So Olbie can't see the difference between a paid advertisement and a concocted news report? With this kind of intellectual honesty, Olbermann's lucky to be convincing as many people as he is that he's worth watching.
Posted on 01/11/2005 10:23:12 AM PST by Justaham
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann insisted on Monday night that the case of Armstrong Williams taking money from the Bush administration combined with the CBS panel finding no political bias behind CBS's hit job on President Bush, discredits the idea of any liberal media bias. Olbermann also portrayed CBS as a victim compared to the perpetrators at FNC since CBS News "played within the journalistic rules" while "you're not going to see Fox News appointing an independent investigation into its own journalistic ethics or lack thereof" for running the Swift Boat ads which were "full of distortions."
At the top of the January 10 Countdown, Olbermann trumpeted how "a vivisection co-chaired by a former Republican Attorney General of the United States found no political motivation behind the CBS decision to run the story and could not even conclusively decide whether or not the memos at the heart of the controversy were real or fake."
A few minutes later, Olbermann asserted, as taken down by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth: "There is, of course, a larger context in which the CBS flap fits politics and reporting. The presumption that if there is a story, there's a bias. The Thornburgh-Boccardi report suggested otherwise as the President and CEO of CBS was today quick to note." Les Moonves, CBS Chairman [clip #1]: "Forget about political bent. I don't think it had anything to do with it. I think it had to do with not doing their jobs." Moonves [clip #2]: "It is very important that people consider CBS News a fair organization that reports on stories fairly."
Olbermann then argued that the case for any liberal bias has been discredited: "For people who assume there is a liberal bias in the media, two odd things have happened Friday. First, the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams turns out to have been taking government payments to promote administration policy. Now, the former Attorney General under President Reagan and the first President Bush says the Killian memos CBS story was not politically motivated."
Turning to his guest, former New York Times reporter Alex Jones who appeared via satellite from Boston, Olbermann wondered: "How do these two stories -- Armstrong Williams and the Thornburgh findings about CBS -- fit into that matrix that insists that the media is tilted largely to the left?"
Olbermann next painted CBS as a victim and FNC as the real bad guys: "To some degree, do you think CBS got caught in this here because they had otherwise played within the journalistic rules. I mean, if you look at the Swift Boat ads last summer -- full of distortions, some demonstrably untrue content in there -- yet they were run as gospel by many news outlets even though they were by definition designed to influence the election. But you're not going to see Fox News appointing an independent investigation into its own journalistic ethics or lack thereof for those ads." Jones basically agreed: "Well, I think that was a terrible situation, and I think, again, this is not a matter of partisan politics. This is a matter of getting things into the information news stream that looked like news when they aren't at all. This was ostensibly reporting about an ad. But the ad is a dishonest ad. And the fact that it was put on again and again and again communicated to people who were watching it on television that it was true because television wouldn't put it on if it weren't true, right? Well, that wasn't the case at all. And the people who put it on repeatedly were simply justifying themselves by saying it was about the news of the ad. That's not good enough." Olbermann: "Right, it was true there was an ad. That was the truth contained therein."
That OldBeerman...he says some of the stupidest things after his Do-It-Yourself, direct view colon exam....
Olberman is a moron - the only fans he has are DUers and they don't amount to that many.
So Olbie can't see the difference between a paid advertisement and a concocted news report? With this kind of intellectual honesty, Olbermann's lucky to be convincing as many people as he is that he's worth watching.
He was "mildly" entertaining on ESPN, but he should have called it quits then.
Depends on what his definition of liberal is.
Olbermann: so morally broke he couldn't buy a clue.
Sources please Keith. You need to do more than merely assert that those ads were false without citing any evidence to back up your case-- which BTW is all the MSM ever did. And even Kerry has admitted that his Christmas in Cambodia -- which was "seared, seared" in his memory -- never even happened.
Folks, this tells you all you need to know about the mental state of the Lamestream media. Olberman, and probably thousands like him, actually believe this crap.
Olbermann is quickly turning into the most irritating of all the talking heads.
The other night he had his "countdown of appologies" but totally ignored his own appology for falsely questioning the
ohio election results.
Oh, wait.... He never did appologize....
I mean, if you look at the Swift Boat ads last summer -- full of distortions, some demonstrably untrue content in there
Did anyone other than MRC hear what Olbermann was blabbering about?
He will be back to ESPN within 18 months.
:*)
I'm sorely tempted to post my "barfing frat boy" photo here but I'll spare you all. I'd also like to say that Olberman is a flipping idiot, and intellectually stunted, but I won't say it. Someone will eventually come along and say that he's a flipping idiot, and intellectually stunted, but you won't hear it from me!
If he only had some viewers we could put him up with fatso Moore as the most repulisive.
Wow! That delusional idiot, Olbermann, is still on the air?
Will wonders never cease?
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
That's why his ratings are thru the roof!......</sarcasm>
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