Keith Olberman - The Day After

Last night's Countdown saw the most effective channeling of Edward R. Murrow since the recent movie ... and maybe since the man himself.

I'm watching the show now, as is my daily habit, followed again at 9 the next morning for another glimpse at what truthiness really is.

Maybe its just me, but he seems more .... I dunno .... serious tonight.

He's doing his usual sort of show - serious news with a smattering of the lighter side of things. But through it all, he seems more ... well ... Murrowesque, I suppose.

For a long while, I have felt that if any of the broadcast networks were seriously interested in serious ratings, they'd use Keith, or a clone, as their head newzer. I thought of him to replace Brokaw. We got KenDoll instead. I thought of him to replace Jennings when we lost him. We got .... sadness and tragedy, and a new baby instead. I thought of him, particularly, to replace Dan Rather. Instead we get cute and vapid.

Countdown is **exactly* the sort of show that would pull in viewers. It does serious news, but does it with an edge. It does stupidstoriesmyproducersareforcingmetodo with all due humor, and an appropriate and well deserved snark.

Countdown is not a comedy show. It is, indeed, serious news. But done in a way that is engaging and enticing. It makes you *want* to watch.

Forget Keith's apparant leftward bent. His show is facts. And the world could use more of them. Surely our truth starved nation can.

Way *not* to go, CBSNBCABC. Once again, you blew it.

I love the show.

... is going to realize what a goldmine he really is!

Rhodes played the O'Lielly smack down in it's entirety, thank goodness.

KO, Amy Goodman and Jon Stewart are about the only "news" I can stomach these days. Amy is good, Stewart is fun but KO is the best overview day in day out.

I watched Olbermann's evisceration of blowhardbillowlielly on the Malmedy crime. I think it was one of the few times I'd seen or heard commentary that made you think "you had to be there".His passion was palpable and as big a bully as the blowhard is I'd have to believe the sight of Keith's delivery would definitely have had him quivering.It was beautiful.Really a smackdown is pretty gentle compared to this which I thought more like a vivisection and not a more deserving soul on the planet to have suffered it.

I was sitting there listening and thinking, "I've always liked Keith but this is the best he's every done. Sort of like 'Goodnight and Good Luck'"

His show is the only news worthy of the name out there today. The man just rocks, plain and simple. I've never been much for watching news on TV, especially cable news, but I'm addicted to Keith O. I even like the way he covers the "fluff" stories.

I can't even count the number of people I have told to watch his show. I sincerely hope that someday a major network wakes up and realizes what a great anchor he is.

Keith is the best, hands down. Come by the DU Countdown Group, fellow fan. Follow the link in my sig.

so more people can see him, but I love him where he is so he can do his own thang :loveya:

we had more like him. A lot more.

I was looking at him last night and thinking what an impressive anchor he would have made, and I could not believe he was passed over for the people selected. But he's not only an impressive broadcaster, he's a hell of human being. The man has a lot of courage. He's a one of kind.

I only hope he knows how much he is appreciated by his viewing audience. I have been a news junkie all of my life and would not now have a television news home if it were not for Keith.

We should invite him to invite DU and have a live blog.

:toast:

and MSNBC must think so too: his show at 8pm replayed at midnight, replayed the next morning at 9am. So we can have a time to watch Countdown that is convenient for everyone!

is slowly losing theirs, and it's driving them crazy, because while they still have tons more viewers, he's gaining on them. This makes him Public Enemy Number 1 to them. That and the fact that he's not afraid of them and he tells the truth.

I too would have liked in some ways to see him on a major network. (And no, he's not impressed with some of the people being chosen instead. Yesterday on Dan Patrick's radio show, Dan said that he thought it was a bit much when Matt Lauer called Katie Couric "a combination of Lucille Ball and Edward R. Murrow." "But she is," said Keith. "A combination of Lucille Ball's news broadcasting skills and Edward R. Murrow's gift for comic timing and slapstick.")

But in my heart I know that if a major network hired him, they'd hire him for what he is...and then set about changing it all. He'd get only a half an hour. He'd be forced to act "serious" all the time, lest he alienate the aging audience. He might not even get to write his own stories anymore. He'd have to take everything personal out...no more stories about his past jobs, his dating experiences, etc. He'd have to treat celebrity news with the proper reverence, lest someone's publicist be offended. And no more joking, period. Forget the double entendres, the old SportsCenter catch phrases, the wisecracks. No more tossing the script in the air, wadding it into a ball and throwing it at the camera, or pretending to fall asleep, read the paper or pick at his cuticles during celebrity gossip. It wouldn't play well between the commercials for laxatives and denture cream. And editorialize himself? Forget it.

In a way, even with the small audience, Keith is better off where he is...being a rebel in a place where rebellion is still allowed...rather than having to move to a major network, play it straight and shed everything that makes him so good.

He was "Sexy Cool" last night... :applause:

I heard the Olbermann denounciation of Bill O'Lielly on Air America but have not been able to find a link.

Help, please ...

Thank you for the link. And thank you, KO, for that amazing on air castration of O'Reilly who should now go and lay down in a corner and lick the raw flesh where his ball sac used to hang.

KOlbermann@msnbc.com and/or Countdown@msnbc.com

I just emailed this thread to him :hi:

but I have hope that in the end he will be the last man standing.

Shoot, I would like Keith if he were broadcasting the morning farm report from a pasture in Oklahoma, live amid the cow pies, in full 3-D with enhanced olfactory Smell-O-Vision ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smellovision ), and the smell-along-at-home John Walters memorial scratch-and-sniff Odorama cards. When he and Dan Patrick were The Men at ESPN's SportsCenter, there was no one I paid more attention to, or enjoyed watching more.

I hope he links here and gets a few grins out of this, because he does stand out like a sunflower in a field of rubble, refuse and rhinoceros-sized piles of crap. Of course, I worry about him sometimes.

When everyone else ignored it, he at least raised the issue of possible post-election irregularities, attempting to navigate his way between the straight, narrow and by-the-book John Conyers' approach, and Wayne Madsen and Bev Harris' more speculative reporting:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6533008/

(And by the way, pardon the elocutionary detour here, but why *was* Bev Harris banned from D. U.? And who the heck is Wayne Madsen? I admit to visiting the Wayne Madsen Report from time to time -- he's currently reporting that The Chimp and Condi have been doing the Big Nasty so often, it's caused poor Laura to duck for cover at a D.C. hotel -- but I don't know if anyone knows from jack what's up with his sources. But then again, when The Onion has to go on record as having delivered the fastest, best, capsule news summary of all time, in the issue that followed the Banana Republican Supreme Court's handover to the current commander-in-thief, (at last, "...our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over"), who's to say who is, or is not, a trustworthy news source?)

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784/print/

But anyway, here's to you, Keith. You're smart, you're funny, you've got a good way with words and I trust your honesty and instincts. Bill O'Reilly wishes he only had half your talent, and on his best day, he never comes that close to approaching your level of integrity and basic personal decency.

Thank you.

Thanks for paying attention. And being so careful with the smallest details. Like, up there in that first linked msn source, you're right; it's "neither... nor", not "neither... or". I confess to having had a moment of clarity with that one. The careful insertion of that single letter, reading it, the breath was expelled from my upper thoracic cavity. If you're ever in the area of southeastern Wisconsin and just want to sit down with a cold, refreshing beverage and talk about the Brewers' kid prospects, it would be my privilege.

In the meantime, Keep Up the Good Work!!!

Keith is the only "news" show that I watch regularly. (I am glad Alison Stewart has her own show not, but she's kinda in a different category than KO, especially since she's evidently not subbing for him anymore).
Anyhoo, back to Keith. WE ARE SO LUCKY TO HAVE HIM!!! (shouting from the rooftops for emphasis).
:applause: for Keith!

Keith is great, and his show is great. But it is too irreverant and opinionated , and a little too entertaining to be a serious network news show.

Peter Jennings, IMO, was the best news anchor in reent memory. You never knew where he really stood and -- most importantly -- he took the news seriously.

I don't want the nightl;y news anchors to agree with me. I want the facts and nalysis from someonme who knows what they're talking about, without foisting an opinion on me. I want to make up my own mind and hear it all -- whether i like it or not.

First .... where we agree: I don't want a news anchor who has an obvious political bent or leans left or right. I want him right down the middle. KO seems to lean left, but not overly so, in my opinion. It is just that, by contrast to any other choice, middle seems left.

As to your call for 'serious' news ... that's where I mostly disagree. The fact is, except for the wonks on the left or right, no one pays much attention to the news anymore. I dare say this is particularly true of the younger people amongst us. KO seems to have found that sweet spot where his show is both full of real, actual, serious news and is, at the same time entertaining. Not so much in an 'entertainment' way, but in the overall construct and edginess.

I see his show as a whole new paradigm. It really is, on serious consideration, unlike anything else on any network or cable organization anywhere.

Is he Dan Rather or Peter Jennings or Walter Cronkite? Of course not. And in the end, that's my point. This wasn't intended to be a 'fan' thread. It was intended to be a serious discussion. I thank you for making it one.

I guess I'm an old fogey -- or have been listening to the BBC for too long -- but i feel it's really important to have sources of news that are serious minded and objective as well as those which are edgier. We need that as the baseline of straightlaced news from which to form our own opinions.

Ideally, that basic function should be able to co-exist with otehr forms of news-based programming to supplement it. Sort of like the difference between the newspaper and more specialized and freewheeling magazines.

Part of the problem (a huge part of the problem) is that in the past, the news was a public-service obligation that the networks did. It was what they had to do to keep their license to show the Beverly Hillbillies. The news lost money, but thay was the price they had to pay to hold onto the rest of their entertainment money machines.

Then they were no longer expected or required to fulfill any public service obligtion., And they learned that by dumbing down or making the news "entertaining" they could make money off it.

Ultimately, the problem is that there is not one who can be trusted anymore for the straight skinny.

... and the news today, such as it exists, just plain sucks.

What I'm suggesting with KO's type of show (if not that very show) is that it would at least be truthful and at least be of a nature that it would encourage viewing by those who have simply tuned out or who never even knew what any of the news was like just a few short decades ago.

I'm an old fart like you. And like you, I really do more or less revere those serious, somewhat stodgy news shows of yore.

Sadly, this ain't 'yore' no more.

as only an ex-sportsnut news jock can be.

He.knows.what.he's.talking.about!

I always seem to forget, I've got to make it a habit...

midnight and 9 a.m. the next day EST. Hope that helps :hi:

Also, MSNBC posts his transcripts, which are even more fabulous to read !