Olbermann Rips AP Reporter's Analysis Of Obama Speech (VIDEO)

In an unusually heated attack on a veteran political reporter by a cable news host, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann laced into the Associated Press's Charles Babington an hour after Barack Obama had concluded his speech in Denver on Thursday night.

With rare exception, nearly all of the top commentators and reporters on the three cable news networks had hailed Obama's speech as something new and powerful, and filled with specifics, and predicted it would have a positive effect on his chances vs. John McCain. This hallelujah chorus included conservatives such as Bill Kristol and Pat Buchanan and the longtime Republican David Gergen, as well as Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams. Buchanan called it the best and most important political convention speech he had ever heard, going back 48 years.

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WATCH OLBERMANN'S CRITICISM:

Comments

[Mattie]

is this what they meant yesterday, when they said Olbermann's coverage would be right down the middle. This man is destroying MSNBC

[presto]

He sure is. It is embarrassing to watch.

[Darenjoe]

Not bad for a NWO globalist. Good times will come to keep us all in check and in favor of the
rich scum who run your lives.

[TheOldSchool]

Why is it taking so long to see a comment posted? Why does HuffPo continue this inane practice of being the cyber nanny?

[JMBrodie]

A good speech may not read like great literature because it is written to be spoken aloud not read quietly. Just like some great writing sounds horrible when given voice.

You may have the words to a speech, but as a journalist I can tell you that you still don't know how to access it until you hear the delivery.

[foxfan]

It's like e-mail. Just reading it doesn't give you the tone, the passion of the person whose thoughts they are.

[BBurgess]

Rupert Murdoch was appointed to the AP Board in April. There is no reason to believe anything the
AP reports anymore.

[DesertLight]

Apparently all dissenting voices have been silenced?

[hopefulinpa]

I love Keith.. He tells it like it is. I think one of the first times I saw him he was lighting into Bush. I literally sat there with my mouth open, stunned. And then I cheered. I couldn't believe it! I never have cheered like that before at something on TV but he was right on! He is by far and away the best newscaster on TV! Now keep going after McCain! I love it! Obama/Biden 08

[foxfan]

He tells it like (he thinks) it is. Big difference.

[Ironfox]

This, from someone with limited cognitive ability, tis to laugh.

[aaawyeah]

babbington's article was clearly written before the speech. the AP is slipping. slipping big time.

[semperfido]

Except that the Obama strategists released the paper version of the speech before he delivered it, precisely so that the AP report of the speech would make the morning papers. it's not a conspiracy.

[jjasonham]

Then can you explain to us how the article author didn't see the specific policy statements? It could mean that the final version wasn't the one that was released. Which would lead one to believe the author didn't actually see the speech and....voi­la, wrote it ahead of time.

[Twentylaws]

All of the media has been slipping since they changed from actual reporting to commentating!

[foxfan]

NOW THAT IS A TRUE STATEMENT!

[Kishadawn]

Thank you Keith. I read it and thought the same thing!

[judesuper]

Anyone else noticed how sour and put out Gregory and Brokaw were have to admit that Barack Obama's speech was great? Boy just watching that made my day!!

[FaceYourFears]

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed!

[Shaddup]

Gregory is a ditz cheerleader for the cheerleader. Brokaw is on his way to being this generations Archie Bunker.

[Big0725]

This is just another nail in the coffin of corporate media.

AP will be going the way of UPI soon enough, and good riddance.

[Kiabell04]

After that riveting speech last night, how could anyone criticize it?? I mean, even Obama's haters have to agree that that was an historic and awesome speech.

[TheOldSchool]

AP has long been one of the US government's favorite vehicles for placing covert ops and spreading propaganda in foreign lands.

Under the administration of George W Bush, the longstanding policy of keeping at least a modicum amount of distance from using the AP to influence domestic affairs was ended. (From their viewpoint, it was a no-brainer. After all, they already had Fox, so why was it necessary to be so prissy about sticking to old-fashioned protocols when it came to domestic reporting from AP?)

As it happened, AP's conversion was infinitely more valuable to them than they had foreseen. AP was, and unfortunately still is, respected by the vast majority of citizens and seen as an unbiased news source.

AP gives the veneer of credibility to a White House that is rotten to the core.

AP can be counted on to spin more and more frantically in McCain's direction as election day draws nearer.

Following Obama's brilliant speech last night, if you read Charles Babington's AP story, you would rightly be questioning Babington's sanity. That's because you saw the speech. There will be millions of people who didn't see Obama's speech, but will read Babington's negative story about it.

Babington is a fellow at the neocon Hoover Institute.
Ron Fournier, his boss in the AP Washington DC bureau, is friendly with Karl Rove and was offered a job with the McCain campaign. (Maybe he accepted.)

Thank you, Keith Olbermann.

[tam39]

No matter what your ideology, KO is practicing the type of journalism we need right now, journalism that is not masked by some false sense of objectivity that seems to be what most in the mainstream press seem to strive for. "Objectivity," as defined by the mainstream press, often is nothing more than the practice of countering real and obvious truths with falsehoods.

[justamazed]

Journalists are supposed to by definition tell what is happening or what happened. KO does not do that. The whole story is both sides of any issue. KO only shows his side of any issue and the finds only like minded people to "tell him how he is wrong." As if that were even possible. He will, read WILL have a breakdown. With luck it will be on TV for all of us to see.

The speech was lacking specifics. Any specifics of how he is going to do things. He said he was going to do this and that and this and that. But not one time did he tell us how he was going to do any of the this' and thats. Of course it was a convention speech. But he has yet to give any real specifics on how he is going to do anything. Because he has yet to accomplish anything in his life other then being elected in Ill in a Dem controlled machine, it is hard to tell how he is going to accomplish anything.

[Ironfox]

Dear justdazed, Regan threw out the " Fairness Doctrine " over two decades ago. You reap what you sow. So stop bitching.

[DesertLight]

Why in G0ds' green earth is this thread so heavily moderated?