Truce Reached in Cable News Feud.

It was a media cage fight, televised every weeknight at 8 p.m. But the match was halted when the blood started to spray executives in the high-priced seats.

For years Keith Olbermann of MSNBC had savaged his prime-time nemesis Bill O’Reilly of the Fox News Channel and accused Fox of journalistic malpractice almost nightly. Mr. O’Reilly in turn criticized Mr. Olbermann’s bosses and led an exceptional campaign against General Electric, the parent company of MSNBC.

It was perhaps the fiercest media feud of the decade and by this year, their bosses had had enough. But it took a fellow television personality with a neutral perspective to bring it to an end.

At an off-the-record summit meeting for chief executives sponsored by Microsoft in May, the PBS interviewer Charlie Rose asked Jeffrey Immelt, chairman of G.E., and his counterpart at the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, about the feud.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/business/media/01feud.html?_r=1&hp

I'm not sure what to think about this story. I can't wait till KO gets back from Cooperstown.

that he stated he would not mention O'Reilly's name ever again after the murder of Dr. Tiller who had been regularly demonized by O'Reilly. It was more or less a statement that he would not be giving BO any more free publicity by talking about him on air.

And look at how things ended. KO said he was going to quit talking about Billo, and Billo got in an attack on Immelt before abruptly stopping his antics without saying why.

Who was the grownup here?

Not the executives patting each other on the back for making their boys play nice in the sandbox. No.

Keith was, for being first to stop.

But I don't think it's entirely correct. I distinctly remember that Olbermann, a couple of months ago after Oreilly had said something particularly ignorant, stated that continuing to bait Oreilly was no fun anymore and he was over talking about him. It was said in a way that sort of implied that trashing Oreilly was beneath him.

Of course there is one thing that annoys Billo more than somebody talking trash about him and that is of course, nobody talking about him at all. Keith begins to ignore him, Glenn Beck starts to pull some of the lunatic fringe away from him, yeah, I can see Oreilly getting a bit frantic over the situation and pulling his bosses into the act to keep his name in front of his nutcase audience.

In other words, I think Oreilly orchestrated the whole thing because he was being ignored and he was panicky about it.

you didn't read the story?

But you think "it's entirely correct"?

How did you arrive at that conclusion?

Actually what I said was I DIDN'T think it was entirely correct.

What I should have said was based on what I read in the OP I didn't think it was entirely correct.

and that was my error.

It doesn't change the thrust of my query, though - if you didn't read the article, and the excerpt is NOT the article, we agree on that, yes?

You're smarter than that, I know you are. This one is beneath you.

Don't you know about bugmenot? Check it out and defy unwanted registrations.

http://www.bugmenot.com/

Then read the article, come back here, and post your usual informed, intelligent response.

Until then, you're letting me down..................................

I registered (under a ficticious bugmenot name) with effing nytimes.com

Then I went and read the article.

And I must say that having done so, and, relying on my innate cynicism, and my belief that what you read in any mainstream outlet is almost always not the entire story if not an outright fucking lie, I still have my doubts about how this whole thing went down.

MSNBC perhaps moved to end this thing because GE didn't want the adverse publicity, but I doubt that Keith Olbermann was consulted or even told of the decision. As far as he was concerned it was over long ago. His reaction to O"Reilly's reaction to the tiller murder was to treat O'Reilly like something he scraped off the bottom of his shoe. This was mentioned in the articlle although perhaps not so graphically. In other words, Olbermann unilaterally ended the "feud" long before the suits decided to get together and formally sign a "truce".

I think the purpose of the Charlie Rose-brokered "summit" was to enable Fox to preserve some measure of O'Reilly's dignity. It could not end with him being dismissed out of hand like some sort of insect. He had to look at least like Olbermann's equal.

A bonus for GE was to get O'Reilly to STFU about some of their less than altruistic endeavors.

bugmenot is a great trick, is it not?

And you don't have to miss anything now, and those sites won't get a hook into you.

I, too, noted that KO had ended with that slug when Dr. Tiller was murdered. The rest of this stuff seems like the suits were doing something that really had nothing to do with the "feud."

KO seems quite uninvolved with it, which cheers me. They're all worthless, I agree. If they went through all those gesticulations to preserve O'Reilly's non-existent "dignity," well, they're even more pathetic than I thought. That he's shut up about GE's business is a bonus, too, I suppose, although they claim they're no longer doing that.

Uh-huh. Right.

Charlie Rose - I keep trying to like him, but the guy is so busy showing off how much he knows to his guests, they rarely get a chance to finish a sentence. So, I rarely watch him.

As usual, you didn't let me down. I do enjoy your thinking, and thank you for indulging a sexy old lady.................

Actually, indulging sexy old ladies is something I do gladly. Between 68 year old Mrs T and my 75 year old neighbor Margaret who is trying to manage a 120 acre piece of property by herself, it consumes a lot of my time.

BTW, you'd like Margaret. She was married to our local right wing district attorney when they bought the 120 acres from me in 88. He soon dumped her for his 26 year old secretary and left her with all that property to take care of so she was forced to go back to practicing law which she did until about 2002. We've had our disagrements over the years, like the time she sued me for having the tallow works come and pick up her dead pig while she was in Italy, but we're friends now. I'm pretty sire she even voted for Obama. I don't want her to move and wind up with some asshole for a neighbor. With as few neighbors as we have out here we can't afford it. And she had the last laugh with her hubby as well - he wound up with a serious case of senile dementia and his child bride put him in a home so she wouldn't have to take care of him.

Anyway, good night, sexy old lady from this nine fingered, one eyed, broke down old cowboy.

there ain't nothing like a tough man to make a woman tender. Witness your neighbor, who sounds like she really lucked out in having you and Mrs. T. as neighbors. Anyone who'd tend to a dead pig while I was in Italy is all heart. So she sued you. So, that's how good friendships get started.

And good fences really help, as well.

Kudos to Margaret on the ex-husband in that one, by the way. I've heard that story once before - men, go figure - and my reaction is still the same.

"Awwwwwwwww, what a shame."

Thanks, Tom, for the great big smile on this old, happy face...................................

the anti-abortion wacko that caused KO to declare a moratorium on the use of O'Relly's name on Countdown.

He's truly worthy of a full on attack. Screw this truce stuff.