Olbermann Suspended From MSNBC for Campaign Donations

Stupid. Is he not a citizen first? Does working for a MSNBC preclude him from voting as well?

Whether or not NBC applies its policy consistently, the policy makes sense.

They are in the business of providing news

Olbermann even attracted some unlikely supporters. Conservative writer Bill Kristol, who frequently appears on Fox News Channel, wrote in a blog post: "Perhaps Olbermann violated NBC News 'policy and standards.' But NBC doesn't have real news standards for MSNBC — otherwise the channel wouldn't exist. It's a little strange to get all high and mighty now."

Many viewers pointed to apparent double standards of journalistic objectivity applied elsewhere. Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who co-hosts "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, made a political donation in 2006. But a network spokesman said that donation was made in accordance with company policy and that Scarborough had asked for permission first.

Fox News host Sean Hannity made a $5,000 donation this year to the political action committee of Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Republican from Minnesota. But a Fox News spokeswoman contended that unlike Olbermann, Hannity does not anchor coverage of news events. Also, News Corp. policy does not preclude employees from donating to political campaigns, although corporate funds may not be used to do so.

Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, wondered if there may be a disconnect between the journalistic codes of NBC, the parent company with a traditional "objective" news operation, and MSNBC, where opinion now flows freely.

"NBC's rules are saying that you can't engage in any activity that may jeopardize your standing as an impartial journalist," Rosen said. "But is impartial journalism really what MSNBC is about right now?"

GIVE US SOME GODDAMMED OBJECTIVITY!!!

You'll have to go to BBC, CBC, Al Jazeera or some other foreign news sources, Kicky.

Yes, this goes to the "unbiased reporting" issue which was raised for Juan Williams firing from NPR.

If Fox doesn't suspend Hannity then it shows that Fox could care less about their people appearing partisan and makes no pretense of being unbiased.

Could it be that his ratings aren't too good? (I don't know because I rarely watch any of them. Still, I find him even less interesting than the others.)

UPDATED: We have been notified that Comcast has not yet officially taken over MSNBC/NBC Universal. Although Comcast has tentatively finalized a deal to purchase a majority stake in NBC, Comcast awaits final approval of the takeover from the Justice Department and from the Federal Communications Commission. A statement from Comcast reads: “The joint venture between Comcast and GE has not yet received regulatory approval. Comcast is not in any way involved with decisions made currently by NBC News.” However, once Comcast gains final approval from federal regulators to move forward, Comcast COO Steve Burke, a Bush fundraiser, will be placed at the helm of MSNBC and other NBC companies. Our original post inaccurately asserted that Comcast’s Burke was involved in the decision to fire Olbermann. We apologize for the error.

Earlier today, MSNBC declared that it would be suspending progressive host Keith Olbermann because he violated NBC’s ethics rules by donating to three Democratic candidates for Congress. As many bloggers have noted, conservative MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has donated to Republican candidates for Congress while promoting the same candidate on air, but has never been disciplined. Moreover, Gawker notes that MSNBC has been exempt from the formal NBC ethics rules for years. It is still a mystery why MSNBC selectively applied NBC’s ethics rules to Olbermann. However, it important to realize that MSNBC has undergone a fundamental change in leadership in the last two months

Let this incident lay to rest forever the facile, never-true-anyway, bullpucky, lazy conflation of Fox News and what the rest of us do for a living. I know everybody likes to say, “Oh, that’s cable news. It’s all the same. Fox News and MSNBC, mirror images of each other.”

Let this lay that to rest forever. Hosts on Fox raise money on the air for Republican candidates. They endorse them explicitly; they use their Fox News profile to headline fund-raisers. Heck, there are multiple people being paid by Fox News now essentially to run as presidential candidates. If you count not just their hosts but their contributors, you are looking at a significant portion of the whole lineup of Republican presidential contenders for 2012. They can do that because there’s no rule against that at Fox. They run as a political operation. We’re not.

Yes, Keith’s a liberal, and so am I, and there are other people on this network whose political views are shared openly with you, our beloved viewers. But we are not a political operation. Fox is. We are a news operation. And the rules around here are part of how you know that.

Sen. Bernie Sanders Sen. Bernie Sanders – Fri Nov 5, 9:54 pm ET
Read Sen. Bernie Sanders's other articles on HuffingtonPost.com

It is outrageous that General Electric/MSNBC would suspend Keith Olbermann for exercising his constitutional rights to contribute to a candidate of his choice. This is a real threat to political discourse in America and will have a chilling impact on every commentator for MSNBC.

We live in a time when 90 percent of talk radio is dominated by right-wing extremists, when the Republican Party has its own cable network (Fox) and when progressive voices are few and far between.

At a time when the ownership of Fox news contributed millions of dollars to the Republican Party, when a number of Fox commentators are using the network as a launching pad for their presidential campaigns and are raising money right off the air, it is absolutely unacceptable that MSNBC suspended one of the most popular progressive commentators in the country.

Is Rachel Maddow or Ed Schultz next? Is this simply a 'personality conflict' within MSNBC or is one of America's major corporations cracking down on a viewpoint they may not like? Whatever the answer may be, Keith Olbermann should be reinstated immediately and allowed to present his point of view.

News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, contributed $1 million this summer to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the business lobby that has been running an aggressive campaign in support of the Republican effort to retake Congress, a source close to the company told POLITICO.

It was the second $1 million contribution the company has made this election cycle to a GOP-aligned group. In late June it gave that amount to the Republican Governors Association.

The parent companies of other media companies such as Disney (which owns ABC) and General Electric (which owns NBC) have also made political contributions, but typically in far smaller chunks, and split between Democrats and Republicans.

In the past, News Corp. has also spread its donations between candidates of both parties. The huge gift to the RGA raised questions among some media critics about whether News Corp. had crossed over an inappropriate line for a media company. The second donation is likely to rekindle that debate...
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42989.html

MSNBC has branded Olbermann as a prominent face in its new “Lean Forward” marketing campaign. He tripled MSNBC’s ratings at 8 p.m. In the past two years, MSNBC’s more opinionated hosts have helped propel it past CNN in prime time, and even lately during the daytime, too.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44734.html

Whether or not NBC applies its policy consistently, the policy makes sense.

They are in the business of providing news.

Quote:

Whether or not NBC applies its policy consistently, the policy makes sense.

They are in the business of providing news.

I suppose it makes sense that Fox doesn't have this policy.

Whether or not NBC applies its policy consistently, the policy makes sense.

They are in the business of providing news.

There is an obvious potential for conflict of interest when a news reporter spends thousands of dollars supporting individual candidates.

Creating the story of President Obama's $200 million a day trip
Barbara Morrill
Fri Nov 05, 2010

The rightwingnuttia is abuzz with the news that President Obama's trip overseas will cost the American taxpayers $200 million a day, that 34 U.S. warships will be stationed for his protection, and that his entourage of 2,000 will use 870 rooms at a five-star hotel.

Except it's not true.

So, how did this truly ridiculous lie become a story? It's easy:

The numbers evidently originate with the Press Trust of India, whose report [based on one anonymous source] was linked on the Drudge Report and picked up by Fox News host Glenn Beck.

From there it exploded in what Rachel Maddow calls the "alternate, self-contained, right-wing media universe," where it has become "de facto fact."
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/11/5/917952/-Creating-the-story-of-President-Obamas-$200-million-a-day-trip

Will Fox News hold Beck, Hannity responsible for spreading “wildly exaggerated” Obama trip cost claim?
November 05, 2010
by Terry Krepel

Tonight, Fox News Special Report reported what most of us already knew: that the purported $200 million per day cost of President Obama’s trip to India and Asia is, as Wendell Goler quoted the White House, “wildly exaggerated.”

What Special Report didn’t report: Fox News’ own hosts have been peddling that bogus claim.

As we’ve documented, both Hannity and Beck have bandied about the $200 million figure – plucked from an Indian newspaper and allegedly made by an anonymous source – to attack Obama and his trip to India. Beck did eventually concede that he didn’t know if the numbers were real, but he continued to promote them anyway. Hannity and Beck also denounced the booking of the entire Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai for the trip, with Beck overstating the number of rooms in the hotel (it’s 570, not 800).

In his report on Special Report, Goler highlighted the White House’s denial of the “wildly exaggerated” claim, adding that taking over the entire Taj Mahal hotel -- which was a target of a terrorist attack two years ago -- “was the call of the Secret Service.”

Later in the show, during the “All-Star Panel” segment, host Bret Baier aired clips of White House and Pentagon officials denying the claims, adding that “$200 million a day, the administration is saying ... is just far-fetched and out of left field.”

The panelists joined in shooting down the bogus attacks:

•Fred Barnes said, “I’m all for protecting the president wherever he goes. I don’t think it costs $200 million a day -- that sounds a little high -- but he is the president of the United States, and he needs to be protected.”
•A.B. Stoddard denounced “these fictional cost estimates that we don’t even have evidence of.”
•Even Charles Krauthammer came to Obama’s defense: “If that’s what it takes to make sure that not a hair on his head is touched, particularly abroad, particularly in a city that had suffered one of the most savage and successful terror attacks anywhere in Mumbai, I’d spend every penny. ... You want people in control of every inch of that hotel, and that’s natural.”

But Baier, Goler and the panelists all sidestepped the fact that Fox News’ own hosts were promoting those “far-fetched and out of left field” numbers. Baier pointed out it came from “an Indian press report” that the administration had to “deal with” -- but not that his Fox News co-workers were given that press report prominence.

It makes little sense for Fox News to report the truth about a bogus claim, then not insist that Fox News hosts who promoted that bogus claim correct the record. Will that happen in the next few days? We shall see.
http://mediamatters.org/print/blog/201011050056

Stupid. Is he not a citizen first? Does working for a MSNBC preclude him from voting as well?

NBC news anchors, like Brian Williams, report the news without personal opinions.