Countdown and Out

I knew the writing was on the wall for MSNBC's Keith Olbermann once Comcast Corp. bought his network given my own experience reporting about Comcast. Newly employed at a Pennsylvania newspaper in 2007, I wrote an article quoting customers and consumer activists critical of Comcast. While not challenging any of the facts of the story, the paper's managing editor accused me of a hatchet job and insisted his criticism had nothing to do with Comcast being an advertiser at the paper. I defended the story. Needless to say I didn't make probation.

Obviously a small town newspaper reporter like me wasn't on Comcast's radar unlike the high-profile Olbermann whose Countdown with Keith Olbermann  show reached millions of viewers who were inspired by his liberal views and nightly skewering of rightwing politicians and pundits. But there are parallels. If you rock the boat by taking on powerful corporations like Comcast, you have a razor thin margin of error with your employers.

Of course Comcast - whose CEO Stephen Burke was a major political contributor to President George W. Bush http://www.truth-out.org/bernie-sanders-wants-nbc-comcast-merger-stopped-following-olbermann-suspension65046 - denied it had anything to do with Olbermann's firing. However, it's ludicrous to think there was no connection to Comcast purchase of NBC, MSNBC's parent network this week.

No one from Comcast ordered my firing and it's unlikely that Comcast executives explicitly ordered Olbermann's Friday ouster from the network. They didn't have to. Corporate censorship isn't necessary when media self-censorship will do the trick.

Boatrocking journalists - and in this conservative country that means liberal journalists - are always expendable no matter how talented they may be. It's always just a matter of time before their bosses decide it's just not worth the aggravation and potential loss of revenue and show them the door. And that applies to small newspapers as much as major television networks.

Olbermann might have lasted longer had he adopted the model of his ex-colleague Brian Williams. Earlier this month the the NBC anchor appeared on David Letterman who questioned him about climate change and Republicans refusal to admit the existence of human-made climate change. "I play it straight down the middle," Williams said refusing to admit the existence of climate change.

Williams could've said that since NASA recorded 2010 as the hottest year since they began measuring temperatures and given that about 98 percent of respected scientists including NASA's James Hansen acknowledge climate change, that it proabably is the real thing. But Williams was well aware he would've been eviscerated by rightwingers for his comments which potentially could've cost NBC ratings and revenue.

So he used the timeworn technique of implying that a journalist is someone who just recites facts and never gives fact-based analysis. If he were asked about the Holocaust and Holocaust deniers would he say that he can't give his opinion and that he just "plays it straight down the middle"? Or that those who believe President Obama isn't an American citizen should be given equal time as those that do?

Williams does what author and activist Noam Chomsky describes as "manufacturing consent." http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Manufac_Consent_Prop_Model.html Rather than challenge authority, journalists like Williams act as a microphone for it.

A perfect example was Williams "exclusive" interviews this week on the 20th anniversary of the Gulf War with President George H.W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and other major members of the first Bush administration involved in prosecution of the war. To his credit, Williams did ask Bush whether the war was about oil, but didn't follow up when Bush said it was about defending Kuwait which Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded precipitating the war.

Williams could've asked about the then US ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie's telling Saddam the US had "no opinion on your Arab conflicts such as your dispute with Kuwait"  less than a month before Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990 http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ARTICLE5/april.html Or Williams could've asked about the US supporting Saddam for decades before going to war with him including remaining silent when he dropped mustard gas on the Kurds in Halabja in 1988.

But if Williams had he would've gotten no more "exclusive" interviews with establishment figures like Bush and Cheney. This is not to pick on Williams who is probably the best of a bad bunch of network anchors.

The point is that those who go along to get along like Williams keep their jobs and prosper. And those who comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable like Olbermann - who criticized the Iraq War before it became popular and criticized President Obama as much as he criticized President George W. Bush - are shown the door.

And don't buy that Olbermann was fired for being difficult to work with. Talented people are often demanding and it's easy to make enemies with colleagues used to going along to get along. I worked briefly with Olbermann at ESPN where he made a lot of enemies. But I recall him being very gracious to me about an on-air mistake he made courtesy of bad statistics given to him by the ESPN Sportsticker bureau which I was the liaison for.

That doesn't mean Olbermann is a saint something he never claimed to be. But he is an articulate, compassionate and eloquent voice for social justice. And he has been silenced for speaking out.