Keith Olbermann Wishes CNN A Happy Birthday By Attacking Campbell Brown (Update: CNN Responds)

Keith Olbermann celebrated 30 years of CNN by giving outgoing 8pm host Campbell Brown the bronze in his nightly “Worst Persons in the World” pseudo-competition, for arguing that opinion journalism has made objective news more difficult to sell to a wide audience. Or, as Olbermann put it, “I like [Campbell Brown]… but this ‘I am a martyr to real news’ tour has to stop.”

Something about Brown’s argument that opinion journalism was detrimental to object news reporting seemed to hit a nerve with Olbermann, because he went pretty hard on Brown, who usually manages to stay out of the fray:

“Firstly, enough with the false equivalency between Bill O’Reilly and this show. I have never knowingly reported anything false and we correct our mistakes. secondly, she doesn’t think the network’s problems have anything to do with, you know, hour long specials on Mick Jagger on primary night and the American Idol winner during the last hours of Top Kill?

[…]

CNN’s 8 o’clock news programs haven’t failed because they are competing with opinion and interpretative news programs. They’ve failed because CNN hasn’t figured out that everything it puts on the air is available to everybody who watches all day on the internet, and if you don’t bring something else to the table, they’re not going to watch. Let’s hope they don’t figure it out. Oh, and happy 30th birthday, CNN.”

Worst birthday present ever.

Update: CNN has responded to Olbermann’s criticism. A CNN spokesperson tells Mediaite:

“By the end of the day some people may know what’s happened in the world – but that’s no thanks to MSNBC, which didn’t even bother to cover the press conference announcing that Top Kill had failed to stop the Gulf oil spill. As a news organization, CNN provides viewers both content and context to the days’ news, unlike the partisan networks.”

Video below: