The New Yorker: One Angry Man; Is Keith Olbermann changing TV news?

DeepModem Mom

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Sun Jun-15-08 10:28 AM
Original message

The New Yorker: One Angry Man; Is Keith Olbermann changing TV news?

The Political Scene
One Angry Man
Is Keith Olbermann changing TV news?
by Peter J. Boyer
June 23, 2008

Olbermann reveres Murrow, but Murrow never called a President �Idiot-in-Chief.��

....The jeremiad against Bush was a signature Olbermann effort, the sort of stylized, mocking tirade that has lately made him a cable-news sensation, the Edward R. Murrow of the Angry Left. Olbermann was pleased with the script, and the next day, before going on the air with it, he posted excerpts on the liberal blog Daily Kos, which is a fairly good representation of the Olbermann fan base. The Kossacks wholly approved. (�You excoriated the bloodyhanded, warmongering imbecile.� �This country cannot survive without you.� �Dude, you�ve got a pair of steel ones!� �I�m gonna print it out, hang it up and memorize it.�)

At MSNBC, the feedback was slightly more cautious. Olbermann�s original script identified the �cold-blooded killers� as everyone at the Pentagon and in the Bush Cabinet; when a colleague noted that that would include such relative moderates as Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Olbermann modified the line. Phil Griffin, the senior vice-president in charge of MSNBC (�Phil thinks he�s my boss,� Olbermann says), raised the matter of tone. Why did Olbermann need to end his commentary by telling the President of the United States to �shut the hell up�?

�Because I can�t say, �Shut the fuck up,� that�s why, frankly,� Olbermann responded. The line stayed in.

Phil Griffin is a compact, nearly bald man with the intensity and the revved-up metabolism of a TV-news field producer, which is how he spent his early career. He speaks in quick bursts, and his conversations tend to the elliptical. Griffin was Olbermann�s first television producer, nearly thirty years ago, when both of them were at the start of their careers, Griffin as a CNN producer, Olbermann as an innovative, eccentric radio sportscaster making his first foray into television. It was Griffin�s job to handle Olbermann, to teach him about the frenetic, video-hungry new world of cable news. In a way, he still sees himself as Olbermann�s handler. �You don�t take Keith on by just saying, �You can�t do that,� � Griffin told me. �Keith is reasonable. But you�ve got to be smart. Keith is usually two steps ahead of me, when I do come and say, �Keith . . .� It�s a give-and-take.�

When, in 1981, Olbermann arrived at CNN, then still in its startup throes, he was, at twenty-two, seen as a sportscasting wunderkind�smart, offbeat, and possessed of an encyclopedic range of knowledge. He also had the reputation, even among those who admired his talents, of being somewhat difficult. Growing up in suburban Hastings-on-Hudson, in Westchester County, he was the sort of kid who, when his parents thought psychological testing was in order, responded to the Rorschach test by saying, �It looks like an inkblot.� Advised that Keith might be better served by a private education, his parents�Theodore, a commercial architect, and Marie, a preschool teacher�enrolled him at the Hackley School, in Tarrytown. It wasn�t an easy adjustment; Keith had skipped a grade and was younger than anyone else in his class, and he wasn�t a jock. But he was a good student, and the school�s radio station became his home. Olbermann worked as a sports stringer in college, at Cornell, and when he graduated, in 1979, he went directly to a sportscasting job at UPI radio in New York.

Olbermann�s style stood out from the start....

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/23/080623fa_fact_boyer?currentPage=all