Keith Olbermann "had conversation" with CBS before they hired Katie Couric

[Berry Cool]

I never knew this:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-ontv7aug07,0,4416276.story?coll=la-headlines-calendar

"I had a conversation with the large people at CBS before they went and decided to go to Katie Couric," he said. "We sat at length talking about this. They had a mixture of greedy appreciation and suspicion about whether or not anything like this, you know, how could you do a 'Countdown' show on the 'CBS Evening News.' Well, of course you couldn't. Now."

He described the meeting -- how he'd told CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves and then-CBS News President Andrew Hayward all that ailed the nightly news.

"Everybody does two or three minutes of a dimwitted feature" at the end of the broadcast, Olbermann recounted telling them. "There's some feature I can live without. . . . Give me two of those minutes and on the way in and out of each commercial break, we can customize the stuff, it will look to people like a revolutionary new version. It will look like an SUV with three wheels somehow supporting the weight, but burning only half the gas, and moving at 90 mph effortlessly, you know, spewing lilacs out the exhaust pipe."

He was on a bit of a roll.

". . . And Mr. Moonves and Mr. Hayward left and that was the last of it," he added.

[babylonsister]

1. And they've lived to regret not taking his advice to heart!

:evilgrin:

[rpannier]

2. Too bad

another error by cbs (cretin bumbling stooges)

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Aw, man!

[ixion]

4. yeah, guess KO wasn't perky enough

:evilgrin:

[aikoaiko]

6. impossible. KO has more perky in one eyebrow

than all of KC.

[SaveAmerica]

5. He's much paler in person!! Thanks for the article, it was pretty good

My only problem was this paragraph:

"In the process, Olbermann has developed a new brand -- the leftist firebrand of cable news, taking on O'Reilly (in rhetoric if not ratings) and the Bush administration in verbose, breathlessly written editorials that get passed around like munchies on various TV news websites."

The leftist firebrand of cable news, it might seem like that now because all the chewy morsels are about the daily evil-doing of the Bush administration. I've never had any doubt that if the buffoonery was done by a Democrat, Countdown would hold their feet to the fire, too (and he has done). That's what I love about this show and how I hope it will always be, we need a place where we know we can trust the real news to get out.

[RamboLiberal]

7. CBS loss but in the long run better for us IMHO

KO is less tethered on Countdown than he would've been on the CBS News. I doubt he'd have been able to do his commentaries in the same manner, or to smack down the Bush Administration, Repubs (and Dems when they need it), and the RW blowhards.