Keith Olbermann speaks--Today's Blog

[Shopaholic]

Read full blog at www.bloggermann.com :


November 14, 2004 | 3:05 p.m. ET

I swear: I'm on vacation (Keith Olbermann)

SECURE UNDISCLOSED LOCATION - Golly, I’ve never been the subject of a conspiracy theory before. Yet, there it is, flying around the internet. . . that when I attempted to break the “lock-down” of coverage of the voting irregularities story in the media during Friday night’s edition of Countdown, I was fired, and left the studio in the middle of the program. Um, no, actually. I’m on vacation - it’s been scheduled since August; I’ll be blogging in the interim; Countdown will continue to cover the story in my absence; I not only wasn’t fired for ‘mentioning’ the story - but we covered it five nights in a row; and, I’ll be back on television on the 22nd (earlier, if developments warrant).

But we can now trace how just a dollop of the truth can be subverted into an item available for purchase in the Tin Foil Hat District - and we have another reminder that what you read on the web, no matter how much it might fit your beliefs, anxieties, or even other facts, might still resemble more a game of telephone than actual investigative reporting. Two insider facts: a) We planned that gag to tamp down any surprise or speculation if people tuned in Monday and didn’t see me (I assumed reactions would divide into three groups: ones from the left which assumed I’d been “silenced,” ones from the right which assumed I’d been “suspended,” and, the largest group by far, ones who couldn’t care less). b) The rest of the show is live, but, for reasons of technical complexity, we always pre-tape the quiz in advance. The whole running-off-the-set gag was recorded at 7:45. Temporally speaking, my “mid-show firing” occurred before the newscast itself. Thanks, though, to all who e-mailed fearing a reply “Olbermann? No Olbermann ever worked here.” The e-mail volume since the first blog last week, incidentally, is up to 27,000 as of 2 PM ET Sunday, and it continues to run at about 22:1 in favor, with the “ones” boiling down to messages like “get over it” and the cordial greeting from a woman in late middle age: “Shut the F up.” We do learn from this correspondence that not a lot of people like Ann Coulter, and that the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is so infrequently read that the oxygen over there is being utterly wasted.

The rest is well worth your time in reading, he goes on and summarizes the media coverage on the story from this weekend and tells us that even though he's on vacation, he's still reading our e-mails and indeed, will be blogging.

[idiosyncratic]

1. Oh goody . . . I hope he keeps up the pressure. I wonder who

will be doing the show next week?

[restorefreedom]

2. it's his closing line that gets me...

"Oh and by the way: how come the “Kerry’s winning” part of the election night exit polling is presumed to have been wrong, or tampered with, but the “Moral Values” part of the same polling is graded flawless, and marks the dawn of a new American century?"


damn straight, Keith.

[Shopaholic]

4. Usually either Alex Witt or Allison Stewart fill-in

for him when he's on vacation. Although once, inexplicably, I saw Mike Barnicale there. I have no idea WTF that was about. . .

[restorefreedom]

5. Given the topic at hand.....

I'd love to see Countdown borrow David Schuster for the week.

I also think Monica would do a great job.

[Imagevision]

3. Vacation...enjoy!

Keith, at a time when so much election controversy is in the air a break can be just what the doctor ordered...so-to-speak?...enjoy Franc {in Florida}

[Ima]

6. O I C

And it would have been so terribly difficult, for Olbermann to simply announce, "I'm going on a pre planned vacation for a week"?

That f-ing vacation skit was set up, so we could speculate, and then be chastised for "tin foil hat".


Thanks a lot.........not!

[high density]

7. Laugh a little!

The freaking out around here was pretty insane when he ran off the set like that. He mentions both the left and the right under his tin foil hat umbrella, both sides thought he was gone but for different reasons.

I did enjoy this line from his blog:
"We do learn from this correspondence that not a lot of people like Ann Coulter, and that the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is so infrequently read that the oxygen over there is being utterly wasted."

[restorefreedom]

8. I think "not like" in reference to Ms. Coulter..

is being kind.