This is a picture of FOX News host Sean Hannity at the Yankees/Phillies game the other night (congratulations Yankees, blah, blah, etc). Ordinarily this wouldn't be a big deal, but it's who's taking the picture that makes it interesting. It's...Keith Olbermann! And Hannity is taking a picture of him, as the photo shows. No, they're not going to use the photos in some court case against each other, they actually get along (well, at the ball game anyway -- America's pastime!).
Whatever your political opinions are and however your cable news tastes run, you have to admit that this Daily Show examination of how Fox News works is pretty smart. Not just as an explanation at how the news side works with the non-news side of the network, but as an explanation of how any organization can spin things their way.
For regular viewers of Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show, the chemistry has been a little off for the past month. The reason was simple. Richard Wolffe was missing from the opening segment. Well, the missing man has been reinstated. Effective last night, Richard Wolffe was back on MSNBC's Countdown.
Talk about a mountain being made of a mole hill. Wolffe's exile had been prompted by a presumed conflict of interest. Wolffe's work load includes working with a D.C. public affairs firm called Public Strategies Inc.
For a split second I thought that when Jimmy Fallon announced on the latest edition of "Beef Solvers" last night that the real Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck were going to come out on stage and do a funny bit about their ongoing feud. But I quickly remembered that those two guys really do hate each other and will never be up for any "let's make a funny cameo on late night TV" bit. They'll gladly savage each other on their own shows, but not together in harmony.
So Jimmy got two audience members to take their place. Let's see if Keith or Glenn mention this on their shows tonight.
Maddow was on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon the other night, talking about healthcare and cocktails and comic books and other things. At the start of the interview she also drops some news about why she was gone from MSNBC a couple of weeks ago that some might find surprising.
The Los Angeles Times made a rather humorous error in their TV listings and some, depending on what they personally think of MSNBC talking head Keith Olbermann, may not have noticed the difference.
Their TV listings for Thursday listed Jackass in the time slot where Countdown with Keith Olbermann should have been. The paper issued a correction the following day, disappointing thousands of easily hammered frat boys (including me) who thought MTV's nightly cavalcade of nut shots and poo fights had returned to television on another network.
Olbermann was OK with the mistake until one of the paper's bloggers used it as a political parry against him and his network. That launched the MSNBC host into a personal tirade against the blogger and anything else that happened to saunter into the path of Olbermann's angry spittle cannon.
Earlier today I posted a video from last night's Daily Show where Jon Stewart took FOX News to task for flip-flopping on their coverage of protestors. But let's be fair. Here's Stewart from the night before, dumping on CNN for their ridiculous new segments.
If I was to make a list of ten things I hate on television, I think polls would be one of them. The news channels (cable and local news) are always asking us to text or call in with our opinion on some poll question. But you can't believe the numbers, as Jon Stewart showed last night on The Daily Show. (Video also here.)
It seems the never-ending feud between Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly has become a kangaroo boxing match. The worst thing you can do is get in the middle of it.
That's exactly what the parent owners of Fox News and MSNBC tried to do when they arranged a "cease-fire" between them and their top-tier shows' "lieutenants."
The cease-fire, however, didn't last long. It's another case of the ol' Rufus T. Firefly conundrum for peace. Either side might be willing to do whatever it takes to end this war, but they've already paid two months' rent on the battlefield.
You don't usually get the mom of a reporter on television defending her son, but that's what happened earlier today on MSNBC. Dylan Ratigan (always a controversial guy) aired hidden camera footage of reporter Jonathan Capehart eating a bagel. It was meant to be a joke, but Capehart's mom didn't like it at all and let Ratigan know it live on the air.
If you like sports talk in the afternoon and get bored with the countless reruns of breaking news on ESPN's myriad channels, here's some good news. Dan Patrick is back on the air. In daytime, that is, and not on the worldwide leader in sports. Dan Patrick's radio show began simulcasting on DirecTV this week, bringing the entire DP team and their studio into view.
Broadcasting a radio show on TV is not new, of course. Don Imus did it for years on MSNBC until he put his foot so far in his mouth that he was kicked off the network. And Mike Francesca has a daily radio talk show airing on the Yes network. The idea of watching someone with a microphone in his face and earphones on is not radical.
I haven't watched MSNBC since my cable company took it off the basic digital package I have, and between the bizarre Keith Olbermann/Chris Matthews feuds and stuff like the video below, I might have to upgrade. It's from yesterday, when David Shuster and Tamron Hall were interviewed by a New York reporter about a story she wrote. It gets very odd. If she couldn't hear them, how did she answer so quickly? And if she was reading the screen and answering some questions, why not answer the others?
Dan Abrams has been a busy guy since leaving his old jobs as GM and on-air host at MSNBC (he still pops up as an analyst and commentator). He created Mediaite and now GossipCop, which sounds...well, kinda brilliant. They can "police" the various gossip sites and tabloids while at the same time being a gossip site themselves. On MSNBC yesterday, The Nation editor Katrina Vanden Huevel didn't seem too thrilled with GossipCop, and Abrams defended himself.
If there's one good thing about this video is now we all know how Mediaite is supposed to be pronounced.
Walter Cronkite's passing didn't mark the end of an era in the TV news business. The era he helped produce and prolong died long before he did.
It's hard for me to ever imagine a time when people considered a major network news anchor as America's most trusted source for anything. Claims of bias and political persuasion being injected into every story with a meat syringe created a thick fog that made it very hard to cover anything with a modicum of honesty.
Cronkite, however, was the man people turned to when something blew up, exploded, imploded, launched, landed or any other number of descriptive verbs, because his goal wasn't to make news every time he stepped in front of a camera. His goal was just to report it.
Stephen Colbert is angry at Keith Olbermann. He's not upset that Olbermann named him a Worst Person in the World, he's upset because Olberman didn't name him a Worst Person in the World. In this clip, Colbert tries to get on Olbermann's list. His plan involves a baby and a puppy.
For regular viewers of Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show, the chemistry has been a little off for the past month. The reason was simple. Richard Wolffe was missing from the opening segment. Well, the missing man has been reinstated. Effective last night, Richard Wolffe was back on MSNBC's Countdown.
The Los Angeles Times made a rather humorous error in their TV listings and some, depending on what they personally think of MSNBC talking head Keith Olbermann, may not have noticed the difference. 
Walter Cronkite's passing didn't mark the end of an era in the TV news business. The era he helped produce and prolong died long before he did. 
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