Oh, Olby!

SHORTLY before Countdown with Keith Olbermann debuted in the spring of 2003, its host told the Washington Post, “Our charge for the immediate future is to stay out of the way of the news. . . . News is the news. We will not be screwing around with it.” When asked how he felt about competing nightly with Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, he answered, “I’m not looking to take down Bill. It will be a totally different program. It will not be a show in which opinion and facts are juxtaposed so as to appear to be the same thing.”

But the man who pledged not to screw around with the news has-for the last two years-done little else. From his obsessive crusade to uncover supposed voting irregularities in the 2004 election, to the tabloid nature of much of his subject material, to his angry and increasingly bizarre attacks on the Bush administration, Keith Olbermann offers almost nothing in the way of hard news. Instead, he combines highly opinionated liberal journalism with offbeat “news of the weird” segments and a strategy of self-promotion built around picking fights with Bill O’Reilly. As a result, he is making modest but undeniable gains in the ratings.

About the Author

Stephen Spruiell

Stephen Spruiell is a former staff reporter for National Review Online.

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SHORTLY before Countdown with Keith Olbermann debuted in the spring of 2003, its host told the Washington Post, “Our charge for the immediate future is to stay out of the way of the news. . . . News is the news. We will not be screwing around with it.” When asked how he felt about competing nightly with Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, he answered, “I’m not looking to take down Bill. It will be a totally different program. It will not be a show in which opinion and facts are juxtaposed so as to appear to be the same thing.”

But the man who pledged not to screw around with the news has-for the last two years-done little else. From his obsessive crusade to uncover supposed voting irregularities in the 2004 election, to the tabloid nature of much of his subject material, to his angry and increasingly bizarre attacks on the Bush administration, Keith Olbermann offers almost nothing in the way of hard news. Instead, he combines highly opinionated liberal journalism with offbeat “news of the weird” segments and a strategy of self-promotion built around picking fights with Bill O’Reilly. As a result, he is making modest but undeniable gains in the ratings.