Over at the Media Blog, Greg notes that advertising executive and wearing-his-glasses-at-the-tip-of-his-nose enthusiast Donny Deutsch has been yanked from a weeklong guest-hosting spot on MSNBC after a couple of negative references to Keith Olbermann.
Deutsch showed images of Olbermann as part of a piece on how the media foments anger in America. Guest Hugh Hewitt later referred to Olbermann and fellow MSNBCer Ed Schultz as two of “the biggest hate-mongers in television.” (Interestingly enough, the clip that Deutsch aired to illustrate Olbermann’s anger has been pulled from YouTube.)
Olbermann ardently denies that he had anything to do with the move. He e-mailed Brian Stelter of the New York Times, who originally reported the story, with this:
“Your account is entirely untrue. Your e-mail is the first I am hearing of any of this. What I know of what happened is this: Phil Griffin phoned me yesterday enraged at what was on that show and I didn’t disagree with him.” Mr. Griffin is the president of MSNBC.
After Stelter went ahead with the story, Olbermann took to the tweets:
@KeithOlbermann This just in: complete fail by @BrianStelter of NY Times: http://nyti.ms/crdp0F I advised him of how wrong he was and he still posted.
@KeithOlbermann Sad to say, @BrianStelter was an innovative and hardworking blogger. He’s in over his head where he is now.
Even if everything Olbermann says is true, instead of ‘not disagreeing’ with Griffin he might have told the executive he didn’t take offense — or didn’t take sufficient offense to think it warranted Deutsch’s ouster.
In any event, MSNBC has now fired the guy they hired to replace the guy they suspended (David Shuster) and all for the sake of a guy who isn’t even the highest-rated host of his own television program.