As much as I do not like Kieth Olbermann, I would definately support his right to contribute to the choice of his candidates. I also understand NBC's policies regarding the impression of a news employee being less than impartial. But Keith Olbermann is not a news reporter, anchor, or anything even remotely resembling such. He is an extremely liberal commentator. One could hardly call him impartial with regard to politics. Now if it was learned that he had donated money to say a Tea Party Backed Republican, one would definately stand back and wonder just what was going on here. But a flaming liberal donating his own personal money to a liberal candidate for office...........Yeah, I can see where NBC would have problems with that. As a-matter-of-fact, them having a problem with that goes right along with their other idiotic behavior shown over and over in the past. So I guess in fact, no real surprise here. I should not be confused with being a Keith Olbermann supporter. I am however a patriot that supports his right to donate to causes that are 100% totally inline with what we see from him on a very consistant basis, day in and day out. Come on NBC.....get your head outta your @$$ and let some oxygen to your brain.... Try it, you'll like it.
Let me get this straight. Fox News as a corporation can donate Millions to Republican candidates. An Employee of MSNBC can't donate a couple thousand to Democratic candidates. Yet, MSNBC is, by thir own admission a pro liberal corporation as Fox News a pro Conservatice corporation. Do you really think that Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, Oreilly, Palin etc. didn't give any money to Republican candidates. WOW something very wrong here. I guess if Olberman broke the rules he should be punished, but it is a very very stupid rule in light of the fact that MSNBC makes no bones about carrying the liberal flag. IT is obvious to anybody. I hope some common sense prevails here or I will have to quit watching MSNBC alltogether.
Nothing is wrong here. The ethics standards established at NBC are incorprated into his contract. He signed that contract and while I wasn't there, I'm sure no one forced him to sign. So either he didn't take the time to read it and didn't know his actions were in violation, or he knew and just didn't care. Either way, he was the one in the wrong. Employers are free to require certain action or non-action in a contract just as the employee is free to negotiate the terms of employment.
"Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest,"
Um, FAR be it from me to defend Olbermann - but exactly WHO in their right mind has ANY notion that Olbermann, or MSNBC for that matter has any whiff of impartiality relative to their journalistic approach? I mean, REALLY - the air time value for MSNBC's pro liberal format is not only overtly partial - but worth 10,000 times whatever amount Olbermann donated. It simply doesn't make any sense. I mean, I always thought it to be understood that MSNBC touts the liberal viewpoint, FoxNews touts conservative.... and all the rest claim to be unbiased but basically lean a hefty amount to the left. I heard Olbermann was a total jerk to work with... maybe this was just some lame excuse to get rid of him for other various reasons.
This demonstrates again that liberal employers follow their principles closer than conservative employers. I do think, however, that the suspension was harsh. Private donations and votes are not the business of one's employers.
GE was paid about $24 million dollars by the federal government. That data is readily available at recovery.gov.
This why MSNBC attacks conservatives, libertarians, and tea party members because, for the most part, those groups of people do not want this love fest to exist between media and government. MSNBC, NBC will never debate this fact straight up because they are beneficiaries to these ridiculous fascist policies.
His campaign contributions were done to help maintain the status quo and to keep the pockets of GE lined with taxpayer dollars.
And yes, to be fair, GE donated mountains of money to Republicans as well. Again, that data, you can find it in under 5 minutes by using Google. There is plenty wrong with that.
Even if you are a progressive liberal, there is no way you can agree with this. Unless you are of course a fascist; then you would agree that it's all fine and good.
Rules are rules. I agree he is an opinion guy and not an all-up reporter, however if that's the company policy he should have kept it in mind. He can do much more to shape opinion with his editorials than he can with sending money anyway. Maybe MSNBC had something else brewing with him behind closed doors and this was a catalyst?
I agree. Keith could never be accused of hiding his political beliefs. Part of the fun Tuesday night was hearing from him and watching Maddow squirm as the results came in. I especially enjoyed Maddow's early remarks that the Repubs should be doing better if things were really that bad -- and they did. She also insisted early that there was no way the results could be considered historic -- and they are. She's been putting every possible spin on her ill-advised remarks. Just for the sake of honor among journalists--she should go. She's not a journalist. I would like to ask her about a tree falling in the forest though...her degree prepared her to discuss that.
The mainstream media no longer provides journalism. It is propoganda. If you want journalism, you have to look for very carefully. MSNBC is just messing with semantics here. Too bad for Olberman, but that's what you get for pretending to be a journalist for a company pretending to provide news.
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Um, FAR be it from me to defend Olbermann - but exactly WHO in their right mind has ANY notion that Olbermann, or MSNBC for that matter has any whiff of impartiality relative to their journalistic approach? I mean, REALLY - the air time value for MSNBC's pro liberal format is not only overtly partial - but worth 10,000 times whatever amount Olbermann donated. It simply doesn't make any sense. I mean, I always thought it to be understood that MSNBC touts the liberal viewpoint, FoxNews touts conservative.... and all the rest claim to be unbiased but basically lean a hefty amount to the left. I heard Olbermann was a total jerk to work with... maybe this was just some lame excuse to get rid of him for other various reasons.
This why MSNBC attacks conservatives, libertarians, and tea party members because, for the most part, those groups of people do not want this love fest to exist between media and government. MSNBC, NBC will never debate this fact straight up because they are beneficiaries to these ridiculous fascist policies.
His campaign contributions were done to help maintain the status quo and to keep the pockets of GE lined with taxpayer dollars.
And yes, to be fair, GE donated mountains of money to Republicans as well. Again, that data, you can find it in under 5 minutes by using Google. There is plenty wrong with that.
Even if you are a progressive liberal, there is no way you can agree with this. Unless you are of course a fascist; then you would agree that it's all fine and good.