(CNN) – Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s primetime firebrand host, has been suspended indefinitely for violating the ethics policies of his employer earlier this year when he donated to three Democrats seeking federal office, MSNBC announced Friday.
“I became aware of Keith’s political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay,” MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement. First reported by Politico and confirmed by Federal Election Commission filings, the primetime television host gave $2,400 – the maximum individual amount allowed – to each of the campaigns of Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway, and Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. (View PDF’s of FEC filings for Conway, Grijalva, and Giffords)
The contributions may have violated an NBC policy that requires employers of the news organization to obtain permission ahead of any political donations or activities that could be deemed as a conflict of interest. CNN institutes a similar policy.
Olbermann, as well as MSNBC executives, was a vocal critic of the $1 million donation by Fox News’ parent News Corp. to the Republican Governor’s Association earlier this year, saying at the time, “We now have another million reasons Fox News is the Republican news channel.” In a subsequent show, Olbermann also pressed House Majority Whip James Clyburn if there was a “legislative response” to a network that “starts to shill for partisan causes.”
Har! Will he now name himself “Worst Person in the World”?
foobar,
You could be right but I doubt that Olbermann is that stupid. He almost certainly knows that political contributions are public information — he’s probably looked into them himself for some story he did.
I’m not making any conclusions — I’m just noting that this story doesn’t make total sense.
If it was a movie, you’d call it a “plot hole.” A fairly big one, actually.
The obvious that everyone seems to be overlooking.
A) MSNBC is under new management.
B) MSNBC has miserable ratings.
C) MSNBC is a shrill for the Liberal Left.
D) The Liberal Left got stomped.
E) Olbermann was the ringmaster of the MSNBC clownfest. Then Maddow and Shultz.
The best way to turn around the mess that is MSNBC is to get rid of the ringmaster.
Next, Shultz. He’s to stupid to be allowed to stay. He’s gotta go. Reason? It will be low ratings. Watch.
Maddow? She’s on notice that her stats need to improve.
Too bad FOX snatched Juan Williams. He would have been the perfect successor to Olbermann.
#30. According to the NY Times article I read, Olbermann’s show is MSNBC’s highest rated.
My take is that NBC Universal did this to look good in the eyes of their soon to be new corporate owner Comcast.
Try not to laugh when I suggest the “star whackers” strike again. They have been pretty busy lately. First Randy Quaid, then Rick Sanchez, now Olberman. Can’t anybody else see the pattern?
Kangaroo. As of Yesterday (before the firing), Olbermann was behind Maddow in ratings, and both were WAY behind O’Reilly.
Olbermann: 1,114,000
Maddow: 1,153,000
Shultz 696,000
O’Reilly: 4,001,000
In fact, all of MSNBC’s headliners TOGETHER don’t match the ratings of O’Reilly.
And NONE of headliners have better ratings than the LEAST watched FOX headliner.
Ergo, change.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/11/05/cable-news-ratings-for-thursday-november-4-2010/71003
Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long for MSNBC to realize it wanted a news arm and not a propaganda machine for the DNC.
He is an opinion journalist, he shouldn’t be allowed to have opinions? Not like he was a closeted liberal.
Does anyone have an opinion on #2 suggesting Keith be “flayed alive with hot pokers”? How many people do you think take Palin’s call to go commando/rogue in a literal way?
Say 1 in a 1k, 5k, 10k. Intentionally radicalizing people is very dangerous. Giving people a dire worldview right now is especially so.
The problems of our debt are not as dramatic as the CW suggests. If we are seen to active on some project the rest of the world will forgive the rest. By historical and contemporary measures our debt, by proportion to GDP, is not in the danger zone.
Now, if we do flayed Keith alive with hot pokers things are going to get bad very quickly. When things are already hard it is the absolute worst time to do something brick-dumb.
#27, GregAllen
Hmmmmmmm. He left ESPN the same way. Deliberately went on Craig Kilborn’s show and when asked what’s the worst place on the earth, he said Bristol Connecticut.
I no longer have a reason to ever turn on MSNBC..
Corporations can donate as much as they want, but individual citizens can donate only if the corporations allow it.
Thanks again SCOTUS!
Oh wow. $7200. The world will never be the same. (Y-a-w-n.) He gave more than that to the organization of Free Clinics.
Cheez Louise, Hannity the Manatee and Beck the Emotional Wreck both shill for money for GOP candidates directly on the air on their shows!
Host to GOP candidate:”What can we do to help?”
Candidate:”If everybody would send X dollars to voteforme.com, that would be great!”
Host:”Well you heard it, folks…”
etc., etc., etc.
Gimme a freakin’ break!
Again, Patso, this has nothing to do with his donations.
It has everything to do with changing the direction of MSNBC.
The powers at be could have given him a slap on the wrist and a warning, but instead they booted his ass.
Ed next, Maddow needs to behave.
It’s all about Better Ratings(/Revenue). Something MSNBC doesn’t have, something Comcast wants.
If he broke the rules, punish him.
This is a country where business has the right to employ or not. No one has the right to a job here.
Cursor_
I’m not surprised he put his money where he’s been putting his mouth. I’m shocked that MSNBC would fire him for supporting the same people they support.
I mean if you aren’t a huge fan of a EU style nanny state you can’t even work at that organization and their idea of of a non partisan debate is to have two ultra fans of the nanny state bad mouth conservatives and libertarians.
I don’t buy this story.
I think he was going to have Bill O’ on his show and that’s why they fired him even though the only reason he’d do that is get more viewers which ought to have made them happy. I think management at MSNBC is to partisan to be worried about profits.
Correction sent him on unpaid leave to teach him not to invite anyone from Fox to be a guest on his show.
Hey Fox even said something nice about him.
MSNBC is not going to put up with crap like that.
$2400, $1,000,000 same thing then, yeah?
What a crock. If he’d said that the candidates were the dogs bollocks that would be enough to show biase. The fact he drop them $2400 is nether here nor there.
Did anyone else notice that if you rearrange all the letters in Keith Olbermann’s name you can spell “giant f’ing douche”. Remarkable.
Jarvis got it right.
http://buzzmachine.com/2010/11/05/time-to-stop-hiding/
>> Ah_Yea said, on November 5th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
>> The obvious that everyone seems to be overlooking.
>> C) MSNBC is a shrill for the Liberal Left.
>> D) The Liberal Left got stomped.
The only people who got stopped where by tea bagging thugs.
You make me laugh.
Fox News, the “shrill” for the Conservative Right, has made you believe “D”.
This election was a split-decision, with the Dems losing less than most of your righties where where predicting.
I’m hoping it will be like Reagan’s and Clinton’s first midterms which they bounced-back fine from to win a second term.
But it’s fine with me if you righties keep believing the Fox propaganda that the Dems have been stomped and are never coming back.
So does this make him the “horrible-ist” person of the week?
Mr. Olbermeyerberg, “HAVE YOU NO SHAME?????
Pedro and Ah_ha,
You guys are better than any reporters I’ve seen for figuring this story out. If it was a movie, there would be a huge “plot hole” that demands a rewrite.
Why would Olbermann make a rules-violating contribution he knew would certainly be public?
* One possibility is this is selective enforcement of a rule to get Olbermann out. If this is the case, others at MSNBC will have violated the law.
* Another possibility is that Olbermann is trying to make some point. But, if that’s the case, why hasn’t he explained that point publically?
* A third possibility is that Olbermann is trying to provoke a confrontation with his bosses for internal political reasons. This scenarios we are less likely to hear about.
Probably there are other possibilities I haven’t thought of.
What bugs me are that the lazy journalists aren’t filling in this glaring “plot hole”
The insight from bloggers like “McCullough” are worse — going no further than “Har.”
Lots of Repugs here today. Uggh.
Griffin’s a petty power hack and I predict he’ll be gone before Keith.
And Faxon, I hope that you have to sell your mother’s basement suite to pay for your health care one day and then become destitute.
Greg Allen, “You guys are better than any reporters I’ve seen for figuring this story out. … What bugs me are that the lazy journalists aren’t filling in this glaring “plot hole”
Thank you!, and you’re right.
Are the other reporters afraid of being fired for reporting the news??
His replacement Hayes has been giving donations too.
I’m leaning towards GregAllen’s explanation.
There’s also just the corporate masters kissing up to the Republicans. Though it s the Obama Administration that has to approve their merger with ComCast.
—–Original Message—–
From: Olbermann, Keith (NBC Universal, MSNBC)
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 12:27 PM
To: @MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann; @MSNBC Scarborough
Subject: RE: Pool on how wins the elections…
Actually, not to be a spoilsport, but on behalf of Countdown, I’ve always thought stuff like this gives a clear appearance of a conflict of interest, if not a practical conflict.
Countdown staffers will thus recuse themselves from any wagering on the election.
In America, TV buys politician.
Olbermann’s not coming back to MSNBC.
Ever.
Why?
Juan Williams.
FOX smartly snatched him up for a 2 year contract.
Watch the bidding war. When Juan’s contract expires, EVERYONE’S gonna want him. FOX will up their contract, but Juan will not be a headliner over O’Reilly or Hannity.
So over to MSNBC he goes to be the new linchpin in their news lineup.
It should take a couple of years to clean up the crap that Olbermann left behind, just in time …
The purpose of this policy is so the liberals in the news media can pretend to be nonpartisan.
Guys,
I have a solution I think we can all agree on. Replace KO with the guy he replaced….. Dev Null!
You up for it Leo?