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Keith Olbermann
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Keith Theodore Olbermann (born January 27, 1959) is an American news anchor, sportscaster, writer, and political commentator. He hosts Countdown with Keith Olbermann, an hour-long nightly news and commentary program on MSNBC. Starting with the 2007 NFL season, Olbermann also has served as a co-host of NBC's Football Night in America.
Olbermann spent the first twenty years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN in the 1980s, winning the Best Sportscaster award from the California Associated Press three times.
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Keith Theodore Olbermann (born January 27, 1959) is an American news anchor, sportscaster, writer, and political commentator. He hosts Countdown with Keith Olbermann, an hour-long nightly news and commentary program on MSNBC. Starting with the 2007 NFL season, Olbermann also has served as a co-host of NBC's Football Night in America.
Olbermann spent the first twenty years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN in the 1980s, winning the Best Sportscaster award from the California Associated Press three times. He later co-hosted ESPN's SportsCenter from 1992 to 1997. After leaving ESPN amid controversy, Olbermann became a sports anchor and producer for Fox Sports Net from 1998 to 2001, during which he hosted several World Series broadcasts.
After leaving Fox, Olbermann began anchoring several news commentary shows for MSNBC, most notably Countdown with Keith Olbermann in 2003. Olbermann has established a niche in cable news commentary, gaining prominence for his pointed criticism of major politicians and public figures, directed particularly at the political right. He has feuded with rival commentator Bill O'Reilly, and strongly criticized the George W. Bush administration and John McCain's 2008 Presidential candidacy.
Personal life
Olbermann was born January 27, 1959, in New York City to Theodore, a commercial architect, and Marie Olbermann, a preschool teacher, and is of German descent. He has one younger sister, Jenna, who was born in 1968. Olbermann grew up in Westchester County, where he was raised as a Unitarian. His parents enrolled him at the Hackley School. After graduating from Hackley in 1975, Olbermann attended Cornell University and graduated in 1979 with a B.S. in communications arts.
Olbermann suffers from a mild case of celiac disease, as well as restless legs syndrome. He also suffered a partial loss of depth perception following a head injury on the subway and, consequently, avoids driving. Along with Bob Costas, he supports the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation as an honorary board member.
Olbermann briefly dated conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham (who has won the "Worst Person in the World" Award numerous times on Countdown) in the 1990s. In June 2006, Olbermann began dating Katy Tur, a reporter with WPIX-TV; the two have lived together in New York City since October of that year.
Early career
As a teenager, he often wrote about baseball card collecting, appearing in many sports card collecting periodicals of the mid-1970s. He is referenced in Sports Collectors Bible, a 1979 book by Bert Sugar, which is considered one of the important early books for trading card collectors.
Olbermann graduated from the Hackley School in Tarrytown two years after future ESPN broadcaster Chris Berman. He began his broadcasting career while still in high school as a play-by-play announcer for WHTR, and later served as sports director for WVBR, a student-run commercial radio station in Ithaca while attending college.
Beginning of professional career
Olbermann began his professional career at UPI and the RKO Radio Network before joining then nascent CNN in 1981. In 1984, he briefly worked as a sports anchor at WCVB-TV in Boston, before heading to Los Angeles to work at KTLA and KCBS. His work there earned him 11 , and he was named Best Sportscaster by the California Associated Press three times.
Career at ESPN
In 1992, he joined ESPN's SportsCenter, a position he held until 1997. He often co-hosted SportsCenter with Dan Patrick, the two becoming a popular anchor team. In 1995, Olbermann won a Cable ACE award for Best Sportscaster. Olbermann would later co-author a book with Patrick called The Big Show about their experiences working at SportsCenter. On the May 10, 2004, episode for Countdown, Olbermann said that the short-lived ABC dramedy Sports Night was based on his time on SportsCenter with Patrick.
Leaving ESPN
In 1997, Olbermann abruptly left ESPN under a cloud of controversy, apparently burning his bridges with the network's management. This began a long and drawn-out feud between Olbermann and ESPN. Between 1997 and 2007 incidents between the two sides included Olbermann publishing an essay on Salon.com in November 2002 titled "Mea Culpa" in which he stated "I couldn't handle the pressure of working in daily long-form television, and what was worse, I didn't know I couldn't handle it." The essay told of an instance of where his former bosses remarked he had "too much backbone," a claim that is literally true, as Olbermann has six lumbar vertebrae instead of the normal five. In 2004, ESPN famously snubbed him from the guest lineup of its 25th Anniversary SportsCenter "Reunion Week," which saw Craig Kilborn and Charley Steiner return to the SportsCenter set. In 2007, ten years after Olbermann's departure, in an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, he said "If you burn a bridge, you can possibly build a new bridge, but if there's no river any more, that's a lot of trouble." During the same interview, Olbermann stated that he recently learned that as a result of ESPN agreeing to let him back on the airwaves, he was banned from ESPN's main Bristol, Connecticut campus.
Return to ESPN
Olbermann co-hosted an hour of the syndicated Dan Patrick Show on ESPN radio from 2005 until Patrick left ESPN on August 17, 2007. Olbermann and Patrick referred to this segment as "The Big Show," just as their book was known. Patrick often introduced Olbermann with the tagline "saving the democracy," a nod to his work on Countdown.
Other sports broadcasting
Fox Sports
In 1998, Olbermann joined Fox Sports Net as anchor and executive producer for The Keith Olbermann Evening News, a sportscast similar to SportsCenter, airing weekly on Sunday evenings. While at Fox, he again hosted the 2000 World Series as well as Fox Broadcasting's baseball Game of the Week.
According to Olbermann, he was fired from Fox in 2001 after reporting on rumors that Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation owns Fox, was planning on selling the Los Angeles Dodgers. When asked about Olbermann, Murdoch said "I fired him...He's crazy." News Corp. went on to sell the Dodgers to Frank McCourt in 2004.
ABC Radio
After Olbermann left Fox Sports in 2001, he provided twice-daily sports commentary on the ABC Radio Network, reviving the "Speaking of Sports" and "Speaking of Everything" segments begun by Howard Cosell.
Career at NBC Universal
First NBC stint
In 1997, Olbermann left ESPN to host his own primetime show on MSNBC, The Big Show with Keith Olbermann. The news-variety program covered three or four topics in a one-hour broadcast. Olbermann also occasionally hosted the weekend edition of NBC Nightly News, and, along with Hannah Storm, co-hosted NBC Sports' pre-game coverage of the 1997 World Series.
When the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in 1998 The Big Show with Keith Olbermann morphed into White House in Crisis. Olbermann became frustrated as his show was consumed by the Lewinsky story. In 1998, he stated that his work at MSNBC would "make me ashamed, make me depressed, make me cry."
Return to MSNBC
Olbermann returned to MSNBC in 2003 as a substitute host on Nachman and as an anchor for the network's coverage of the war in Iraq. Prior to his return, Olbermann was a regular contributor to CNN and provided twice-daily commentary, "Speaking of Sports," for ABC Radio Network. His own show, Countdown, debuted shortly thereafter on March 31, 2003, in the 8 p.m. ET time slot previously held by programs hosted by Phil Donahue and, briefly, Lester Holt. On October 13, 2004, Olbermann launched , his Countdown weblog, hosted on MSNBC.com. Olbermann used the open format of the blog to expand on facts or ideas alluded to in the broadcast, to offer personal musings and reactions, and to break news at odd hours. However, in February 2007, Olbermann launched a new blog, .
Countdowns format, per its name, involves Olbermann ranking the five biggest news stories of the day or sometimes "stories my producers force me to cover," as Olbermann puts it. This is done in numerical reversal or counting down with the first story shown being ranked fifth but apparently the most important. The segments ranked numbers two and one typically are of a lighter fare than segments ranked five through three. The first few stories shown are typically oriented toward government, politics, and world events. The last two usually involve celebrities, sports, or the bizarre. Opinions on each are offered by Olbermann and interviewed guests. Olbermann has been criticized for only having guests that agree with his perspective. Former Los Angeles Times television critic Howard Rosenberg stated that "Countdown is more or less an echo chamber in which Olbermann and like-minded bobbleheads nod at each other."
In a technique similar to that of former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite in connection to the Iran Hostage Crisis, Olbermann closes the program by counting the days since May 1, 2003, the day President George W. Bush declared "mission accomplished" in Iraq, and then crumpling up his notes, throwing them at the camera and saying "Good night and good luck" in the mode of another former CBS newsman, Edward Murrow.
On February 16, 2007, MSNBC reported that Olbermann had signed a four-year extension on his contract with MSNBC for Countdown which also provided for his hosting of two Countdown specials a year to be aired on NBC as well as for his occasional contribution of "essays" on NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams.
During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Olbermann co-anchored MSNBC's coverage with Chris Matthews until September 7, 2008, when they were replaced by David Gregory after complaints from both outside and inside of NBC that they were making partisan statements. Despite this, Countdown was broadcast both before and after each of the presidential and vice-presidential debates, and Olbermann and Matthews joined Gregory on MSNBC's election day coverage. Olbermann and Matthews also led MSNBC's coverage of the inauguration of President Obama.
Feud with Bill O'Reilly
Since beginning Countdown's "Worst Person in the World" segment in July 2005, Olbermann has repeatedly awarded Bill O'Reilly, host of the The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel, the dubious honor. The feud between the anchors originated with Olbermann's extensive coverage of a 2004 sexual harassment suit brought against O'Reilly by former Fox News Channel producer Andrea Mackris during which Olbermann asked Countdown viewers to fund the purchase of lurid audio tapes allegedly held by Mackris.
NFL on NBC
On April 16, 2007, Olbermann was named co-host of Football Night in America, NBC's NFL pre-game show that precedes their Sunday Night NFL game, a position which reunited him in 2008 with his former SportsCenter co-anchor Dan Patrick.
Political positions
Viewpoints
Although it began as a traditional newscast, Countdown With Keith Olbermann has adopted an opinion-oriented format. Much of the program has featured harsh criticism of prominent Republicans and rightward leaning figures, including those working for or supporting the George W. Bush Administration, 2008 Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain, and rival news commentator Bill O'Reilly, whom Olbermann routinely dubs the "Worst Person In The World."
In January 2007 The Washington Posts Howard Kurtz wrote that Olbermann was "position[ing] his program as an increasingly liberal alternative to The O'Reilly Factor." Media watchdog group Media Research Center (MRC) compiled a list of the recipients of Olbermann's "World's Worst" for about a year from its beginning on June 30, 2005, and reported that, of the approximately 600 recipients, 174 (29 percent) of those fit their definition of "conservative" people or ideas while only 23 (6 percent) were what they considered "liberal." During the 2008 Democratic Party primaries Olbermann frequently chastised presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton for her campaign tactics against her principal opponent, Senator Barack Obama, and made her the subject of two of his "special comments". Olbermann has also posted on the liberal blog Daily Kos.
In a Countdown interview with Al Franken on October 25, 2005, Olbermann noted that in 2003, after having Janeane Garofalo and Franken on his show, a vice president of MSNBC had questioned him on inviting "liberals" on consecutive nights, contrasting that occurrence to the apparent ideological latitude he enjoyed at the time of the second Franken interview.
In November 2007, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph placed Keith Olbermann at #67 on their Top 100 list of most influential US liberals. It said that he uses his MSNBC show to promote "an increasingly strident liberal agenda." It added that he would be "a force on the Left for some time to come." Avoiding ideological self-labeling, Olbermann once told the on-line magazine Salon.com, "I'm not a liberal, I'm an American."
Criticism of the Bush administration
In Olbermann's "Special Comment" segment on July 3, 2007, he called President George W. Bush's commutation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence the "last straw," and called for the resignation of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Olbermann said:
We enveloped our President in 2001. And those who did not believe he should have been elected — indeed, those who did not believe he had been elected — willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.
And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it.
On his February 14, 2008 "Special Comments" segment, Olbermann castigated Bush for threatening to veto an extension of the Protect America Act unless it provided full immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies. Olbermann stated,
Mr. Bush, you say that our ability to track terrorist threats will be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger, yet you have weakened that ability, you have subjected us, your citizens, to that greater danger. This, Mr. Bush, is simple enough even for you to understand. For the moment, at least, thanks to some true patriots in the House, and to your own stubbornness, you have tabled telecom immunity, and the FISA act. You. By your own terms and your definitions, you have just sided with the terrorists. You got to have this law, or we're all going to die. But, practically speaking, you vetoed this law.
During the same commentary, Olbermann stated: "If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business, come out and say it. There is a dictionary definition, one word that describes that toxic blend. You're a fascist — get them to print you a T-shirt with 'fascist' on it. What else is this but fascism?"
In a special comment on May 14, 2008, Olbermann criticized Bush for announcing that he had stopped playing golf in honor of American soldiers who died in the Iraq war. Stating that Bush never should have started the war in the first place and accusing him of dishonesty and war crimes, Olbermann snapped,
It is not, Mr. Bush, about your golf game! And, sir, if you have any hopes that next January 20 will not be celebrated as a day of soul-wrenching, heartfelt thanksgiving, because your faithless stewardship of this presidency will have finally come to a merciful end, this last piece of advice . . . when somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead. This advice, Mr. Bush: Shut the hell up!
Asked by MSNBC senior vice-president Phil Griffin if it was really necessary to tell the President of the United States to "shut the hell up," Olbermann replied that it was, because he couldn't say "fuck" on television.
Other news journalism
Olbermann was a fill-in for newscaster Paul Harvey. The September 11, 2001 attacks provided the impetus for Olbermann to return to full-fledged news reporting. He won an Edward R. Murrow Award for reporting from the site of the attacks for 40 days on ABC Radio and Los Angeles radio station KFWB.
Olbermann wrote a weekly column for Salon.com from July 2002 until early 2003.
Olbermann anchored MSNBC's coverage of the death of fellow anchor Tim Russert on June 13, 2008. He presented a tribute, along with several fellow journalists, in honor of Russert.
Baseball historian and fan
Olbermann is a dedicated baseball fan and historian of the sport, with membership in the Society for American Baseball Research. He is also one of the most prominent baseball card collectors in the country, particularly of T-206 tobacco cards and other rare cards, such as the very rare 2006 Alex Gordon rookie card. He argues that New York Giants baseball player Fred Merkle should not be denied inclusion into the Baseball Hall of Fame because of a baserunning mistake. He contributed the foreword to More Than Merkle (ISBN 0-8032-1056-6), a book requesting amnesty for Merkle's error, also known as the "Merkle Boner." Olbermann was also one of the founders of the first experts' fantasy baseball league. He was one of the founders of the USA Today Baseball Weekly LABR league, giving the league its nickname (LABR stands for League of Alternative Baseball Reality).
Because of his extensive baseball knowledge, Olbermann is a consultant to Topps, the baseball card manufacturer. Topps allowed him to open the first pack of 2007 baseball cards on Countdown the week before they hit stores. The first card of the pack was Johnny Damon of the New York Yankees. In high school, Olbermann compiled an extensive list of first and third base coaches. This documentation now sits in the Hall of Fame, and is considered the definitive compendium of first and third base coaches in baseball history. Olbermann wrote the foreword to the 2009 Baseball Prospectus Annual.
Career timeline
Bibliography
- Truth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration's War on American Values (Random House, December 2007). ISBN 978-1-4000-6676-6.
- The Worst Person In the World and 202 Strong Contenders (Wiley, September 2006). ISBN 0-470-04495-0.
- The Big Show: Inside ESPN's Sportscenter (Atria, 1997). ISBN 0-671-00918-4.
- The Major League Coaches: 1921-1973 (Card Memorabilia Associates, 1973).
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