In Depth: Olbermann vs. Mediaite…

Last night I started typing up a blog post regarding this Colby Hall Mediate entry answering Keith Olbermann’s “gullible” accusation directed at the site for noting a Tea Party video attacking Olbermann. I wrote that, yes indeed, Mediaite was gullible, but not for noting the Tea Party video but for falling into Olbermann’s trap and taking the bait he laid out, which sat there pleading for a response. It was typical Olbermann shtick, right down to Keith having to fake looking down at his notes and stumbling through pronouncing the word “Mediaite” as if he’d never heard of the site before.

I also wrote that Olbermann’s attack probably had little to do with the Tea Party thing but more to do with this Hall article which, somewhat shophisticly in my opinion, put Rachel Maddow over Keith Olbermann in terms of importance and credibility. Maddow is certainly a “safer” alternative to Olbermann, who is definitely more in the bomb thrower mold, but has shown some of the same reckless sweeping generalization tendencies in her show that Olbermann has…not to mention other talking heads like Beck, O’Reilly, Hannity, etc. And for pure power Olbermann still can move the base more than Maddow precisely because he is of the firebrand mold which tends to agitate the base more than the more reasoned nuance of Maddow. And to argue that Maddow being more politely recieved at CPAC than Olbermann ever could be means she’s more powerful ignores a fundamental truth; Olbermann’s bomb throwing pisses off those that would go to CPAC a hella lot more than the more sublte, principled arguments that Maddow tends to use. CPAC goers hate Olbermann because he’s made it easy for them to do so. It’s tougher to muster that kind of hate at Maddow because she hasn’t given them the ammunition to do so other than taking stands in total contradiction to what they hold dear. Similarly, the idea that political movers and shakers would tend to follow Maddow more than Olbermann is similar to the notion that David Brooks’ pieces in the New York Times are more sane and rational than say Rush Limbaugh’s. In this scenario Maddow is to Brooks what Olbermann is to Limbaugh. Both are powerful but in different ways. You could argue that either is more powerful but it all boils down to what your criteria for your power measurment is.

The second argument in support of the “Maddow rules” theory was Mediaite’s own power grid which breaks a rule we use in Quality Assurance testing; eating your own dog food can skew the results, particularly when the metrics involved are still in dispute (for non QA types the term “eating your own dog food” refers to disproportionately relying on in house metrics in lieu of outside independent data)

And I would further argue that Olbermann was never the most influential opinion journalist on the left in the first place. The MSM elevated him to that spot to be sure. But that doesn’t mean the designation was valid. Olbermann’s appeal seems to resonate most with the hardest of the hard corps on the left. But that’s a rather narrow segment of the left wing. Maddow’s range is a bit broader but not by leaps and bounds. And the range of both I would conider to be left of center left. That still leaves moderates and semi-progressives who want practical solutions out in the cold more often than not. The same problem exists on the right to be sure. If someone came in with real common sense practical real world arguments and appeal to the center left, the middle, and the center right, they’d clean house. Sadly, I don’t know of anyone who fits that bill. But that’s neither here nor there as far as this article goes.

Anyway, I was typing this all up and then decided, “ah, screw it”. Arguing that Mediate was doing exactly what Olbermann wanted it to do – respond – while echoing the good old days of Bill O’Reilly trying in vain to get at Olbermann (back before he finally figured out that the way to get at Olbermann was to attack GE…which resulted in the muzzling of Olbermann for short time), really didn’t interest me that much and since it was only round 1 I thought maybe I was too far out in front of the story. If Mediaite wanted to play the sucker role, far be it from me to point it out.

But then Olbermann did exactly what I expected him to do tonight, what he always does; he escalated the conflict. He dragged Dan Abrams into it, saying “…this is the same site of a fired MSNBC employee. And in his attempt to implant his bitterness towards this place, to plug or weave it into his website, he has wigged out. He would like us to sweep his failure under the rug as it was a bald faced lie. There will be hell to pay.”

This is typical Olbermann, disingenuous in lieu of accuracy. Abrams has no editorial control over Mediaite. Colby Hall does. Coincidentally it was Hall who penned both articles cited above as well as the Tea Party article that started this whole mess. He’s your target Keith, not Dan. And bitterness? How about not wanting to do any more live opens for the show that follows yours out of fit of pique? And failure? Dan’s ratings were not in a long term negative trend when Phil Griffin pulled the trigger. I would hardly call that a failure. Whether he would have ever attained the ratings Maddow gets is unknown since his show is gone. I tend to doubt it though because Dan’s show was not what one expects from the prime time histrionics that you get from Olbermann and his bomb throwing counterparts at FNC and MSNBC. One wonders how well Olbermann’s shot at Abrams will go down inside 30 Rock because he remains in good terms with a lot of the people in charge there. Olbermann really has stubbed his toe on this one I think.

So now the ball is back in Mediaite’s court. Can we expect another Mediaite article returning fire? History suggests we will. Is it the smart move? Of course not. Mediaite is in a no win scenario here and the smart move was never to respond in the first place, hence my argument about them playing the sucker to Olbermann’s bait. But we’re past that point now. So expect one or more Mediaite articles refuting Olbermann Thursday.

As for the original argument about whether MSNBC’s line-up is diverse or not, it depends. On the one hand it’s well known inside the highest levels of 30 Rock that NBC News President Steve Capus is a big diversity booster. So give half a point to Olbermann. On the other hand, the vast majority of the on air talent at MSNBC is one color; white. Contributors don’t count. Neither does production staff. The reason being the Tea Party video restricted its argument to MSNBC’s “entire network lineup” That refers specifically to full time on air talent. So give half a point to the Tea Party for being technically accurate. But I don’t give much credibility to the Tea Party argument precisely because Steve Capus is a big diversity booster. It’s one reason why Allison Stewart’s show “The Most” stayed on the air as long as it did, in spite of some wanting the show cancelled because of ratings. So in the end I rule in favor of MSNBC on the subject of diversity. But not because of any argument Keith Olbermann made.

Update: Mediaite’s Colby Hall responds to my post in the comments and I respond to his comment.

Update 2: Oh man, how did I miss this? From an emailer…

Read the “wigged”, “bald faced lies” and “to pay” quotes again. There’s a toupe joke in there.