Jonah Goldberg has some cogent thoughts on the subject:
Quote:So Olbermann gave money to some Democratic candidates. Ostensibly the rules against this are intended to prevent journalists from giving the appearance of bias. Whether or not such rules make sense for actual reporters, such rules are silly for someone like Olbermann. Does anybody, and I mean anybody, suddenly trust Olbermann’s opinion less because of this news? I’m waiting. Does anyone think he’s less biased? More biased? Un-biased?
Second, the larger problem with these kinds of rules is that they do little to prevent media bias and a great deal to hide an important form of evidence of it. Banning liberal journalists from giving money doesn’t prevent them from being liberal, it just gives them a bit more plausibility when they deny it. Now, I can see the argument that someone who makes a donation would be more interested in protecting their investment, as it were. So I don’t think the policy is completely misguided. But at a certain level banning donations is like NPR barring staff from attending the Jon Stewart rally. It doesn’t fool anyone, but gives the accused a lawyerly rebuttal to accurate accusations.
Which is precisely the point. How anyone could mistake Keith Olberman as a "journalist" is beyond me! Despite (or maybe because of) his attempts to draw flattering comparisons between himself and Ed Murrow, nobody but
nobody should be fooled into making that mistake. He's a pundit - a commentator. He's SUPPOSED to have opinions! He does have a bias and it's always been clear to see it. That's the whole POINT of his show! And as such, applying the "journalistic ethics" rules against Olberman as if he had any integrity as a journalist that this would effect is, on the face of it, very suspect. Should he be able to make contributions? Sure! Go right ahead and let him! My opinion of the man (and MSNBC) won't be changed, and neither should anyone else's.
Let me make this particular distinction clearly: He
donated money to candidates he liked. He didn’t
take money, or favors, in a way that influenced his on-air antics.
The more I think about this, the more ridiculous it gets. MSNBC offers the most ridiculously biased televion coverage of politics possible (on the left side of the spectrum), crowning it with Election Night coverage that had people wondering if NBC needed to hire grief and anger counseling for the entire on-air staff. And now, because Olbermann contributed to three Democrats last month, suddenly Griffin suspends him because “these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest”?
C'mon! Pull the other one! Who do you people think you're trying to fool, here anyway?
He’s far from the only cable host to make donations to political candidates now and then. Hannity and Huckabee have also done fundraising and/or donated, although as Howard Kurtz noted in a recent article, Fox News distinguishes between its commentator crew and its journalist crew on that score.
I think something else is going on here. And the "ethics" charge was brought up to get rid of him as cover. An excuse. As such it's WRONG.
What this is really about, of course, is
Fox:
Quote:In suspending Mr. Olbermann, NBC appeared to be trying to differentiate itself from the Fox News Channel, a unit of the News Corporation. NBC executives privately said that they saw a chance to draw a distinction between the journalistic standards of their news division and the standards of Fox, a favorite of Republicans. Media Matters, a liberal media monitoring group that opposes Fox, noted on Friday afternoon that two Fox News hosts, Neil Cavuto and Sean Hannity, had given money to Republican politicians in the past.
The News Corporation also came under scrutiny this year for a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association — a donation that Mr. Olbermann has been sharply critical of.
A few weeks ago, Griffin noted that Fox lets its guests fundraise on air and crowed, “Show me an example of us fund-raising.” Whereupon
Johnny Dollar quickly compiled a bunch of examples. Media Matters has also been whining on MSNBC’s behalf about Fox giving too much airtime to particular candidates, like Rand Paul. Johnny Dollar
turned that one around too in a big way.
It’s not that one network has a slant and the other doesn’t; it’s that, as Jon Stewart said to Chris Wallace, MSNBC is “double-A ball.” And suspending Olby for this nonsense is a weak, transparent attempt by them to convince people that they’re not.
Bring Keith Olberman back, MSNBC! If you think the conservatives want him gone because of this, you're mistaken! Where would we be without "Bathtub Boy" to laugh at? He's comedy GOLD for our side anyway!
