transcript of olbermann's latest rant

Better to watch:

 

Luggie, I respect you -- 99 percent of the time I'm in your corner -- and I'm a print guy, but that was a weak cheap shot. We in the print industry know we have problems, but how does that make our (or anyone's) opinion of a telecast any less valid?

As far as ESPN is concerned, people criticize it as viewers as much they do from the standpoint of being in the industry. There's not a damn thing wrong with that, anymore than there's not a damn thing wrong with our own readers giving us feedback, positive or negative, which readers do all of the time. Is their opinion ever formed with any kind of deep knowledge of what we do? Almost never. But it doesn't make it any less valid.

ESPN has the financial clout to corner the market on many of the sports we love, and then -- in my opinion -- makes them less entertaining with lowest common denominator bullshit. They foist the entertainment angles and forget that most of us just want to watch the damn game.

I don't know why that's such a revolutionary statement -- I have every right as a viewer to hold that opinion, because TV is not above reproach and is not immune from the philosophy I try to espouse with my own print staff -- no one gives a shit about our problems.

In our case, our readers pay 50 cents to get a good product, and don't give a shit that our agate has a mistake because the regular agate clerk called in sick. They don't care that we were pressed for time because the dumb asses on the universal desk took vacation on a sectional night, etc. They're not knowledgable or savvy enough to understand that a 6-person staff can't cover seven games, pulling the bias card before the logic card.

Tough shit for us, that's life in the big city.

No one needs to know the inside baseball of an industry to form an opinion on it. As members of the sports media, we all of people should know better, that accusation is thrown at us all the time by our own subjects -- and most of us laugh it off as athletes being hypersensitive.

But I digress. You're also assuming that everyone criticizing TV on here is in print. I'm sure it's the majority, but I'm also sure it's not a 100 percent majority.

I'm as close to Olbermann's political spectrum as it gets and I respect the hell out of his intelligence, wit and his show, but I find his stabs at Murrow-like relevance to be unintentionally hilarious.

He over-emotes like Charlton Heston in Soylent Green -- making people like me who agree with the message to turn the channel, and certaintly not winning over anyone who might disagree with his opinion. He uses every stock dramatic trade in the book -- removing his glasses earnestly when trying to make a "big" point, dramatic pauses to give weight to the end of sentence. I don't know whether it's fake or not, but it comes off over-theatrical.

Just one man's opinion who isn't in TV. Take it for what you will.

 

All that was said was that Olbermann overdramatizes. No one said he was a hack. And cranberry, she has never said precisely what she is on the board, so trying to say what she is may not be correct, and in any event, tiptoes on the line of our outing rules.

 

Sorry, Dooley. I'll defer to you on this. I'm under the impression she has referred to herself by occupation on several occasions. Perhaps I'm wrong in that recollection but I don't know how else I'd have reached that conclusion. Regardless, I certainly wouldn't attempt to out anybody on the board, so I'll be careful not to reference that in the future.

 

There is no doubt that Keith is good, but I'm afraid that one of these days he's going to hang himself by his own rope if he lets himself go overboard.