Saturday, November 06, 2010

Rachel Maddow on suspended Keith Olbermann: MSNBC should reinstate him

UPDATE:
MSNBC ends suspension of host Keith Olbermann
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
November 8, 2010

Keith Olbermann's "indefinite" suspension from MSNBC turns out to be definitely short: two days.

The liberal host will be back on the air Tuesday, the cable news network said Sunday night. Which means that Olbermann's punishment for violating NBC's policy against making contributions to political candidates amounted to being taken off the air for only two shows, on Friday and on Monday...


Rachel Maddow on suspended Keith Olbermann: MSNBC should reinstate him
BY Christina Boyle
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
November 6th 2010

Rachel Maddow came to the defense of her suspended MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann, saying network chiefs have made their point and the "Countdown" host should be reinstated.

Maddow also sought to dispel claims that MSNBC is a left-wing version of Fox News, saying the Murdoch-owned broadcaster has a history of "not just giving money to candidates, but actively endorsing campaigns and raising millions of dollars for politicians and political parties."

"Their network is run as a political operation. Ours isn't," Maddow said during the final segment of her show Friday. "Yeah, Keith's a liberal, and so am I. But we're not a political operation - Fox is. We're a news operation."...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rachel: You say that Fox is a political operation and that MSNBC is a "news operation" and that Fox news is "policital." I don't get it! Are you claiming that you just report the facts unfiltered by your opinion? Please clarify this point so that your viewers like me understad better your point.

I love your show, and I also love what Keith Oberman does, precisely because you both of you provide me with an opinion about the facts. The news is just not something out there--it needs to be interpreted and explained --and that is where opinion comes in and is critically necessary inorder to help your viewers better understand what is going on in this crazy world.

I agree with you about supporting Keith Oberman. I see nothing wrong with Keith providing financial support for political candidates in this post-Citizens United world. If the corporations that support your news show can spend millions to overturn health care in America; how can we say it was wrong if Keith Oberman gives, as a private citizen, a couple of thousand dollars to democratric polticians running for office and who support health care? The fact that Oberman presents reasons for supporting health care on MSMBC (opinion) does not create an ethical problem in a world where people like Murdock use corporate control of the news to advance their opinion about the news. We need counterveiling opinions for evaluating the facts.



Gary Minda
Brooklyn, NY

Maura Larkins said...

To Gary,
I think Rachel was talking about the news programs on the two channels, not the opinion programs. Rachel Maddow and Keith Oberman do indeed have opinion programs, but the news programs on their networks are legitimate news programs. On Fox, however, it isn't just the opinion programs like Bill O'Reilly's that slant the news; even the purported news stories slant the news.