More on Olbermann, Greenwald and Stelter

Glenn Greenwald has posted a statement from MSNBC's Keith Olbermann as well as his own withering response regarding the cease-fire between MSNBC and Fox News. Here's what Olbermann told Greenwald:

I honor Mr. Greenwald's insight into the coverage of GE/NewsCorp talks, and have found nothing materially factually inaccurate about it. Fox and NewsCorp have continued a strategy of threat and blackmail by Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, and Bill O'Reilly since at least 2004. But no matter what might have been reported by others besides Mr. Greenwald, and no matter what might have been thought around this industry, there's no "deal." I would never consent, and, fortunately, MSNBC and NBC News would never ask me to.

Greenwald then writes:

I certainly believe that Olbermann is telling the truth when he says he was never a party to any deal and that nobody at GE or MSNBC asked him to consent. That's because GE executives didn't care in the least if Olbermann consented and didn't need his consent. They weren't requesting that Olbermann agree to anything, and nobody — including the NYT's [Brian] Stelter — ever claimed that Olbermann had agreed to any deal. What actually happened is exactly what I wrote: GE executives issued an order that Olbermann must refrain from criticizing O'Reilly, and Olbermann complied with that edict. That is why he stopped mentioning O'Reilly as of June 1.

Once the NYT exposed this deal between GE and News Corp., MSNBC executives allowed Olbermann to attack O'Reilly last night because neither Olbermann nor MSNBC could afford to have it appear that their top journalist was being muzzled by GE.

Greenwald has some useful links, too, so please read the whole thing. And yes, Olbermann owes Stelter an on-air apology.

A cheap shot from Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann issued his declaration of independence last night. But in doing so, he smeared New York Times reporter Brian Stelter (photo), whose account of a peace settlement between Olbermann's employer, MSNBC, and his nemesis Bill O'Reilly's employer, Fox News, had created the need for Olbermann to renew his feud with O'Reilly in the first place.

Stelter reported last Friday that executives at both networks had moved to stop the on-air sniping between the two hosts. "Bill-O the Clown," Olbermann's pet nickname for O'Reilly, was frequently featured in his "Worst Persons in the World" segment. O'Reilly, for his part, had started taking aim at the corporate agenda of MSNBC's owner, General Electric.

Although Stelter, not surprisingly, was forced to rely quite a bit on unnamed sources, he had an on-the-record comment from GE spokesman Gary Sheffer, who confirmed that a deal had been cut: "We all recognize that a certain level of civility needed to be introduced into the public discussion. We're happy that has happened."

Stelter also included a quote from Olbermann: "I am party to no deal."

Seems pretty well nailed-down. Yet Olbermann, on last night's "Countdown," designated Stelter as his number-three villain in the "Worst Persons" segment, with O'Reilly coming in at number two. Among other things, Olbermann said:

Problem, Mr. Stelter asks me at least twice last week if there was such a deal, and I told him, on and off the record, there was not. And told him I rather obviously would have to be a party to such a deal. And I told him that not only wasn't I, but I had not even been asked to be by my bosses. And he printed it anyway.

This is intellectually dishonest, as it implies that Stelter deliberately did not use Olbermann's quote because it didn't fit with what he wanted to write. In fact, Stelter did use it, and he placed it in context. It's very clear from Stelter's story that the deal had been cut by higher-ups, and that Olbermann might or might not go along.

Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch came in at number one for trying to muzzle O'Reilly. Hmmm ... doesn't that confirm that Stelter got it right?

Glenn Greenwald, who's been blogging away at Salon ever since the Stelter story came out, criticized his ideological soulmate Olbermann last night, writing on Twitter, "Really surprised by the Olbermann denial - there's lots and lots of evidence that the NYT's description about what GE did is 100% accurate."

Stelter himself took it in good humor after seeing his photo plastered on the "Worst Persons" segment. "Tonight: a reminder to take a new head shot," he wrote on Twitter.

All in all, not a good moment for Olbermann. He may have reclaimed his independence. But he did so at the expense of sliming a journalist who'd broken an important, unflattering story about collusion by media moguls. At the very least, Olbermann ought to award himself the bronze.

Photo from Stelter's Twitter feed.

What's wrong with CNN

CNN has fallen to third place in prime time. It's an easy way out to argue that it's because CNN is doing news while Fox and MSNBC are doing talk. But it seems to me that CNN has three problems of its own making:

• It's given up on the 8 p.m. slot, where Campbell Brown is caught between Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann. Has anyone ever watched Brown's show? She certainly isn't compelling enough as part of "The Best Political Team on Television" (or at least the largest) to make me want to check her out.
  
• Larry King at 9 p.m. — you can't live with him, you can't live without him. CNN's fortunes have been tied up with King for so many years that no one dares to mess with his show. But it's not what it used to be. I'd move it to 8 and try to come up with something else at 9. An intelligent political talk show, perhaps? If that's not too oxymoronic?
  
• At 10 p.m., CNN ought to clean up. Its best anchor, Anderson Cooper, is up against Greta Van Susteren and the Olbermann rerun. Trouble is, Cooper's newscast lacks a distinct identity. And because it's two hours long, he spends way too much time flogging stuff that will be coming up after 11, when people are either in bed or watching Jon Stewart. I'd cut it to an hour and make it a consistent, signature newscast. Then again, that's what Aaron Brown was doing in that time slot, and I would have kept him and deployed Cooper elsewhere.

Problem solved. Next?

Hoax doesn't affect Palin story

A number of observers seem to misunderstand the meaning of the revelation that a man who claimed to be Carl Cameron's source for some of his Sarah Palin dish has turned out to be a fraud.

Citing unnamed sources, Cameron reported on Fox News last week that Palin, among other things, didn't know that Africa was a continent and couldn't name the countries in NAFTA — or, for that matter, in North America.

Now I'm hearing that the exposure of the fake Martin Eisenstadt shows that Palin really isn't that stupid. Except that this AP story, posted on the Fox News Web site, reports that Eisenstadt — or "Eisenstadt" — was not Cameron's source, and that Fox is standing by Cameron's story.

For what it's worth, I never believed Palin didn't know Africa was a continent. But if you want to believe it, there's no reason to stop now.

MSNBC's news-opinion dilemma

It looks like the political cross-dressing act at MSNBC has reached its limit. According to Brian Stelter of the New York Times, talk-show hosts Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews will not anchor the cable network's coverage of the upcoming debates or on election night, which should tone down the battle between NBC's journalists and MSNBC's opinionators.

I have quibbles about this, but overall I think it was the right move. Barack Obama has no bigger advocates in the mainstream media than Olbermann and Matthews, and it has looked strange all year to have serious journalists like Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams, Andrea Mitchell and, before his death, Tim Russert seeming to answer to them. Recently, it all boiled over on the air.

Olbermann and Matthews reportedly will continue to appear as analysts, while David Gregory will serve as the anchor. That's all fine. My larger concern is that in addition to being moved out of the anchor slots, they will also be expected to tone down their opinions, lest they run afoul of the Republicans' current war against the media. Olbermann was exactly right in his revulsion at Republican efforts to stamp their brand on the terrorist attacks of 9/11, even if it was unseemly for him to do it from the anchor desk.

The problem, of course, is that there are no such scruples about the dividing line between news and opinion at Fox News. Stelter, for instance, does not question the fiction that Bill O'Reilly is not allowed to anchor Fox's convention coverage, a piece of information that would be a surprise to anyone tuning in between 8 and 9 p.m. the last two weeks. Fox's signature news personality, Brit Hume, is a good journalist, but he also leans noticeably to the right.

MSNBC this year is experiencing the first semi-success of its benighted existence by loading up on liberal political talk shows. Today Rachel Maddow debuts at 9 p.m., extending that trend. I don't know how long it can last, since the network is still firmly ensconced in last place. But as long as network executives can find a way to keep the journalists and the talkers from ripping each other's throats out, MSNBC has become a refreshing alternative to Fox News.

I just hope it's Williams and Brokaw who are driving the anchor-desk shift — and not Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt.

Bitterness and hate at MSNBC

Jon Stewart's got some great clips (move it ahead to around 11:30) of the meltdown at MSNBC. It turns out that Rachel Maddow's upbraiding of Pat Buchanan has been the least of it.

One other thing I saw late last night, following Joe Biden's speech: Keith Olbermann asked Brian Williams a question about whether McCain might use his vice-presidential announcement to take away from Obama's moment. Except that he asked his question following an elaborate set-up in which he said something to the effect that he didn't want to put Williams in the awkward position of seeming partisan. Williams semi-acknowledged that some sort of conversation had taken place.

It seemed clear to me that Williams must have been complaining that he and other NBC journalists feels as though they're getting sucked into the liberal talk-show atmosphere that has led to MSNBC's rise in the ratings.

It also seems clear that Tim Russert was the only personality strong enough to keep all this backbiting from spilling over. Another reason to lament his passing.

By the way, it's mainly MSNBC, but not only MSNBC. The other night on Fox News, Brit Hume took the crossover from Sean Hannity and said — I'm sure I've got this almost word for word — I've always wanted to be on "Hannity & Colmes," if only for a moment. The contempt on Hume's face was palpable.

Second least popular, too

Brian Stetler, writing in the New York Times, describes Brit Hume's "Special Report" as the Fox News Channel's "fourth most popular program" in a story on Hume's decision to step aside after the November election.

But Stetler makes this observation in the context of "Fox's 6 to 11 p.m. schedule." That's five shows.

What Ailes a media critic

New York Times media columnist David Carr weighs in with a terrific inside look at how Fox News tries to smother even the mildest of unfavorable coverage with freezeouts, smears and, yes, doctored photos. And, he admits, it sometimes works:

By blacklisting reporters it does not like, planting stories with friendlies at every turn, Fox News has been living a life beyond consequence for years. Honesty compels me to admit that I have choked a few times at the keyboard when Fox News has come up in a story and it was not absolutely critical to the matter at hand.

Carr also cites a Fox News spokeswoman who says the most recent outrage — altering photos of Times media reporter Jacques Steinberg and his editor — was no biggie because cable news programs often engage in such antics for humorous effect.

That, of course, is pathetic. There was nothing funny about the Photoshopping; the two men were simply uglified for an audience that had no idea what they actually look like. Carr finds the plastic surgery done on Steinberg to be anti-Semitic, which is a very tough accusation. But I think he's right.

Thanks to Carr's column, the war between Fox and the Times is now fully engaged. It will be interesting to see what comes next.

Fox moves from eccentric to weird

Is it just me, or do the Fox News Channel's recent missteps strike you as qualitatively different from what has come before? It's as though your eccentric uncle has finally gone off the deep end, his uncertain grounding in reality having given way to something else entirely.

The latest, as you may have heard, is that Fox altered photos of two New York Times reporters to make them appear more sinister, elongating their faces, yellowing their teeth and giving one of them a receding hairline.

That follows Fox's labeling Michelle Obama as "Obama's Baby Mama!", and Fox host E.D. Hill's wondering whether the Obamas' playful fist bump was a "terrorist fist jab."

You can dismiss all of this as right-wing propaganda if you like. I'm not so sure. It strikes me as genuinely nutty, and it makes me wonder whether the rudder has fallen off.

Think it has anything to do with Roger Ailes' being unhappy over the nice things Rupert Murdoch has said about Barack Obama? Just wondering.

Fox News' underpublicized sick joke

I saw this on Talking Points Memo yesterday, and note that it's been picked up by the New York Times editorial-page blog as well. Have a look at Fox News Channel contributor Liz Trotta as she jokes that it would be just great if Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama — and eh, who can tell them apart, anyway? — were both killed:

The question of the day is why Trotta's sick joke hasn't generated more outrage. After all, MSNBC's Chris Matthews had to apologize publicly after he said Hillary Clinton's political success was based on her husband's "messing around."

I'm tempted to say it's because no one takes Fox News seriously, but certainly Media Matters, the liberal media-watchdog group, has been quick to pounce on Fox for other offenses. Perhaps it was because Trotta expressed her sick thoughts in the middle of a holiday weekend.

A Fox in CNN's chicken house

So I'm trying to watch the live stream from Giuliani headquarters at CNNPolitics.com. Instead, I'm listening to the audio from the Fox News Channel; the screen is black. Brit Hume just kicked it over to Mike Huckabee's speech. Back to you, Wolf!

Roger Ailes' latest war

Robert Greenwald, maker of the documentary "Outfoxed," has put together a three-and-a-half-minute clip of agitprop from the Fox News Channel in which Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and company push for war against Iran.

As Greenwald shows, the rhetoric is almost identical to what Fox was saying in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Have a look:

You can learn more about "Fox Attacks Iran," and sign a petition, here. Media Matters is on the case as well. This is scary stuff. As Christiane Amanpour observers in the clip, Fox's warmongering on Iraq had a huge effect on how other media outlets behaved. Could it happen again?

Make news, not views

My latest commentary for the Guardian is up. In it, I use the occasion of Paula Zahn's departure from CNN to take a look at why there's no news on cable news these days, especially in prime time.