This is Countdown

This is Countdown

This is Countdown; the third day since Keith Olbermann has been suspended indefinitely by MSNBC.
Olbermann got caught by Politico, in a story published late last week, donating the maximum amount of 2,400 dollars to three different Democratic candidates. Shortly thereafter, by midday on Friday, it was announced that Olbermann had been indefinitely suspended without pay from MSNBC. The resulting internet uproar was deafening. Senator Bernie Sanders wrote an irate entry for The Huffington Post, demanding MSNBC return Olbermann; his sentiments were echoed by journalists and talking heads, liberals and conservatives alike.

NBC news policy prohibits journalists from donating to political campaigns. The policy- at least insofar as the public knows- was never officially extended to the whole of MSNBC, though insiders claim that the policy was understood to apply to the network.
This sort of policy is put in place to ensure the public non-opinion, transparency, and lack of conflicts of interest of journalists. It is arguable that straight-news reporters ought not to donate to political campaigns (though they should not be either explicitly or implicitly banned from doing so), but one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who believes Olbermann is a straight-news reporter. Olbermann's biases are clear, well-publicized, and completely disclosed. Is anyone surprised that Olbermann donated to Democratic candidates? Not really.
Perhaps Rachel Maddow put it best on her Friday, November 5 show:

I understand the rule. I understand what it means to break it. I believe everyone should face the same treatment under that rule. I also personally believe that the point has been made and we should have Keith back hosting Countdown.
Here's the larger point, though, that's going mysteriously missing from the right-wing cackling and old media cluck-cluck-clucking: I know everyone likes to say, "Oh, cable news, it's all the same. Fox and MSNBC -- mirror images of each other. But if you look at the long history of Fox hosts not just giving money to candidates, but actively endorsing campaigns and raising millions of dollars for politicians and political parties... They can do that because there's no rule against that at Fox. Their network is run as a political operation. Ours isn't. Yeah, Keith's a liberal, and so am I. But we're not a political operation -- Fox is. We're a news operation. The rules around here are part of how you know that.
Back before it was politically safe to do it, Keith Olbermann attracted the ire of the right-wing and a lot of others besides when he brought to light and raged against what he saw as the errors and sins of the previous presidential administration. Keith was also the one who brought to light Fox News's water-carrying for the Bush Administration; he was the one whose point-of-view journalism exposed and put exclamation points on the problems of disguising a political operation as a news one, the model embraced by the guys across Sixth Avenue, at Fox.
Now, weirdly, it is Keith who is once again illustrating the difference between what he does at MSNBC -- what we do here -- and what goes on across the street.

Over the weekend, over 250000 people signed a major online petition for Olbermann to return. Well, the petition worked. Olbermann's suspension has been lifted, starting with tonight's show. It's a little incongruous for the network executives at MSNBC to suspend Olbermann on principle of the rule and to return him this quickly, but his ratings power makes it unsurprising.
Here's the other piece of Olbermann's suspension: he's not the only one who donated. Joe Scarborough, host of 'Morning Joe', donated at least 9,000 dollars to Republican candidates in recent elections. Apparently, though, Scarborough asked the network for permission first. And as you may note, Scarborough is still on the air.

[Photo credit: The Huffington Post]