Bill O'Reilly vs Keith Olbermann ... Again — May 9th 2007

By Karina Longworth

One of our top stories on Netscape today is a Newshound takedown of Fox News stalwart Bill O'Reilly, who has blamed MSNBC's "far left" slant for the poor ratings of last week's Republican debate. Since the Newshound site exists for the sole purpose of slamming Fox News, its take on the story doesn't exactly come as a shock. "You need to face some facts," Newshound tells O'Reilly. "You've peaked and Keith Olbermann is coming up behind you and MSNBC considers him a great asset."

But do they? According to an AP story circulated by Jossip and The Huffington Post, MSNBC did have to contend with flack from conservatives regarding Olbermann's debate night commentary, particularly concerning Rudy Giuliani, whose team actually called MSNBC to complain. AP's David Bauder suggested that "having Olbermann anchor [a political news event] is the MSNBC equivalent of Fox News Channel assigning the same duties to O'Reilly." In other words, news guys should take care of reporting news, and commentary guys who get paid to ruffle feathers should only be brought in after the fact.

At this point, Olbermann and O'Reilly have used one another for target practice for long enough that neither could be considered a reliable source on the other. As John Amato of Crooks and Liars told me via email this afternoon, we're dealing with a personal feud stretched to the limit. "O'Reilly is fuming at Keith Olbermann because Keith has been highly critical of him. For a while O'Reilly responded to Keith, but then changed his tactics (because Keith's ratings have rocketed?) and he has instead been attacking NBC/MSNBC using the typical Conservative trick of calling them a liberal outfit. But who owns NBC? Isn't it GE? How deep into the military complex are they?"

Bloggers hopped on this story early, and are still hopping as we speak. At Olbermann Watch--a blog that seeks to scrutinize the MSNBC star's every move--Robert Cox maintains that an MSNBC-sponsored Republican debate was doomed from the start:



On the more Olbermann-friendly side of the debate, Glenn Greenwald at Salon is fairly appalled that Bauder would impugn Olbermann's journalistic impartiality--especially when Fox's Brit Hume and NBC's Chris Matthews are held up as paragons of impartial virtue. "What turns a 'journalist' into an ideologue these days is excess criticism of the prevailing Beltway power structure and its most revered and important figures," writes Greenwald. "That--and only that--is what distinguishes Olbermann from those considered to be 'real journalists.'"

All this talk can only be considered a positive development for MSNBC, whose ratings and reputation have been slipping for years. But when divisive figures like Olbermann and O'Reilly become the news, at what point does that distract from their ability to mediate real news?

Tags: bill oreilly, BillOreilly, blogs, conservative, debate, democrats, fox news, FoxNews, keith olbermann, KeithOlbermann, liberal, msnbc, politics, republicans, television

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