The Standard of Excellence ("The Media Died" when MSNBC Fired Keith Olbermann)

Washington Monthly ^ | January 10, 2016 | D.R. Tucker

[SES1066]

We, err, I control your vertical, I control your horizontal ... I am bizzaro, the human analogue of non-intelligence.

What is this moron smoking?

[Milton Miteybad]

Keith Olbermann? Didn’t he used to pretend to be somebody?

[dynachrome]

“Maddow and Chris Hayes are still maintaining the high standards Olbermann set on MSNBC”

WTF? I want some of whatever drug this guy’s on.

[NativeSon]

Satire?

[presidio9]

Report: Al-Qaeda was saddened by Keith Olbermann's MSNBC firing

[mulligan]

The media has been dead for a long time. There has been no standard of excellence for 50 or 60 years. Olbermann was just one of many 2nd and 3rd rate media people.

[RckyRaCoCo]

Beck on Olberdork ...a classic.

[The Truth Will Make You Free]

perhaps the single best news program ever to air on cable television in the United States

No need to read another word from The Washington Monthly EVER.

[Road Warrior ‘04]

Wonder what color the skies are in the writer’s world? Delusional at the very least!

[DrDude]

Keith O. was probably the least intelligent person on ESPN. He had no clue about sports so he injected politics. They moved him to news/commentary where he proved he would say anything to promote the liberal agenda. Even the Libs fired him for his pompous BS. Good riddance to trash.

[Newtoidaho]

This whole thing reads like a satire piece. Can’t. Be. Real.

[PA Engineer]

Our country is doomed.

[AlaskaErik]

The first time I ever saw this imbecile he was raging against GWB. I had never seen such a level of vitriol on TV.

[Georgia Girl 2]

He was an unpolished t@#d. LOL!

[windcliff]

I think his mom wrote this or maybe grandma.

[BuckeyeTexan]

[pepsionice]

I think people needed five minutes of Olbermann a week...just to remind themselves how stupid journalists have become. Maybe one time out of a hundred, Olbermann would stumble across something and actually say something brilliant.

[lentulusgracchus]

DR Tucker is full of bullsqueeze.

And then the bull squoze.

[lentulusgracchus]

There has been no standard of excellence for 50 or 60 years. Olbermann was just one of many 2nd and 3rd rate media people.

I can't go back beyond about 1960, but I've read sample pieces by Walter Lippmann from 100 years ago, tossed out in an English class to show us larvae what journalism in Standard English (no, not the Times Stoolbook) looks like.

Other than that, we've had damn few. Howard K. Smith, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Edwin Neumann come to mind as first raters, and maybe Sander Vanocur. And Carole Simpson, one of the very early women to break into TV news. I didn't care for her as she seemed to me then hard and bitter, but I process that differently now and recognize a first-rate newswoman.

(By contrast, I liked Jessica Savitch very much, but had to process the fact that she destroyed herself by living in the fast lane.)

[The_Media_never_lie]

This Tucker guy must be hallucinating.