Not buying it?
The Kansas City Star’s Aaron Barhnart doesn’t buy the “feud is over” story…
Anyway, Stelter now reports that the feud is over. With all due respect to Brian, who does a terrific job and is a great guy … I’m not buying it.
I don’t think Brian got the facts wrong. The central nugget of the story is juicy and, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out today in Salon, makes Charlie Rose look like an even bigger tool than before. I just think the conclusion Brian drew from the facts was a wild miss.
Sure, the titans of the two respective conglomerates sat down and tried to hammer out a truce. But there is no linkage between that meeting and subsequent actions at MSNBC. It’s equally plausible that when they caught wind of the CEO summit, they chose to ignore it, or told the big boss, “Keith said he’s stopped attacking Billo,” which is technically true (as we’ll get to in a moment), but which also leaves the door open for those attacks to resume. Yeah, yeah, a GE spokesman said something on the record to Stelter but (a) that looks to me like one of those if-you-say-it’s-true reaction quotes that we’ve all run in our stories occasionally and, more to the point, (b) Olbermann denied it. “I am party to no deal,” KO emailed Stelter. And if he is party to no deal, then … no deal. Right?
Wrong. Barnhart is getting caught up in semantics. As I already said, Olbermann doesn’t have to be a part of a deal for there to be a deal. He doesn’t have to be in on the negotiations for the story story to be accurate. There was a deal. Orders were given. Olbermann may not have liked said orders but he took one for the team. Now he’s sort of twisting in the wind. As is everyone involved.
These types of deals only work in the long term if nobody knows there was a deal. Now that the deal has been exposed all bets are off. Though I hope cooler heads prevail. We don’t need a return to the feud.
August 2, 2009 at 6:02 am
I think as usual, Olbermann was using word play to try and save his journalistic reputation (such as it is) by saying “I was not party to such a deal” he wanted to give the impression that he didn’t agree to it, when in truth, what he really meant was that he was not in the room when the deal was made. Notice that there was no flat-out denial of their being a deal. Note also the timing of his broadcast where he put O’Reilly in a “quarantine” and the timing of the meetings and agreements between MSNBC and Fox. Oh yeah, there was a deal. And Olbermann went along with it. Anyone who thinks anyone else is either trying to make up excuses for Olbermann, is covering for him, and/or isn’t able to put the pieces of this story together. The non-denial denial will be enough for his fervent fans to believe but for those of us with a far more discerning and skeptical eye get it.
August 2, 2009 at 2:17 pm
The deal was to cool things down for a while, for a cease fire. All cease fires are temporary, and all anyone has to do is fire a shot to break it. Now that the story is out, it’s just that much more likely that the cease fire will be broken sooner rather than later.
August 3, 2009 at 6:40 am
Sadly, I think Kieth will feel the need to deny the truce and begin to blast Fox and Bill O. Net result is that he will lose his gig and end up on RFD doing an afternoon show to bookend Imus in the Morning.
August 3, 2009 at 8:44 am
Maybe he’ll end up in a van down by the river.
August 3, 2009 at 12:41 pm
…down by the river.
Great Neil Young song!
August 3, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I was channeling Chris Farley, but that works, too.