Gored: Olbermann Out at Current

[connecticut yankee]

Source: Huffington Post

Keith Olbermann has been fired by Current TV, and replaced by Eliot Spitzer.


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/30/keith-olbermann-out-current-eliot-spitzer_n_1392513.html


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I am very upset by this. I think Keith was the best commentator on TV. I won't watch Eliot Spitzer. I find him repulsive.

[provis99]

1. Olbermann was a monumentall egomaniac and ass.

Good riddance.

[Hokie]

2. Keith does good work but ...

I am beginning to think that Keith is one of those employees about whom you have to ask is he really worth all of this? I think that his departure from MSNBC has actually been a good thing. Lawrence O'Donnell has done a fine job and Rachael Maddow has become the star there. Keith is talented but seems to be always tripping over his ego. I wish him well.

[sabrina 1]

5. I don't agree. I haven't really watched MSNBC since he left.

And it was Keith who urged MSNBC to give Rachel her own show. So it's sad to see people forget the fact that it was Keith who turned that network around and paved the way by proving there was an audience for the 'left', for everyone who is there right now.

LOD is okay, sometimes he's good, sometimes not so much.


Keith was the only progressive voice anywhere on the Media throughout the Bush era who dared to tell the truth.

I don't know what happened at Current, maybe they decided not to give him the freedom he thought he was going to get after all. If they turn into just another mainstream, be careful what you say network, that would be a shame. I like Spitzer but if the ratings for Keith were not great it had more to do with the fact that not everyone can get Current, and I don't see how, unless they do a lot of promotion, Spitzer can do any better.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

17. Thank you

"...Keith was the only progressive voice anywhere on the Media throughout the Bush era who dared to tell the truth. ..."

[Hokie]

22. I am not saying Keith hasn't done good things

Rachael has achieved success because she is good. If KO helped her get her own show then great.

[sabrina 1]

26. She is good. He used to have her on as a guest and he wanted her to have her own show.

Probably Keith needs to run his own network. Obviously his ideas are great, getting Rachel, building MSNBC up and helping to increase its ratings. I think he finds it constricting to have to run ideas he knows are good, past people who might not have the same vision.

I know he thought he would have a lot of freedom at Current, maybe he likes to build things. So whatever happened, I don't know. But there have been rumors that there were problems.

It's a testament to his good instincts that he pushed for someone as good as Rachel to have her own show. He knew talent when he saw it.

I hope he is back on the air soon. I haven't checked Twitter to see if he has sent out any tweets, but I doubt it.

[Fawke Em]

13. If that is true, why is he still close with Dan Patrick.

What I think is that he stands his ground (no pun intended and R.I.P. Trayvon) when management acts stupid.

[Hokie]

23. I have heard Dan talk about KO

My impression is that Dan thinks KO is talented but too egocentric to get along with employers. The record bears that out.

[Fawke Em]

30. Yet, they are still friends.

My point is that KO doesn't like management, which you actually proved.

[Laurian]

3. I'm angry as well. I think his support for and reporting on the Occupy movement was

vitally important in the early days of the protests. His voice has been very important on any number of issues and will be sorely missed.

I have sent an email to Current to let them know my feelings, but I'm sure that will have as much effect as spittin' in the wind......

[Siwsan]

4. Keith needs to do some serious introspective thinking

How many networks have waved goodbye to him? When the same thing happens time and again, it's not the rest of the world that has a problem.

I loved watching Countdown but I knew it would never last. I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did on MSNBC. He is very intelligent and talented, but very high maintenance and perhaps a little self-important.

[CTyankee]

8. I have seen something like this happen closer to home and it is sad. I am very upset tonight...

[Auggie]

6. Rachel Maddow's show is so much better that losing Keith Olbermann

on television, probably permanently, doesn't hurt as much as it would have a year or two ago.

I like Keith a lot and will look for him on the web.

[Fawke Em]

14. No... it's actually not.

She's too "cutsey."

Sorry, I don't like that.

Edited to add: As a female who was a reporter for 12 years, I hate that women in a similar profession (I was print, she is broadcst) feel the need to be overly cutesy to have a following. Hell, Anderson Cooper doesn't do this shit.

[titaniumsalute]

29. You like pepperoni pizza...I like mushroom pizza..

I don't Rachel to cutesy at all. I find her extremely natural with an intense depth of knowledge on numerous subjects. I don't think Rachel is "acting" in a certain way to gain an audience. I think she is herself. Glen Beck was a phoney. Anderson Cooper is frankly boring.

[Auggie]

35. As a reporter, I would expect you to base your review on content

and not personality.

[sabrina 1]

18. Rachel Maddow would not be on television if it was not for Keith Olbermann, MSNBC would still

be trying to beat Fox for ratings by swinging more and more towards the right, if it had not been for Keith Olbermann. He is the main reason that MSNBC realized that there was an audience for left leaning talk shows.

Sad to see people so willing to throw people away who were there when no one else was for them. I'd like to know what happened at Current. I hope it's not the same old story where the network people decide that too much freedom of speech is not such a good thing. That is what happened at MSNBC.

[titaniumsalute]

32. You have no idea if Rachel would have been on TV or not

Come on. That's some serious fortune telling. I know lots of GMs and PDs in radio who have to manage ridiculous egos. When a host becomes bigger than the business, bigger than the advertisers, bigger than the managers, etc. they become a liability.

I love Keith's show. He did certainly help pave the path to progressive programming on MSNBC. But when his ego got larger than the cable channel it became a problem. It has nothing to do woth freedom of speech.

[originalpckelly]

7. He is an ass, but his show was always being fucked up with technical problems.

The man came from a real network to something that at times looked like a cut above Public Access.

I don't blame a professional news guy from not wanting to take that bullshit with the production issues.

He really needs to start some kind of internet program, TV is bullshit anyway. He could get an amazing audience if he did it.

Now, I wouldn't watch, because I don't like to listen to things that are only what I want to hear, but there are others who would.

[Snake Alchemist]

36. well I'm sure he can always go back to MSNBC or ESPN. nt

[leveymg]

9. Keith was imperfect, but he was the best we had until he brought Rachel onboard. It's the suits

that really need to be fired. Their main job is to make good choices about talent, and once they hire talent to give that on-the-air personality what they need to be their creative best. At MSNBC, they wouldn't, and at Current, they couldn't.

It's impossible for Keith or any talented, idiosyncratic person to be as good as he could be when the bosses are not up to their jobs.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Well I will continue to watch both msnbc and current

We need them, quite brutally honest.

[trueblue2007]

11. CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!! Keith was the ONLY reason i watched current tv. i have no reason to watch sp

[Fawke Em]

12. My husband was just asking me why so many women don't like

Spitzer.

"He's a good liberal," he said.

I crossed my eyes and said, "He may be, but cheating on his wife with a hooker doesn't endear him to women, dear."

He said, "Everyone makes a mistake."

I said, "Yes, they do, but that mistake turns women off. We don't trust him."

Finally, he got it.

[sabrina 1]

19. Well, I like him, and his personal life is between him and his wife and has nothing to do with me.

But, I am sorry he has accepted Keith's place on Current, assuming that's what happened. Because I like Keith also and he was the main reason I watched Current. Will wait to see what the story is before deciding whether to be furious or not.

[Fawke Em]

28. So, you like it when men treat women as objects?

When will liberal women realize that liberal men who seek whores WHILE MARRIED are still buying into the system that women are commodities?

It's not about "nunya biz": it's about control your dicks. We have brains. I think men do, too. It's stupid to let a man abuse a woman emotionally because "well, that's what men do."

If left to our instincts, then women should kill men after impregnation like spiders. Right?

No.

And human males shouldn't think they're lions, either.

[titaniumsalute]

33. Oh please

It takes two whores to tango. If a man has to control his dick...there iss a pussy that also needed controling. These women who fuck guys who are cheating on their wives are making decision just as evil. The net "wrong" becomes neutral. They both repusle me frankly.

[sabrina 1]

34. I offered an opinion of men who seek out prostitutes?

I didn't think so.

If he were my husband, then it would be my business. He is not, and if we were to put every man and woman out of business for cheating on their spouses, because yes, women do it too, we would lose at least half the work force. Both he and the prostitute, who btw, is a woman, are adults. I am not into telling other adults what they should or should not do and in fact I am in favor of legalizing prostitution.

Did he force this prostitute to have sex with him? Don't women have a responsibility in any of this? I assume, since we have not heard otherwise, that she was a willing participant and she did it for money. Not a choice I would make, but I'm not her.

Sorry, but what he did is between him and his wife who is a very capable woman in her own right. Pushing one's morals on other people is not very progressive. I may not understand it, which is why I don't give it a moment's thought.

What would he have to do to lose my respect totally? He would have to start an illegal war, he would have to claim the right to torture people. He would have to cheat people out of their pensions and throw people out of their homes, for profit. No matter how brilliant he might be, if he did any of those things, I would despise him.

But going to a prostitute is not on the top of my list of things that earn a man total condemnation. Ordering a war that kills hundreds of thousand of human beings, that is way up there on my list. That destroys the lives of women, it gets them killed, raped, tortured and leaves them with no power.

Sorry, but while I wish he had not felt the need to do it, it really is not my business. The only people he hurt were himself and his family and they seem to have forgiven him.

I could never forgive a war criminal.

[Recursion]

15. One day Keith will learn how not to alienate his employers

At least I hope so, because I'd like him to keep broadcasting.

[GoCubsGo]

24. It sounds like it may well have been the other way around.

At least that is what I was seeing on his show, with all the shoddy production problems. Those were the network's fault, not Keith's. I don't blame him for getting pissed about them. I don't know about you, but I don't like having commercials cut into the middle of a conversation.

[Snake Alchemist]

37. he's the most unlucky host in the world. nt

[Recursion]

45. OK, but look back to the ESPN days

He has a way of pissing off the people he works for, and it's a devil he can't seem to shake.

[GoCubsGo]

47. This isn't ESPN

As I said, Current's inexcusable screw-ups were turning "Countdown" into a shoddy, second-rate show. All of the technical problems were noticeable to those of us who watched it on a regular basis. And, that's when those of us without cable/satellite were able to find a working web stream. Current is always shutting down web streams, rather than providing a means of expanding their audience. If Keith was acting like a dick over this, I can't say I blame him.

[bbgrunt]

38. the reason that Keith

keeps losing employers is because he has an honesty and integrity that just isn't compatible with the objectives of corporate media and he refuses to give in. We have been incredibly blessed to have had him on the corporate media for so long. I sure hope he finds a way to continue getting his views out to the public.

[Recursion]

44. No, this pattern goes back to ESPN

He wasn't speaking truth to power there, and he still pissed off everybody.

[shimonitanegi]

16. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.

Olbermann had been so obsessed with Bill O'Reilly.
But he made Bill O'Reilly less controversial.

[Pisces]

20. Good riddance to Keith!! He was a spoiled fuckingx brat. Eliotcwill be much better. Where are all

The defenders from a few months ago? This ego maniac loves to burn bridges. I wonder how many he has left?

[Odin2005]

21. Al probably got sick of Keith's huge ego.

[MADem]

25. He and Current had a mutual non-disparagement clause working.

That may have done him in.

When he was ostentatiously absent during the a critical time for the network--the Iowa caucuses-- he was behaving unprofessionally. You don't go on strike against a tiny start-up progressive station that is trying to be the Anti-Faux at the far end of the dial--especially when they are paying you out the ass. He was complaining about his sets and his fluff, why couldn't he have pitched in and helped, like people do when they are all in it together for a good cause? Take a salary cut, tell 'em to put the cash into his precious sets, and give him stock in the joint instead?

I think he doesn't work/play well with others, and he's overly-impressed with his own importance. Al Gore doesn't need that shit. Particularly in an election year which is the target time to 'grow' his audience.

KO had a chance to be a Big Fish in a Small Pond if he'd just have developed a "team player" mentality. Instead, he's pouting and suing. Enough, already. I think he needs to have his ass handed to him, and he needs to ride off into the sunset. Good commentary doesn't make up for poor sportsmanship and an overabundance of hubris.

CURRENT has a lot of potential, but they need someone who will show up for work, ready to work-- not pout and trash his fellows in the workplace. KO was the architect of his own downfall.

[dionysus]

27. i love his commentary, but he needs to learn to stop being a douche to the people he works with.

[RedCloud]

31. Dobermann is going to sue Current TV!

Gore, the worst person in the world.

Stop forcing yourself onto the screen!

[Stinky The Clown]

39. Mr. Olbermann, while a great liberal and truth teller, has a very checkered employment history

A retracing of his life path will make necessary the fording of many rivers to bypass the smoldering wreckage of burned bridges.

[MADem]

42. Now that's some imagery! I tip my hat to you! nt

[quaker bill]

40. Big ego, big paycheck, small audience

bad formula for success

[Waiting For Everyman]

41. Keith never failed me in his reporting and that's my relationship with him,

so I won't be throwing him under the bus, or kicking him when he's "down" (as it at least seems to be at the moment). His relationships with those behind the scenes is their problem, not mine, but I suspect KO is not entirely wrong and they are not lily-white.

I wish him the best and I feel confident that he'll be "back" in the near future.

[Major Hogwash]

43. How much experience does Al Gore have in broadcast journalism?

None.

KO graduated from Cornell University at the age of 20 with a degree in broadcast journalism.
And built a 30-year career doing just that ever since.

When you fire someone for being sick, there's going to be a lawsuit.
I don't think Hyatt understands that to this day.
There will be a big settlement for KO later on.

[HappyMe]

46. He doesn't 'play well with others'.

Unfortunately when you're on a tv show, there are a lot of others you have to deal with.
His monumental ego doesn't help either.