The Keith Olbermann wrist-slap and reinstatement on MSNBC this week illustrates the changing rules of the game for TV news in the late-cable era. It’s ripe for a workover by Tina Fey.
Olbermann was briefly suspended by MSNBC for making monetary contributions to political campaigns — a violation under the traditional rules for journalists. He’ll return to “Countdown” tonight with a blast that should be one for the books.
That he is even back on the air is no small revolution in the business. It would be out of the question for NBC News anchor Brian Williams to make political donations, and the NBC News bosses, who technically also control MSNBC, likely would not let him have his job back at all.
But the cable world is different. The rules are evolving. Traditional thinking on the “objectivity” of reporters is outdated. Just as documentary and “reality TV” forms are blurring, as comedy and drama long ago spilled into each other, news and commentary are increasingly enmeshed.
It’s up to the viewer to discern what kind of news, commentary, headline service or critical viewpoint is worthwhile. A greater level of tele-literacy is assumed, rightly or not. Spin is just another alternative on the dial.
The role of a cable network has evolved for better and worse. Separation from the old and at times contrived rules of objectivity have allowed more sharp viewpoints to emerge. Those sharp viewpoints in turn have led to more division and angry rhetoric in the land.
MSNBC is lately positioned to serve as a mouthpiece for the liberal and Democratic Party line of political thought, just as Fox News has long been positioned to serve as a mouthpiece for the conservative and Republican Party line.
One chief difference is that Fox News doesn’t have the history of an “objective” news division to break against, whereas MSNBC is a wild child in the eyes of the proud, longtime staffers at NBC News. Fox News, the brilliant creation of GOP strategist Roger Ailes, is unconstrained by stodgy broadcast history. NBC is more sensitive due to history and its pending merger with Comcast. The fact that Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams were allowed to take over extra prime-time hours on election night this year on the NBC network, steering clear of MSNBC, may signal a new arm’s-length relationship with the cable sister channel.
The “24-hour, political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator,” in Jon Stewart’s words, plays by different rules.
Fox News is embraced by Tea Partiers, MSNBC is embraced by liberals, and CNN is searching for an identity somewhere in the middle. If MSNBC is going to compete, it will have to be at a distance from NBC, so the commentators have the freedom to rant that their Fox News adversaries enjoy.
The fact that Olbermann gives liberal politicians airtime worth many times more than the few thousand dollars he donated to them privately is apparent, as is the fact that Fox News gives conservative politicians valuable airtime and pays some of them — Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee — to appear. Of course it was a bad choice by Olbermann to donate the money without network permission. But was there any doubt about his leanings? The rules are changing.
Olbermann can be erudite and high-minded (some call it pompous and egomaniacal), and he just might reach new heights of oratory/grandiosity tonight. He’d be wise not to vent against his bosses but stick to the considerable political opponents.
Meanwhile, Tina Fey and “30 Rock” have fresh material. Fey’s NBC sitcom about a late-night comedy show on a fictionalized NBC has been sending up the network’s confusion over the role of a modern TV network since it came on the air five seasons ago.
Fey routinely has knocked the company’s state of fear over the pending real-life merger with Comcast, the Pennsylvania company that is the nation’s largest cable-TV producer and which is seeking control of NBC Universal in a $30 billion takeover.
On the show, a Pennsylvania company called “Kabletown” bought NBC from General Electric and is wreaking havoc. Kabletown, of course, is “spelled with a ‘K’ because K stands for the Kindness we show our customers, the Keen interest we take in their needs and because Cabletown with a ‘C’ was already the name of a store that sold cableknit sweaters, and legal said we had to spell it with a ‘K.’ “
Next, how will Fey mock the NBC brass’ reaction to a fictionalized NBC cable network scandal?
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
