Keith Olbermann was let go from MSNBC yesterday. I’ll admit that I wasn’t the biggest fan of his Murrow-aping delivery, but I liked knowing that he was out there every night, calling the conservatives out on their bullshit. He was, as far as I know, the first person in the media to speak up against George Bush, and, for that, he will always have my admiration… At any rate, here he is, saying goodbye.
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As Countdown was, I believe, the number one show on the network, one suspects that the cancellation wasn’t about ratings. I’d like to think that it wasn’t over Olbermann’s politics, but I don’t see how it could be anything else. And, it does look incredibly suspicious, given that the NBC Comcast merger was just given the green light by the FCC a few days ago. If I’m not mistaken, this is exactly the kind of thing that Al Franken warned us about. I just wonder what kind of effect this will have on the remaining MSNBC hosts, like Rachel Maddow.
From Wired:
…“Keith Olbermann’s announcement tonight, the very same week that the government blessed the Comcast-NBC merger, raises serious concern for anyone who cares about free speech,” Marvin Ammori, the University of Nebraska law school professor and free speech advocate, told Wired.com by email.
“Comcast proved expert in shaking down the government to approve its merger,” Ammori said. “Comcast’s shakedown of NBC has just begun.”
Philadelphia-based Comcast, the largest cable and broadband provider in the United States, is controlled by the wealthy, politically-connected Roberts family…
It looks to me as though the MSNBC threat has been sufficiently contained… Good work, Washington!
