Lefty writer/blogger David Sirota thoroughly rips into Keith Olbermann for The Huffington Post:
And so I'll just conclude by saying this: You may like Keith Olbermann (as I do), but if your love of Keith Olbermann makes you refuse to defend/demand respect for independent journalism, then you ought to consider how fucked up your value system really is. Loyalty to an individual over loyalty to principles is the definition of cultism. MSNBC partisans insisting that we should ignore General Electric's manipulation of the news out of deference to Keith Olbermann's supposedly infallible awesomeness are at best being intellectually dishonest, and at worst endorsing in precisely the kind of propagandistic pro-censorship sycophancy that is at the heart of this scandal.
And Gutsy Glenn Greenwald, who first cried "foul!" on both Olbermann and his lapdog/sidekick, Richard Wolffe, adds this I-told-you-so summary of the sleazy situationfor Salon.com:
Some people seem incapable of understanding the significance here. It's really not complicated. It's a major breach of journalistic freedom -- and a serious and self-evident danger -- for a corporation to use its ownership of large media outlets to suppress stories for its own corporate purposes. Olbermann's statements are widely perceived as his denying that GE did this, even though GE unquestionably did exactly that. That's what makes Olbermann's statements significant: the question of what GE did here. I suppose if one finds the issue of corporate control of journalism to be unimportant, then one will find Olbermann's statements unimportant -- but that's about the only view that could justify that reaction.
Nothing is more irrelevant to the discussion than whether one "likes" Keith Olbermann or enjoys watching him on the TV. That would be relevant if the topic were: "Who are your favorite TV stars?" But that's not the topic being discussed here. I suppose one could say (as some are arguing in Comments) that one should refrain from ever covering a story that might reflect poorly on anyone who has the same political views as you do; that's the view that led most Republicans to justify everything George Bush did (he's on our side; why criticize him?). But I hope nobody reading this blog expects that sentiment to prevail here (truth-telling and ethical obligations are only for Fox News and Republicans).
One praiseworthy act that Olbermann undertook was announcing that Richard Wolffe would no longer be on Countdown in response to the ethical issues I raised here on Saturday. On a related note, The New Republic's Gabriel Sherman examines how Wolffe is now attempting to leverage his close relationship with Obama officials to write yet another fawning, sycophantic book about Obama -- this one on his first 30 days in office. To publishers, Wolffe even touts his "personal relationships with Obama officials at 'the highest level' who have already 'expressed support informally' for the project." Wolffe has become a perfect embodiment of the total merger of political power, corporate interests and "journalism."
