
be my guest, throw your lot in with howie. just don’t come crying to me when you find out he is the judy miller in this situation.
And of course, notice the complete absence of the real reason for the truce as mentioned in Glenn Greenwald’s original piece on the subject — to protect GE’s dealings with Iran.
DING DING DING!! We have a winner.
GE spiking stories so it doesn’t affect their defense contracts. That’s kind of important in the overall scheme of things, doncha think?
And since when did The Hacktacular One have any credibility to be salvaged?
GE deals with Iran, legally, as opposed to Ed Meese, Reagan and the Iran-Contra arms scandal… If the NYT is right about this reporting, more power to them. But the preponderance of absolutely terrible reporting is on their side, not Kurtz’s. The NYT, under Keller’s editorship, has become the locus for fuzzy reporting and very unclear thinking. No contest.
Who has been played? Apparently Jane Hamsher, Open Left and Greenwald.
You know, you can keep bleating on and on, repeating the same crap over and over but it doesn’t make your argument true. You have not provided ANY evidence that your claim is correct. It’s clear that the pinhead execs thought something was agreed to, but that doesn’t make it true.
And why the hell did you leave out this statement from the article you linked to?
”…no one at G.E. told anyone at NBC News or MSNBC how to report the news.”
Another winner!
This is old news and KO explained on his show recently that he made no deal with anyone to stop attacking O’Reilly. If there was a real deal made, then why all the Fox News/Billo bashing by KO in the last week or so?
Exactly. Well said.
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
Awe shit, here we go again…come on Sister Jane if you wanna stay after this “story” then analyze it in the contex of the corporate dinosauers tryin’ ta play a new game by old rules and how the “little people” or in this case the on air broadcasters get caught in the middle. There is a story here but it’s not one that plays in two dimensions. My lord, we finally get 3 hours of fuckin’ prime time and a network that is beginnin to build audience on a “liberal” platform and you are settin up a ritual execution of one of our own whose tryin’ ta survive in the belly of the beast??!!
My God, I can’t believe that this is happenin’…there is an old sayin’ about babies and bathwater, be careful that your inside baseball fights don’t end up knockin’ the shit out of the fans in the stands.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION BUT DON’T SHOOT THE FUCKIN’ FRIENDLIES!!
Citizen RobZuber:
Right fuckin’ on, Brother Rob, right fuckin’ on!!!
Thanks, Norske. You do have a way of getting to the heart of the matter. I’m so involved in health care, wars, etc. that I have no room to care about this. Seems to me we can’t do anything about this anyway.
And we thought it was the republicans who were self-hating & loathing! Man, there are more so-called liberals online so ashamed of Democrats that it makes the right wing of this country look sympathetic some days! Gees. What is up with this?
The conclusion I got from this post:
SINCE WE CAN’T CONTROL & TAKE DOWN PRESIDENT OBAMA WE’RE GONNA GO AFTER KEITH OLBERMANN INSTEAD!
Disgusting.
Citizen Hamsher:
Of course, the manipulation of the news by the corporate dinosauers to further their economic interests IS the story… so go after it Citizen, but make sure you don’t leave a lotta collateral damage to the good guys or our own “assets” in this fight.
I don’t think that I am alone in beginnin’ to see the outlines of a new clique of “cool kids” battlin’ it out with their older brothers and sisters here and usin’ us in the audience as blockin’ dummies.
I am amazed at the readers here who so quickly defend a huge munitions and medical equipment manufacturer because its tiny high-numbered-cable political entertainment arm provides, for a few hours daily, a profitable but sympathetic outlet for our views.
saw the back & forth between you & jane the other night. liked it. some disagreement between regulars is welcome now & then. me? i’m with you & rob – although I’m not sure that Jane et al. have been “played.” I just think there’s no there. The KO/O’Reiley pissing contest got tired a long time ago. If it’s over i’m glad and don’t really care ’bout much else.
I defend Keith Olbemann in this matter. He’s tiny compared to the company he works for, but his tininess is extremely loud and clear.
There is no way I would ever defend GE. I worked for them many years ago and it’s a terrible company. I just can’t work up a lather about this – it’s out of our hands and I have a limited amount of energy, both mental and physical, and I try to use it where I can make a difference. that’s all.
the real question is why the head of a large media outlet
and big corporation is on the presidents economic board
Citizen Teddy Partridge:
Citizen Partridge, you better duck ‘cuz there’s some in-comin’ into your perimeter.
Where do you get off accusin’ anyone here of defending “a huge munitions and medical equipment manufacterer”? This kinda intellectual thuggery is expected from the Sarah Palins of the bloggosphere but I ain’t gunna take it from someone masqueradin’ as a “progressive”. The point here, Citizen, is that the analysis of the corporate structure behind the broadcast media must get to the power relationships and economic interests without makin’ the workers in the system the enemy.
I’m gunna stop here now before I pop one of my few remainin’ brain cells…suffice it to say I am dissapointed not in your position in this fight but in the bullshit rhetorical tactics you use and your lack of judgement in bein’ able to figure out who and what is the enemy in our struggle.
y’all are jumpin’ jane in her own house ..eh ?? right or wrong .. it’s bad etiquette …
Citizen Jkat:
No Citizen Jkat, it’s called “self criticism” and it’s not only healthy but Jane is a real grown up fighter and intellectually honest…and if it weren’t for us she wouldn’t have the best site in the bloggosphere.
I’m sure there will be another post pointing this out. It will be a Two-fer: SLAM PRESIDENT OBAMA & KEITH OLBERMANN at the same time! See? Make you sure come back for that one! LOL
please, everyone, i invite you all to Glenn Greenwalds site where we can all reread the statement released by Olbermann which says that everything that GG wrote was factually correct.
for the keithers, faith is more important than facts.
I wonder how many here want Sean Hannity to take Keith Olbermann’s place now? Can I have a show of hands? I mean, really, this is what always happens. The great ones are pushed out over something stupid (after Tiller’s death everyone was freaking out for crying out loud! I’m sure Keith was being sincere when he said he wouldn’t attack Billo as Billo attacked Tiller for years, because of the shock of the whole matter) and then are replaced (lots of cheers!) and then we end up with someone like Sean Hannity only to feel worse than we did originally. *sigh*
“Keithers” LOL!~
This has got to rank among the tiniest circular firing squads of all time.
Dick Cheney’s Halliburton had years of dealing with Iran and did we kick him out? Nope! We’re blaming President Obama now for everything that happened during the 8 years of the Bush Regime! Of course, if we can’t take Obama out then we’ll go after KO & Maddow instead! That will teach us.
@ Teddy
i disclose that i stole that from titowan @ salon
don’t be afraid to question
things are not always as they appear
the fact that KO dumped Wolffe says that he is trying to remain pure. but it was a bit disingenuous to say one thing to his audience, and then release a contradictory statement to GG. but i still like him and will watch him. the specifics of the dynamics in the inner offices of these large corporations remains opaque. so i’m waiting for all of the facts to emerge.
Who is going after Maddow?
Thank you for mentioning the evil Sheri Annis — the creature responsible for ruining California by putting Arnold in the governor’s chair.
Kurtz is nothing more than a propagandist for the Republica party — and the corporations it stands for.
What on earth leads you to think that anyone here wants to “take down” the President? Because sometimes there’s criticism of him? That’s what intelligent people do when they live in a free society: Voice criticism when they feel something is done wrong. Are we just supposed to be falling-down-glad that we’re rid of Bush and leave the driving to the new administration? Snort. I don’t freaking think so.
Anyway, this is not about Obama. Not everything is about him, you know.
Sheri Annis, huh? Was she the one who got Darrell the Car Thief to back down and step aside after he’d spent $5 million of his own dough toppling Gray Davis?
Yep. That’s her.
Right now people just want to wake Obama up before we’re forced to take him down for selling out the American people.
I really don’t understand firing up the ol’ grill all over again. GG is great, but he NEVER had the KO part of the story right. If you want to go after GE there is plenty of ammunition. Going after KO is shoddy reporting.
If Murdoch’s NY Post had written exactly the same words re KO as GG, we would ALL be all over them.
Kurtz as a source for ANYTHING is laughable.
If Glennzilla “NEVER had the KO part of the story right” why did Olbermann say there was nothing inaccurate in Glenn’s reporting? Surely Olbermann was in the besst position to say Glenn got his part of the story wrong, no?
Teddy-This was my post the last time it was discussed on Tuesday:
112
I honor Mr. Greenwald’s insight into the coverage of GE/NewsCorp talks, and have found nothing materially factually inaccurate about it. Fox and NewsCorp have continued a strategy of threat and blackmail by Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, and Bill O’Reilly since at least 2004. But no matter what might have been reported by others besides Mr. Greenwald, and no matter what might have been thought around this industry, there no ‘deal.’ I would never consent, and, fortunately, MSNBC and NBC News would never ask me to.
Jane, if this is the passage you’re referring to as confirmation, I don’t think Greenwald has it. If KO says he’s “found nothing materially factually inaccurate about it” that could be true to his knowledge. He’s talking about the relationship between MSNBC and Faux and he claims he has no firsthand knowledge.
That can be consistent with KO saying (in that same paragraph) there is no deal with him personally. The fact that he voluntarily adds he would “never consent”buttresses that, as well as the fact that his bosses “would never ask me to.”
I think either you or Glen should call KO on the record and ask these questions outright:
1)Were you ordered not to run true (or negative) stories regarding O’Reilly’s show and his subject matter?
2)Has MSNBC or NBC News ever spiked stories or censored any story ideas that might prove detrimental to O’Reilly’s or Faux’ programming?
3) Was it suggested to you by MSNBC or NBC News to take your vacation at the time of your pledge to stay away from O’Reilly stories on June1, and after the murder of Dr. Tiller?
4) Do you have complete editorial control over your program, and if not, who has the final say?
Reply
emerson August 4th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
113
In response to emerson @ 112 (show text)
And since you have him there:
1) Were you aware Richard Wolffe worked for one of the largest corporate lobbies in the world, whose president and CEO was a major player in the Bush White House? Who hired him as an analyst for your show and how was he vetted (chosen)?
All the media are controlled even Keith but Keith is the least controlled out there. When nobody else on tv was going after Bush he did.
Granted I do not expect KO to ever do an expose on G.E’s Nuclear Power business. But I do get more of the truth out of Keith than I ever would from O’Reily.
mebbe so norski .. but … imo .. this is the house jane built .. and the common courtesy of guests in the house isn’t to shout out in the hallway creating a commotion .. but to discretely pull the host into the closet to discuss disturbing things .. my point would be .. sometimes ..private email is a better vehicle than a public slam ..
just sayin…
but .. also ..too .. it’s a free world .. imo .. it was kinda rude .. but what do i know .. i’m just a long-time observer/reader here for the most part ..ubetcha ..eh ??
peace mr norski .. and good wishes ..