Olbermann: The Future of TV News?
Howard Rosenberg in the LA Times opines about Keith Olbermann and the effect he may be having on TV News…
We worried in Walter Cronkite’s day in the ’60s and ’70s that a news anchor would sway public opinion merely by raising a brow in subtle response to a story. Oh the horror.
Yet today, mainstream TV and the blogosphere regularly market opinion and speculation as news, and few viewers would be shocked if Olbermann slapped on Groucho brows to get a guffaw. Anything — anything — to get a laugh.
Is this to be the standard during this period of media transition? What do we have, a few years at best, maybe 10 before news goes all Internet all the time and moves to fingernail-sized screens that we read with a magnifying glass? Technology-driven change is transforming news media, and news consumers, at warp speed. How many years before newspapers like this one are available in present form only as antiquities, like the illuminated manuscripts on display under glass at the Getty Center?
And how many years before junior Olbermanns proliferate?
He’s hardly the only horse in cable’s 24-hour news race who twists news to fit a personal agenda. Yet discounting Stephen Colbert, tantrum-prone O’Reilly can’t be copied because no one is capable of ingesting that much caffeine. Nor could anyone inflate like CNN’s Lou Dobbs without getting high on helium.
But Olbermann? A wisecrack here and a hard growl there, and you’re in business.
June 7, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I am tired of hearing about OldBORmann!!!! Why won’t he just go AWAY???????
June 7, 2008 at 10:38 pm
why wont you just go away
June 8, 2008 at 7:22 am
#1fan, we will continue to heard about him as long as the entire media is agreed with him ideologically.
And isn’t that sad! Media is supposed to be neutral, and just tell us the news. But as mentioned in the item posted above, at least the Hillary supporters are now doing after MSNBC and its people for their blantant bias.
June 8, 2008 at 7:23 am
s/b “going” after MSNBC, not “doing”
June 8, 2008 at 9:46 am
[...] Olbermann: The Future of TV News? [...]
June 8, 2008 at 10:16 am
Keith Olbermann is the anti-Murrow of today, employing a style that is more interested in snark and ridicule than it is in light or examination. As we know, Murrow was a hard hitting journalist but he took on his targets face-to-face. He invited them on his program to answer his questions, his charges, his criticisms. That was the appeal, that was the “light” that emerged from his work.
Nowhere – absolutely nowhere – does Olbermann engage in anything remotely resembling this type of journalism. It’s a comedy show-cum-liberal analysis program. Olbermann is indeed a very funny person who writes well and quickly. And bashing an unpopular Administration (Democrat or Republican) is always good for a few ratings points.
But his interviews are, as Rosenberg says, echo chamber discussions where the guests reinforce Olbermann’s agenda. This is hardly representative of anything, it seems to me, that Murrow would do. In fact, it’s the antithesis.
As Rosenberg correctly points out, if this is the “news of the future”, the country will be deeply ill-served.
June 8, 2008 at 2:50 pm
This Howard Rosenburg piece on Olbermann is the best I’ve ever seen. Years ago, I watched a lot of Olbermann, as a sportscaster, and enjoyed his work. These past few years, he’s taken a wierd turn.
June 9, 2008 at 4:58 am
Rosenberg nailed it better than anything I’ve ever seen on why Keith Olbermann should not be the model for the newscast of the future. He already ruined sports broadcasting do we need his imitators ruining news too?
June 9, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Not only does Rosenberg do a succinct job of shedding the light on Keith Olbermann, beyond that the example of the rest of the media have some in an of themselves some intrisic value. Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart for that matter, are legitimate satarists, well practiced at the craft. Even O’Reilly for all of his own histrionics, at least presents some appearance of trying to have another viewpoint presented. Not so on Countdown — ever.
Those who commented on the sports connection and analogy have it right…the “oddball”, worst play, countdown…all were tired in the sports “arena”.
How long and how many times will Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw pull his fat out of the fire before they become tired of being apologists.