Friday, November 5, 2010

Keith Olbermann gets suspended for political contributions to Dems


Well, I’ll be damned!
Politico: MSNBC host Keith Olbermann has been suspended indefinitely without pay after POLITICO reported that he made three campaign contributions to Democratic candidates.
MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement Friday: “I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay."
Olbermann made campaign contributions to two Arizona members of Congress and failed Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway ahead of Tuesday’s election.

Olbermann, who acknowledged the contributions in a statement to POLITICO, made the maximum legal donations of $2,400 apiece to Conway and to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. He donated to the Arizona pair on Oct. 28 — the same day that Grijalva appeared as a guest on Olbermann’s “Countdown” show.
NBC has a rule against employees contributing to political campaigns, and a wide range of news organizations prohibit political contributions — considering it a breach of journalistic independence to contribute to the candidates they cover.
A few quick points:
  1.    I am not buying for one second that MSNBC did not know Olbermann was giving to the Dems.
  2.    I think this suspension is just MSNBC keeping their options open for find a better replacement.
  3.    NBC has rules concerning “journalistic independence”? You could have fooled me!
  4.    Did anyone check for political contributions from Chris Matthews?


Moe Lane offers up a suitable replacement for Olbermann and as luck would have it, he is recently unemployed too!

Via: Poltico

6 comments:

Just a conservative girl said...

This is a joke. He is not a journalist. It is terrifying that NBC is saying that he is one.

That is really the story.

VH said...

Clifton, your 4 points are spot on.

Keith Olbermann is the perfect example of yellow journalism on cable T.V. He's incredibly biased and is a NASTY smear artist. I remember the vile schadenfrued that Olbermann exhibited when Rick Sanchez was fired from CNN and Juan Williams was fired from NPR. Olbermann is disgusting.

The Game said...

Why is this a problem?
Are we really pretending that people in the media are not liberal?
Come on...
They are 85 percent liberals and that is just the way it is...
The problem is that even if they try and be "fair and balanced" it is impossible.
The bias comes in the stories they choose to report, the labels they put on people.
It is the way it is.
Just one example.
Republicans were described as "extreme" a large number of times in the past few weeks on MSNBC..dems, zero.
Just one example..a little late to get into it now.
But I'm really surprised there is a rule that tries to assume these people are going to be operating "down the middle"

GrenadiAdrian said...

Is it just me, or does Olbermann look like Barney Frank? *Shudders*

Hot Sam said...

He didn't get fired for breaking their rules. He got fired for overtly confirming their bias.

You can look up campaign contributions on OpenSecrets.org

I'd look up Matthews for you, but my browser doesn't support Flash.

Hot Sam said...

According to OpenSecrets.org, Christopher J. Matthews of Gannett News donated $500 to Jim Moran (D) in 1990, 1992, and 1994. There is no record of donations after 1994.

The funny thing is that OpenSecrets shows no donations by Keith Olbermann.

The list of donations by George Soros and his close relatives goes on for 21 pages (only the first ONE THOUSAND RESULTS can be displayed).

I have little doubt the money came from one source. Did his son's wife really have $70,000 just lying around?

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