There has been a lot of back and forth about Keith Olbermann's suspension from MSNBC as well as some good discussion, especially between Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart, about the role played by the weeknight lineup of MSNBC. Now Ted Koppel is weighing in via washingtonpost.com, joining the chorus of commentary that conflates Keith with Bill O"Reilly, MSNBC with FOX News.
Forgive me if I have this wrong, but didn't Keith start doing his commentary in RESPONSE to FOX? Wasn't FOX first in building a network of rightwing talking-points-repeating, anti-fact based "reporting"? Weren't the other news outlets treating FOX as their equal, as a serious news provider? (Witness: White House Press Corp assigning a front row seat to FOX in the White House press conference room; witness: ABC hiring Andrew Breitbart to provide commentary on election night)
Enter Keith Olbermann to provide a counterweight, not to mimic FOX but to call them on the lies and misstatements. He calls attention to their relentlessly one-sided reporting, to the absurdities of Beck and the blowharded shallowness of O'Reilly. He, along with Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz, have all been critical of the Democrats at times, but they have all been faithful in reporting the shortcomings of FOX.
No one else has done this. Print media and television media report everything as two-sided, both equal. It can be difficult in this complicated world to figure out where the truth is, what is correct. Does the healthcare reform act contain funding for death panels? Was John Kerry a war hero - or did he lie about his record? Was there credible intelligence of WMD in Iraq prior to the US invasion - or not? Each of these last three examples has a real truth to it, but FOX muddied the truth with 24-hour reporting of lies: that death panels would decide whether senior citizens could have their prescriptions; that John Kerry lied about his service in Vietnam; that there was evidence that Saddam Hussein was building WMD. All lies. The truth: no death panels, Kerry was a hero; no WMD- became clear to most of us as time passed. BUT, not soon enough in some cases.
FOX does not report news. It reports a story, its own version of the story of our world. The other news outlets pretend Fox's story is a legitimate side, without applying facts. I am glad Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz are on the air to provide a counterweight. They report news and they provide commentary. Their shows are well researched and fact-based.
The rest of the news world needs to acknowledge that FOX is not a news station, but it IS a propaganda station.
I don't know what they are thinking.