Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" segment is meant in jest.

I'd rather get my news from him, then say... Glenn Beck.

I'd rather get mine from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than either of them. 

Amen!

They are all jokes.  Listen to Glenn Beck and he actually makes sense.  Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are on Comedy Central..how can you even take that seriously? 

That's the irony of it all. Stewart and Colbert are not meant to be taken seriously, which gives them the liberty to mock the mainstream news with impunity. Stewart vs Cramer, Colbert vs Blitzer, anyone?

Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" segment is meant in jest.

I'd rather get my news from him, then say... Glenn Beck.

I'd rather get mine from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than either of them. 

Amen!

They are all jokes.  Listen to Glenn Beck and he actually makes sense.  Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are on Comedy Central..how can you even take that seriously? 

That's the irony of it all. Stewart and Colbert are not meant to be taken seriously, which gives them the liberty to mock the mainstream news with impunity. Stewart vs Cramer, Colbert vs Blitzer, anyone?

It's more Colbert vs O'Reilly but the point still stands.

Did anyone see Blitzer and Soledad O'Brien melt down on celebrity Jeopardy? Man, if anything hurts their credibility it would have to be getting whipped by Michael McKean from Spinal Tap.

Did anyone see Blitzer and Soledad O'Brien melt down on celebrity Jeopardy? Man, if anything hurts their credibility it would have to be getting whipped by Michael McKean from Spinal Tap.

How did I miss that?!  I'll have to see if I can find that somewhere.

God bless anyone who makes an honest effort to find serious reporting and commentary.

God help anyone who thinks such things can be found with Keith Olbermann.

*CLAPS*

God bless anyone who makes an honest effort to find serious reporting and commentary.

God help anyone who thinks such things can be found with Keith Olbermann.

*CLAPS*

The difference between today and 30 years ago is Fox News.  It is the right-wing antidote to the poison from the left.  30 years ago everyone took the networks as gospel.  Rush and Fox and the Washington Times and the NY Post are there simply to serve as a kind of balance to the bias from the other side:  ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, LA TIMES, Wash Post, NY Times, Time, Newsweek....i could go on and on and on.

Make no mistake that Fox News brings its approach from the right.  But you then have to admit that all those other media outlets do the same from the left.  If you don't, you are hypocritical.  Fwiw, i don't include Stewart/Colbert.  They are satirical in nature.  It's like the Onion.  funny and worthy of a read for an interesting perspective....but hardly news.

The imbalance in news/media in favor of the left is staggering.  That people get so bent out of shape re: one cable channel tells you how insecure they are.  They had a media monopoly for 50 years and as soon as one station comes in and bucks the system, they go ballistic.  No wonder Fox News blows the other cable channels out of the water...and without HD no less.

re: Olbermann: he was right to call foul against MTV.  i'm sure he didn't have sufficient info to decide whether U2 was involved.  If they were, he was right to throw them in the hopper as well. 

God bless anyone who makes an honest effort to find serious reporting and commentary.

God help anyone who thinks such things can be found with Keith Olbermann.

*CLAPS*

The difference between today and 30 years ago is Fox News.  It is the right-wing antidote to the poison from the left.  30 years ago everyone took the networks as gospel.  Rush and Fox and the Washington Times and the NY Post are there simply to serve as a kind of balance to the bias from the other side:  ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, LA TIMES, Wash Post, NY Times, Time, Newsweek....i could go on and on and on.

Make no mistake that Fox News brings its approach from the right.  But you then have to admit that all those other media outlets do the same from the left.  If you don't, you are hypocritical.  Fwiw, i don't include Stewart/Colbert.  They are satirical in nature.  It's like the Onion.  funny and worthy of a read for an interesting perspective....but hardly news.

The imbalance in news/media in favor of the left is staggering.  That people get so bent out of shape re: one cable channel tells you how insecure they are.  They had a media monopoly for 50 years and as soon as one station comes in and bucks the system, they go ballistic.  No wonder Fox News blows the other cable channels out of the water...and without HD no less.

re: Olbermann: he was right to call foul against MTV.  i'm sure he didn't have sufficient info to decide whether U2 was involved.  If they were, he was right to throw them in the hopper as well. 

Have you met anyone from the political Left? Really? Not Washington Beltway establishment liberal, which is centrist. But Left. The Left's equivalent of Grover Nordquist, American Heritage Foundation, the Ayn Randers, the Tea Partiers, etc. An absolute ideologue, prone to incediary language, who governs the viewpoints of scores of nationally and locally elected politicians.

The Left is represented in the media probably by the Daily Kos community, Democracy Now, and the periodic appearances by Noam Chomsky.

How can you tell someone on the Left? They believe that corporate America is one big conspiratorial fix. They stand against corporate interests in favor of oppressed minorities, workers against employers, social freedoms against economic freedoms. Not only are the media outlets you mention not affiliated with the Left, they don't even offer the perspective of the Left in their programming. What passes for political socialism today would have been mainstream Eisenhower / Nixon / Rockefeller Republicanism thirty five years ago.

In the on-going health care debate, how many of your named outlets have come out in favor of abolishing private health insurance in favor of single payor? That's the mainstream Left position on health care, after all. How many of them are pitching a fit because Obama's plan is a right-leaning giveaways to evil insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms? Because that's the critique from the Left.

Next time you see someone from the Uhuru movement, or someone who believes that 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by the Carlyle Group and Halliburton, seriously offering their point of view on the NBC Nightly News, or on the op-ed page of the NY Times, or on NPR, please share the link. We'll all know that the Left has been allowed to speak via the so-called Leftwing Media.

Signed,
Right Down the Middle

throws lasso around post and tries to reel it back in

The fact that this wasn't even a story to begin with boggles my mind. Olbermann took the ball, ran with it, dribbled it out of bounds, and fell flat on his face.

God bless anyone who makes an honest effort to find serious reporting and commentary.

God help anyone who thinks such things can be found with Keith Olbermann.

*CLAPS*

The difference between today and 30 years ago is Fox News.  It is the right-wing antidote to the poison from the left.  30 years ago everyone took the networks as gospel.  Rush and Fox and the Washington Times and the NY Post are there simply to serve as a kind of balance to the bias from the other side:  ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, LA TIMES, Wash Post, NY Times, Time, Newsweek....i could go on and on and on.

Make no mistake that Fox News brings its approach from the right.  But you then have to admit that all those other media outlets do the same from the left.  If you don't, you are hypocritical.  Fwiw, i don't include Stewart/Colbert.  They are satirical in nature.  It's like the Onion.  funny and worthy of a read for an interesting perspective....but hardly news.

The imbalance in news/media in favor of the left is staggering.  That people get so bent out of shape re: one cable channel tells you how insecure they are.  They had a media monopoly for 50 years and as soon as one station comes in and bucks the system, they go ballistic.  No wonder Fox News blows the other cable channels out of the water...and without HD no less.

re: Olbermann: he was right to call foul against MTV.  i'm sure he didn't have sufficient info to decide whether U2 was involved.  If they were, he was right to throw them in the hopper as well. 

Have you met anyone from the political Left? Really? Not Washington Beltway establishment liberal, which is centrist. But Left. The Left's equivalent of Grover Nordquist, American Heritage Foundation, the Ayn Randers, the Tea Partiers, etc. An absolute ideologue, prone to incediary language, who governs the viewpoints of scores of nationally and locally elected politicians.

The Left is represented in the media probably by the Daily Kos community, Democracy Now, and the periodic appearances by Noam Chomsky.

How can you tell someone on the Left? They believe that corporate America is one big conspiratorial fix. They stand against corporate interests in favor of oppressed minorities, workers against employers, social freedoms against economic freedoms. Not only are the media outlets you mention not affiliated with the Left, they don't even offer the perspective of the Left in their programming. What passes for political socialism today would have been mainstream Eisenhower / Nixon / Rockefeller Republicanism thirty five years ago.

In the on-going health care debate, how many of your named outlets have come out in favor of abolishing private health insurance in favor of single payor? That's the mainstream Left position on health care, after all. How many of them are pitching a fit because Obama's plan is a right-leaning giveaways to evil insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms? Because that's the critique from the Left.

Next time you see someone from the Uhuru movement, or someone who believes that 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by the Carlyle Group and Halliburton, seriously offering their point of view on the NBC Nightly News, or on the op-ed page of the NY Times, or on NPR, please share the link. We'll all know that the Left has been allowed to speak via the so-called Leftwing Media.

Signed,
Right Down the Middle

Thank you. The Left does not dominate the media, and it sure as hell doesn't own it...Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner don't strike me as pinko.

The Nation is a Leftist magazine. The Progressive is a Leftist publication. The New York Times is a mainstream liberal centrist newspaper. A cursory glance at their respective websites should clarify this matter far better than someone who considers CNN or network news a radical mouthpiece.

I mean, come on...Katie Couric and Tom Brokaw are NOT Leftists, people. I've seen markedly anti-feminist pieces/articles/etc., on/in most of the networks and publications incorrectly cited by the previous poster as Leftist, for instance. I've seen shoddy reporting in general from all of them, (except maybe PBS, but they have more lead time on most of their pieces), moderately good reporting every so often, and great reporting once in a blue moon.

We don't go for incendiary personae, though, because we are required to be measured, polite, and bipartisan; when conservatives are in power they see no reason to pander to anyone on the other side, due in no small part to the fact that their extremists actually do have a substantial media presence in America. Furthermore, said presence is primarily in radio and TV, which are easily accessible to anyone with ears and the ability to sit on one's ass. You have to have internet access or find a newsstand that sells The Nation or The Progressive (not all do) and then take the time to read them. 

The reliance on written media for Leftist opinion makes it even harder for a true voice from the Left to even build an audience on TV; I usually watch clips of the Rachel Maddow show after the fact on my computer because I'm still not oriented towards watching news-centered programming on television on a schedule set by someone else, and neither are most of 'us,' The Daily Show aside. There is Olbermann, who can be a shoddy thinker with a tendency to overreach as per the U2 bit, and then there is Rachel Maddow, who is intelligent and incisive. She gets snarky about conservative *opinions*, but doesn't overshout guests on her show or name-call. She is pretty much alone as a Leftist thinker in nationally accessible media. 

As for the 'alternative' conservative media: liberals mock the New York Post because it's a shoddy, poorly-written and reported newspaper with a business model predicated on provoking an audience into outrage rather than on informing them or making them think; ditto Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. The Wall Street Journal has a fiscally-conservative editorial slant, but is well-reported and written. That's why you won't hear anyone slamming it.

And no, there is not, nor has there ever been, objective journalism. Ditto history.




Edited to bleep out the s- word. I am thrilled to have gotten that word past the censoring software, which left it intact it adjectival form, but will play by forum rules and change it to 'shoddy'.

[poorly-written and reported newspaper with a business model predicated on provoking an audience into outrage rather than on informing them or making them think]

God bless anyone who makes an honest effort to find serious reporting and commentary.

God help anyone who thinks such things can be found with Keith Olbermann.

*CLAPS*

The difference between today and 30 years ago is Fox News.  It is the right-wing antidote to the poison from the left.  30 years ago everyone took the networks as gospel.  Rush and Fox and the Washington Times and the NY Post are there simply to serve as a kind of balance to the bias from the other side:  ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, LA TIMES, Wash Post, NY Times, Time, Newsweek....i could go on and on and on.

Make no mistake that Fox News brings its approach from the right.  But you then have to admit that all those other media outlets do the same from the left.  If you don't, you are hypocritical.  Fwiw, i don't include Stewart/Colbert.  They are satirical in nature.  It's like the Onion.  funny and worthy of a read for an interesting perspective....but hardly news.

The imbalance in news/media in favor of the left is staggering.  That people get so bent out of shape re: one cable channel tells you how insecure they are.  They had a media monopoly for 50 years and as soon as one station comes in and bucks the system, they go ballistic.  No wonder Fox News blows the other cable channels out of the water...and without HD no less.

re: Olbermann: he was right to call foul against MTV.  i'm sure he didn't have sufficient info to decide whether U2 was involved.  If they were, he was right to throw them in the hopper as well. 

Have you met anyone from the political Left? Really? Not Washington Beltway establishment liberal, which is centrist. But Left. The Left's equivalent of Grover Nordquist, American Heritage Foundation, the Ayn Randers, the Tea Partiers, etc. An absolute ideologue, prone to incediary language, who governs the viewpoints of scores of nationally and locally elected politicians.

The Left is represented in the media probably by the Daily Kos community, Democracy Now, and the periodic appearances by Noam Chomsky.

How can you tell someone on the Left? They believe that corporate America is one big conspiratorial fix. They stand against corporate interests in favor of oppressed minorities, workers against employers, social freedoms against economic freedoms. Not only are the media outlets you mention not affiliated with the Left, they don't even offer the perspective of the Left in their programming. What passes for political socialism today would have been mainstream Eisenhower / Nixon / Rockefeller Republicanism thirty five years ago.

In the on-going health care debate, how many of your named outlets have come out in favor of abolishing private health insurance in favor of single payor? That's the mainstream Left position on health care, after all. How many of them are pitching a fit because Obama's plan is a right-leaning giveaways to evil insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms? Because that's the critique from the Left.

Next time you see someone from the Uhuru movement, or someone who believes that 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by the Carlyle Group and Halliburton, seriously offering their point of view on the NBC Nightly News, or on the op-ed page of the NY Times, or on NPR, please share the link. We'll all know that the Left has been allowed to speak via the so-called Leftwing Media.

Signed,
Right Down the Middle

Thank you. The Left does not dominate the media, and it sure as hell doesn't own it...Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner don't strike me as pinko.

The Nation is a Leftist magazine. The Progressive is a Leftist publication. The New York Times is a mainstream liberal centrist newspaper. A cursory glance at their respective websites should clarify this matter far better than someone who considers CNN or network news a radical mouthpiece.

I mean, come on...Katie Couric and Tom Brokaw are NOT Leftists, people. I've seen markedly anti-feminist pieces/articles/etc., on/in most of the networks and publications incorrectly cited by the previous poster as Leftist, for instance. I've seen shoddy reporting in general from all of them, (except maybe PBS, but they have more lead time on most of their pieces), moderately good reporting every so often, and great reporting once in a blue moon.

We don't go for incendiary personae, though, because we are required to be measured, polite, and bipartisan; when conservatives are in power they see no reason to pander to anyone on the other side, due in no small part to the fact that their extremists actually do have a substantial media presence in America. Furthermore, said presence is primarily in radio and TV, which are easily accessible to anyone with ears and the ability to sit on one's ass. You have to have internet access or find a newsstand that sells The Nation or The Progressive (not all do) and then take the time to read them. 

The reliance on written media for Leftist opinion makes it even harder for a true voice from the Left to even build an audience on TV; I usually watch clips of the Rachel Maddow show after the fact on my computer because I'm still not oriented towards watching news-centered programming on television on a schedule set by someone else, and neither are most of 'us,' The Daily Show aside. There is Olbermann, who can be a shoddy thinker with a tendency to overreach as per the U2 bit, and then there is Rachel Maddow, who is intelligent and incisive. She gets snarky about conservative *opinions*, but doesn't overshout guests on her show or name-call. She is pretty much alone as a Leftist thinker in nationally accessible media. 

As for the 'alternative' conservative media: liberals mock the New York Post because it's a shoddy, poorly-written and reported newspaper with a business model predicated on provoking an audience into outrage rather than on informing them or making them think; ditto Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. The Wall Street Journal has a fiscally-conservative editorial slant, but is well-reported and written. That's why you won't hear anyone slamming it.

And no, there is not, nor has there ever been, objective journalism. Ditto history.



Edited to bleep out the s- word. I am thrilled to have gotten that word past the censoring software, which left it intact it adjectival form, but will play by forum rules and change it to 'shoddy'.

Bravo to both these last posts.  There is no way I could have stated it better

and to the conversation of these talking heads like Oberman Limbaugh and Oreily vs the likes of Colbert or Stewert:  They are on the same level of entertainment and NOT news being there primary focus.  The difference is that the comedians are fully aware and honest that thier focus is in fact entertainment first.  Talking heads from all sides pose as news but are nothing more than shouting matches filled with quick jabs and oneliners.  How is this above satire or comedy?  With satire, as someone noted, there must at least be a level of truth understanding and accuracy for jokes to work.  This is not a requirement needed for the talkshow format to work.  All that is needed is a seemingly controversail subject, a few onliners, and people yelling.  In most cases what they are yelling is not even important as long as it is clear that they appose one another.  That is the format.  The very format and bais for the shows is less intelligent than satire BY DESIGN.  Watch or listen to any talk show type format where, it is not interview or true structured debate and it becomes clear the format and even actions of the guest are the same you would see on a tame nite of Jerry Springer.  The formats are identical.  The more audacious and ludicrous the comments and the more  heightened the delivery, the better.


OH, and on the original subject:  the screen or whatever it was that was blocking people was fair game for criticism.  Certain levels of criticism is a bit much, but still fair game

say what you want, but the death of newspapers will hurt libs more than it is hurting conservatives.  i don't expect libs to think that the main media outlets are biased.  they don't see their own extremism.  the same people will tell you Obama is middle of the road.

but to go back to my first post in this thread, KO had every right to go after MTV and if he believed U2 was involved as well, then the band as well.  of course it wouldn't surprise me if KO based this on nothing more than speculation and didn't actually do any reporting.

say what you want, but the death of newspapers will hurt libs more than it is hurting conservatives.  i don't expect libs to think that the main media outlets are biased.  they don't see their own extremism.  the same people will tell you Obama is middle of the road.

Newspaper is a distribution channel. The death of newspapers hurts people who aren't in the habit of getting information online. Has nothing to do with political leanings.

The death of the editorial process overall probably does hurt liberalism more -- liberalism in the original meaning of the word, in pursuit of freedom. Editors, for all their faults, can be a check against those who actively work against the "reality-based world" (as a Bush official scornfully put it). As Colbert says, the truth has a well-known liberal bias. So, you take away editors, and then the "studies" secretly or openly sponsored by special interests are treated the same way that independent, third-party studies are treated. The role of true expertise is minimized. Data and use of the scientific method becomes far less important than anger and indignation (not to mention paranoia). These last points are valid against both those who view themselves today as conservatives or progressive / liberal -- although the political right has lost its bearings and wits in a far more visible and vocal way (it helps that they're out of power).

If you take a historic perspective, spanning the past sixty years (roughly the post-WW II era), Obama is a Clinton-style centrist, very much in the same ballpark as Eisenhower, Nixon...at worst a Rockefeller Republican. Compare them on the issues and the role of government. Compare them on temperament. Compare them on their respective views of executive authority. Really, try it. Try to strip away the political spin and the "conventional wisdom." It's the landscape that's shifted.

The health care deal on the table is more conservative than the deal that NIXON proposed in the early 70s, which was turned down by then Sen Kennedy and others as being too conservative. Reagan -- with his eleven tax hikes, buying off radical terrorists in Iran, retreating from terrorists in Lebanon (after the Marine barracks bombing), deep, deep deficit spending, negotiations and concessions to our sworn enemy (USSR) -- would never win the Republican primary today. Eisenhower expanded domestic spending, deployed force to support civil rights, warned of militarization, governed with a top marginal tax rate of over 90% (!). He was called a communist by the John Birch Society, and the heirs to the JBS are the mainstream of Republicanism today. The landscape has shifted.

Simply look at the criticism of Obama FROM his left. There's dismay and anger. I see it from my perspective as an independent centrist, living in a sharply progressive community. The guy is basically trying to do what he said he'd try to do -- which included a host of centrist to conservative positions on Afghanistan, gay marriage, commitments to off-set spending with revenue. People on the left are angry that he meant it when he said he opposed gay marriage, supported engagement with Afghanistan, and is insisting on a stingier health care bill than they'd like. They're furious at the corporatism and the bailouts -- they really think that we'd be better off without the financial sector. Meanwhile, liberal economists deeply believe that the stimulus spending is about HALF of what we need to turn around the economy. Ever read Paul Krugman go after Obama? We have a centrist President.

And I'll add that I didn't see Bush himself as being all that far to the right. But his administration allowed into government people who disdain government. I have friends who worked for federal agencies during the past eight years who were told that they had to show up for work every day but that they were allowed to do nothing -- no enforcement of our laws. And that's a pretty unusual view of government, from within the government, over the past eighty years or so.

say what you want, but the death of newspapers will hurt libs more than it is hurting conservatives.  i don't expect libs to think that the main media outlets are biased.  they don't see their own extremism.  the same people will tell you Obama is middle of the road.

but to go back to my first post in this thread, KO had every right to go after MTV and if he believed U2 was involved as well, then the band as well.  of course it wouldn't surprise me if KO based this on nothing more than speculation and didn't actually do any reporting.

You are correct that the decline of written news will hurt Leftists more, as we tend not to get our news from radio or TV. That is because we don't have a voice in those media. You are merely reiterating a point I just made, so I don't see how the intro line, "Say what you want" is a rebuttal.

If you refer to liberals as 'libs,' then I know you spend most of your time online on websites that are not just conservative, but extremist and spiteful, which would make you spectacularly unlikely to recognize centrism when you see it. It also makes it impossible for you or your ideas to be taken seriously when you name-call. You're posting in a forum made up of people from all parts of the political spectrum here.

I am aware that many of my beliefs are far to the Left by American standards (but not by global ones), but for some reason the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh audience doesn't see itself as extreme. Must be that damn tag line. It's the lack of critical analysis and self-awareness that pisses people on my end of the spectrum off more than anything Fox News actually says or does.

1985 is mostly correct, with the exception of his statement that Leftists want the corporate sector to disappear*; we don't want to disappear, we just don't think the profit motive has a place in health care. I'm fine with capitalism handling wants; it's when it interferes with providing basic human rights that I want The Invisible Hand to go back to handling hat pins so it can't cause such rampant damage to people's health and lives. Lack of a pin never killed anyone; lack of health insurance has killed many. Therein lies the difference. Capisce?

I am aware of what Obama promised in his campaign; I voted for him knowing he specifically promised a mix of public and private health care even though that's not my idea of national health care. He's delivering on it. I can't say that's my ideal solution, as it's undeniably a centrist solution. The Leftist solution is single-payer; the extreme Right belief is in absolute private control of the health care sector. If you think that isn't extreme, I suggest you look at every other industrialized country and ask their citizens; you will find that what Americans consider a conservative idea is considered downright reactionary in the rest of the world. A mix of public and private is in the middle ground by American standards. The middle is the center, ergo Obama is a centrist. There was no Leftist candidate. (I don't vote for third-party candidates because it's as good as flushing a vote down the toilet for all practical purposes).

Liberals ARE pretty pissed at Obama for not coming out (hee hee) in favor of gay marriage because he specifically promised gay activist groups he'd stand up in favor of gay rights before he started campaigning for the Presidency. Backtracking tends to piss people off. He has also quite carefully never said he'd oppose any Constitutional amendments in favor of gay marriage, which is the teeny tiny bone he threw us.

The corporate bailouts angered me, not because I thought they were entirely unnecessary, but because they were suddenly, miraculously seen as necessary by people on the Right who had previously been rabidly opposed to any kind of government spending on the grounds that it is always a burden to the taxpayer, except all of a sudden when it pertained to the corporate sector. It makes no sense to help the people who made bad loans and drained thousands of people's retirement savings so they could keep private jets, then act like it was a massive burden on the taxpayer to provide health insurance. People dying and going bankrupt for lack of health insurance seems like way more of a compelling cause than keeping incompetent, overpaid business people at their pre-recession levels of compensation. Seems like common sense to me, but I'm considered a loony-toons Leftist by US standards.



* except for some really, really, really, really extreme people. Anyone who thinks communism is still a valid idea, but just hasn't been put into proper practice yet, so we should try, try again is the liberal equivalent of Ron Paul (no income taxes at all!), and should be taken just about as seriously.

Keith Olberman is the worst talk show host in the world