The Corporatocracy Of The Keith Olbermann Suspension

This country has allowed FOX News to set a standard which has left other mainstream media outlets on a boat, and at times, without a paddle. Don’t get me wrong. We get our  Anderson Cooper on and I’m a big fan of AC. However, I’ve always thought that MSNBC wanted to take the liberal flag and run it up the mountain of Nielsen, but they never seemed too comfortable with it, somewhat like my 11-year-old niece who changes clothes five times a morning. What will fit best, what won’t be scratchy and which color will the boys like the best.

Yes, Rachel Maddow is completely at ease with her show and calls it like she’s sees it but she doesn’t yell, scream and call people asshats on a regular basis. It’s mired in facts, and observations. Thus, the age of the editorial is still intact.

With Keith Olbermann’s suspension yesterday, a pundit who has rallied around left-wing causes and giving a voice in response to some of the insanity that follows Bill O’Reilly, reminds me that the FOX news operation excels in setting a mission statement on what they are trying to convey. It’s a political operations, don’t doubt it.

CNN, NPR and in this latest incident, it’s clear that they can’t decide what the want to do. They don’t want to be FOX, which is always my personal nightmare being a former journalist, but they want what FOX has.But all three incidents of Rick Sanchez, Juan Williams and now the mighty O, we see that there isn’t a mission statement in sight and the age of the pundit has confounded liberals.

Let’s pretend that MSNBC has a business plan. In that business plan, they admit that they want to be the liberal version of FOX. But I can hear the cries of journalists citing “That’s not news.” There is confusion. Someone cries (I always assume this being Chris Matthews, who is the passive aggressive version of Olbermann and is a gaffe-a-minute himself.) and then five empty pages of blank paper are left on the conference room table. No plan, so they swing it.

Olbermann was hired to be the O’Reilly pit bull counterpart. I like some of what he does. I don’t other things. I thought he was extremely thin-skinned at Jon Stewart’s remarks from last week. Maybe he doesn’t even understand his role, although I find that very hard to swallow. Yesterday did prove that much of what Stewart said was accurate.

I’m not privy to the workings of national news, but common sense will tell you that the boat is rudderless. What MSNBC didn’t realize yesterday is that they just elevated Olbermann to a liberal folk-hero. He likes the attention, so they should not be surprised that this story will continue to have legs.And FOX, well, they are more of an entertainment industry force that uses (and by use, I mean uses) the news as a means to an end. Kirk Varner addresses this better than I can but the bottom line is that the rules have changed for news thanks to the innertubes.

Bottom line, liberals need a new plan. News should be news. Pundits ARE going to be pundits. And someone smart is going to have to figure out the next step because if MSNBC thinks they depowered Olbermann, they are wrong.

He’s got them right where he wants them.

Corporatocracy won on this one, campers. Let’s see who gets bit first.