On the heels of last week's Keith Olbermann backlash, the New Yorker's Peter Boyer examines whether "angry" Olbermann is the future of TV news. The article is a must-read for anyone interested in Olbermann or TV news. Selected excerpts and interesting facts belows:
- On Olbermann's health: "He has been given a diagnosis of Wittmaack-Ekbom's syndrome, also known as 'restless-legs syndrome' (and also 'the kicks,' 'Jimmy legs,' and 'jitters'), a neurological disorder that produces a prickling, itching, or crawling feeling in the legs, profoundly disturbing sleep.
- Regarding Olbermann's "Mr. President, Shut the hell up!" Special Comment: "Phil Griffin, the senior vice-president in charge of MSNBC ('Phil thinks he's my boss,' Olbermann says), raised the matter of tone. Why did Olbermann need to end his commentary by telling the President of the United States to 'shut the hell up'?
'Because I can't say, "Shut the fuck up," that's why, frankly,' Olbermann responded. The line stayed in."
In the end, CBS hired Katie Couric--a decision, Olbermann likes to point out, that has not worked as well as had been hoped. (Couric consistently comes in third in the network ratings.)
Asked about the prospect of an Olbermann reign at "CBS Evening News," Sandy Socolow, Walter Cronkite's final executive producer, responded emphatically. "Oh, no, no, no, he's not a newsman," Socolow said. "He's not a reporter. I've never seen anything that he's done that was original, in terms of the information. It's all derivative. I like him, I agree with his perspective, and I think he's very, very good on television. But he's not a newsman." Socolow added, "Ten years ago, if he had done at CBS what he does every day on the air at MSNBC, he would have been fired by the end of the day."
Olbermann himself thinks that he could succeed in the traditional nightly network-news slot. "I think it would not do any worse than the three that are out there now," he says. "It would not get more than double the amount of protest that any of the shows have now."
As Russert put it to me shortly before his death, "Keith and I have each carved out our roles in this vast information spectrum." He continued, "What cable emphasizes, more and more, is opinion, or even advocacy. Whether it's Bill O'Reilly or Keith Olbermann or Lou Dobbs, that's what that particular platform or venue does. It's not what I do. What I do is different. I try very, very hard not to come up and say to people, 'This is what I believe,' or 'This is good,' or 'This is bad.' But, rather, 'This is what I'm learning in my reporting,' or 'This is what my analysis shows based on my reporting.' And as long as I can do that I'm very, very comfortable. And nobody has asked me to do anything but that."
Brokaw says he sometimes feels that he has been cast in the role of hall monitor at NBC News; if so, his charges have kept him busy. The day after the New Hampshire primary, Matthews asserted that Hillary Clinton owed her election as senator to public sympathy for her in light of her husband's sexual peccadilloes. "It was completely out of line," Brokaw says. "And Keith took it to another level" with his "shut the hell up" commentary.
"It was, like, you meet a guy and you fall in love with him, and he's funny and he's clever and he's witty, and he's all these great things," Griffin said of the relationship between Olbermann and the Clinton supporters among his viewers. "And then you commit yourself to him, and he turns out to be a jerk and difficult and brutal. And that is how the Hillary viewers see him. It's true. But I do think they're going to come back. There's nowhere else to go."
Read the entire article here.