New Feud: Keith Olbermann Versus…The New York Times?!

by Steve Krakauer | 4:53 pm, September 8th, 2009

» 13 comments

olbermann_8-21 Well this is different.

The New York Times‘s David Carr weighed in today on Keith Olbermann‘s search for dirt on Glenn Beck and more.

And Olbermann wasn’t too happy with the conclusion Carr drew, as evidenced by his lengthy Daily Kos response.

Carr concluded:

While Mr. Beck may be serving as a proxy for the party of opposition, his targets are members of the administration, a rugged game to be sure, but not one that attempts to investigate journalists and commentators for having contrary opinions. What might Mr. Olbermann do if someone digs up dirt on his intended targets, who, like him, work in the infotainment industry and have been elected by no one? Once the game of oppo research on the press begins, it’s hard to tell where it might stop, no?

Olbermann quickly responded to correct the record on what he felt was Carr’s faulty timeline. He gave a response to Carr, but also in a long blog post on Daily Kos. His point boils down to this: they started it. “NewsCorp has been playing this game since I left its employ in 2001 mostly in Page Six of the New York Post,” he says, before listing several examples. He concludes:

Yet, all of this does raise an issue. Just because Fox and Beck have done this, do I want to? Do I want to, even for a moment, be Glenn Beck? I mean, I am risking at least three things he doesn’t have: the respect of my peers, self-respect, and a conscience.

Well, wow. On the surface, there’s the question of whether this admission here means he plans to take back his call to dig up dirt on Beck. We’ll find out tonight – he promised to make a similar call to his TV viewers as well.

But there’s also something else. As Carr points out, both Olbermann and Beck work in the “infotainment industry,” and Carr is very clear in his specific avoidance of making a distinction between the two hosts. Olbermann clearly see himself as far different. Notably, that he has (and Beck doesn’t have) “the respect of my peers, self-respect and a conscience.” There may be some people, including those at his own network, who would certainly disagree with the first one.

As for the rest, well – have at it commenters.

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David Carr, Glenn Beck, keith olbermann

Jelperman

Newscorp is run like a cult and anyone who displeases the Master (i.e. Rupert Murdoch) will soon find himself or herself stalked by Newscorp’s semen-crusted little trolls. Ask Lara Logan or Cynthia Tucker, who have been stalked by Fox flunkies. Now when Newscorp’s acolytes are threatened with a little taste of their own medicine, smarmy and dishonest concern trolls come out of the woodwork to wring their hands about incivility. Even worse are the intellectually dishonest ones who subscribe to the Golden Mean Fallacy and claim that should a victim of Newscorp’s creepy little stalkers respond, then they are just as bad as the creeps themselves.
m

Jelperman obviously exaggerates – but brings up a good point. It is quite interesting that Newscorp essentially uses the New York Post as an outlet to go after Keith Olbermann. When Olbermann goes after Murdoch, it’s because it’s not just Fox News that goes after him – but it’s the entire conglomerate. I’ll never forget the fact that Newscorp owns over 170 papers around the world and *every* single one of them editorially supported the Iraqi war invasion in 2003. Fox News is just a piece of the global puzzle.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Fred-Farrar/1409154527 Fred Farrar

How is it that someone like Olbermann, who can dish it out with incredible meanness and arrogance, seems to upset when he is a target?
And how is it that Mediaite seems compelled to highlight his every utterance?
The nation has shown it doesn’t care…so why does Mediaite continuall find some way to parrot his every ego-centric, mean-spirited comment, charge or rant?
I’d suggest we’d all have a lot more participating on an over/under poll on when Keith leaves MSNBC.
At some point he will become to GE execs, just what he became to every other set of executives who hired him: too egocentric, too tiresome, too predictably pyrotechnic and simply too much trouble to be worth keeping around.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Fred-Farrar/1409154527 Fred Farrar

To m: Just because someone fights the good fight against a perceived evil doesn’t make that someone a good person.
Case in point: Stalin.
Jelperman

When Olbermann liquidates a bunch of Trotskyists, you might not look like a complete imbecile for likening him to Stalin.

How is it that someone like Olbermann, who can dish it out with incredible meanness and arrogance, seems to upset when he is a target?

Olbermann confines his remarks to ridicule. Newscorp sends stalkers out to harass people at their homes or places of employment, or fantasizing about the murder of people he disagrees with - Bill “Falafel” O’Reilly being the worst offender.
TfT

Keith went after the NYTimes once before, regarding the whole “truce” story.

Keith can dish it, he can’t take it.

LOL. He is a child/man — a big baby. No wonder he likes to go hide in his bathtub.
http://www.swissarmyjew.com Keeva

Olbermann has the thinnest skin on TV, next to Beck, followed closely by O’Reilly and then Jim Cramer. They are far more concerned with their pathetic images than the news they pretend to report. Neither has a clue about actual journalism or those annoying facts and such.

As far as going after people, was it not the entire NBC family that went after Jon Stewart for calling out Cramer? Yep. Including Olbermann.

Want to have some fun? Ask Keith about how his massively inexperienced girlfriend got jobs at both The Weather Channel and NBC’s New York affiliate when both were dumping established on air talent. He will automatically deny he had anything to do with it. Sort of.

The ask Beck about wanting to kill Charles Rangel with a shovel or his hate for Katrina victims or his belief that the president is a racist. He will bluster on about satire and such, but evade any responsibility for his remarks.

O’Reilly is – as we all know – never, ever wrong and Jim Cramer got the financial meltdown exactly right.

At the end of the day, these guys are incompetent and dangerous. And Mediaite is spurring them on.
Cecelia

Keith Olbermann now say’s he’s not going to call out the dogs of war against Glenn Beck because:

“I mean, I am risking at least three things he doesn’t have: the respect of my peers, self-respect, and a conscience.”

Olbermann is a GENIUS at self-promotion! He’s not only horned in on the Van Jones story and on Glenn Beck’s spotlight, via internet attention and a New York Times column!

Olbermann has managed to have a televised MORAL EPIPHANY!

Van Jones, who?

Glenn Beck, who?

Pres Obama, who?

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE “O”, folks!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Anthony-De-Rosa/503357744 Anthony De Rosa

Fred Farrar, you could attribute everything you wrote about Olbermann to Beck. Too egocentric? Check. Too tiresome? Check. Too predictably pyrotechnic and simply too much trouble to be worth keeping around. Check and checkmate.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Fred-Farrar/1409154527 Fred Farrar

I am no fan of either, to be honest, but there is one major difference: Beck actually has viewers.
Jelperman

You’re right: no one watches Olbermann.

So why are all the Republitards whining about Olbermann’s show?
ChrisNH

The key here is that Beck and O’Reilly don’t even NEED to mention Olbermann. Instead, they go for the mother ship, MSNBC, and the Grandma, GE, with much better effect than Olbermann ever will. ‘Better effect’ is defined by ratings, which is something Beck and O’Reilly have that Olbermann doesn’t. Olbermann also doesn’t have those supposed ‘three things’ he believes he has; but we’ll let him dream it anyway.
Dster

“I am risking at least three things he doesn’t have: the respect of my peers, self-respect, and a conscience.”

Apparently the only thing Olbermann lacks is an audience.