On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 6:22 AM, K.M. Richards <[email protected]> wrote:
> Okay, Kevin. We get it. You don't like Keith Olbermann, > > Some of us do, however. > > I agree with Don that neither of the terms you suggest are applicable, > because MSNBC was responsible for his becoming the "center of > attention" by the way they handled this. I read Keith's statement to > the New York Times on Monday and listened to his explanation on last > night's "Countdown" and it seems that MSNBC neither put the "ask > before donating" rule in his contract nor brought it to his > attention. So, when contacted by a third party website to confirm his > campaign contributions, he freely admitted them ... because he didn't > know he had broken any rules. (I also agree with his statement last > night that the rule may not be legal, in which case he'll likely end > up with his paycheck for those two suspended days.) > > I also had suspected that the contributions came after the candidate's > appearance on his show, not before. To hear Keith confirm that > timeline now makes me wonder why no one in the media picked up on that > possibility. (If they did, I missed it, so feel free to correct me on > that.) > Again, I think the focus on rule violation is confusing this situation. I think there is a problem with the actual rule NBC has in place, and I think it is at least ambiguous what rule Keith was obligated to follow (or at least knew he was obligated to follow). But I don't really care about any of that (I mean, I care a little because I would like news organizations to have fair rules that respect the citizenship rights and responsibilities of their employees, and in general I think it is appropriate to follow the rules of whatever organization you choose to be a part of). But I don't really care about that. What I care about is that Keith did not live up to the implicit, but still very important, agreement he has with his viewers to be transparent. He knows full well that he had an obligation to let his audience know that he had donated to the campaign he was reporting on, and to the guy he was interviewing - whether or not NBC has a rule about it. The observation that employees of Fox News do more and worse than Keith is quite besides the point. We already know that Keith is better than them, and we don't give him any extra credit for that. We expect more from Keith, and he let us down. I don't even really care about an apology, but I do care quite a bit that he is able to acknowledge that he made a mistake, and commits to not repeating it, otherwise it becomes more difficult to trust him. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
