Let's get this out of the way early in the morningFollow

Not at all. Unlike liberals, we conservatives support the right to speak one's mind even (especially!) if they disagree with us. My issue is with MSNBC, not Olbermann.



And my point is that they apparently (internally even) appear to be confused about what that actually means. As I said earlier, none of us are confused about where Olbermann stands. It's the network apparently trying to play games with the definitions of their employees.


And in case some of you aren't aware of this, there are some licensing regulations involved which require certain standards for "news reporting". What it looks like MSNBC has been doing is labeling some of its commentary people as news journalists in order to qualify for some status or other. Frankly, I'm not 100% how those rules apply to cable news networks, but it looks like they're at least trying to comply with something and failing miserably. Else why bother?

Why? I'm not the one making vague, unsubstantiated claims about licensing and what Olberman's internal classification is.

You could have just admitted that you were talking out your *** instead of lamely trying to turn this around.

Well, someone who actually knew something and wasn't just grabbing at bits of random ether to try and sound intelligent would know that there's a broad exemption for "news interview shows" which excludes everything from Countdown to Sean Hannity to Good Morning America to O'Reilly to The View to Nightline to Howard Stern to Rush Limbaugh to Oprah from the Equal Time rules. Even if no one is calling Howard Stern or Oprah or Limbaugh a "newscast".

Someone who actually knew anything about broadcasting wouldn't be embarrassing themselves with your remarks though.

Edited, Nov 8th 2010 5:14pm by Jophiel

Although arguably they should put quotes around "wit" and "style".

So you just blindly accept that MSNBC put a "no donating to political campaigns" clause in Olbermann's contract and aren't even the least bit curious as to why? Seriously?



In which he clearly expresses opinion on each one, but apparently in his contract he's not allowed to "speak" politically in the form of campaign donations. Strange at the least, right?



Uh huh. And he's clearly not been doing that, has he? So at some point they just threw up their hands and gave up on the "he's just reporting the news", but maintained a clause in his contract restricting his ability to involve himself in politics? That's strange, isn't it? And I'm sorry if this is just my spidey sense tingling, but it sure looks to me like the kind of thing one would do so they could show "on paper" that they have X hours of news reporting, when they actually have less news and more commentary.



Well I do. If you don't, then by all means stop posting. I do think it's strange that they'd do this. I do think it's kinda relevant for news stations to accurately label and classify the shows they air. I do think that if we're going to bother with them in the first place that they have some sort of meaning. And guess what? I do think that when a station clearly labels a show as one thing, when it's clearly something else entirely that this monumentally suspicious.



No reason to assume otherwise either though, is there? You are remarkably partisan with your acceptance of speculation here Joph. Unlike the people proclaiming the wikileaks data to be some kind of proof of illegality, war crimes, and whatnot despite there being nothing more than the possibility of such, I have not made any claims about MSNBC breaking the law, violating some kind of FCC regulations, or some other sort of legally binding shenanigans.

I am merely pointing out that the oddities in this contract and the obvious nature of the show itself indicate the possibility of such things and perhaps more attention ought to be paid to it. So I'm not allowed to even speculate here? Isn't there a double standard going on?



Unless they gained in some legal or monetary way by classifying him in that way, of course. But your blinders are on so tight you attack anyone who even suggests that this could be the case.



Lol! Just pointing out the constant double standard is all. I'll note that you didn't respond to allegations that Fox News "news shows" do the same thing with any negatives at all. Heck, you didn't even respond. So it's wrong to point out that a show that has been revealed to have been classified by the network as a "news show" contains a host with obvious and continual bias and who mostly just comments rather than reports, but it's perfectly ok to just assume without a shred of evidence that Fox News does the same thing.


Massive double standard there. Made all the more amusing in that you seem utterly unable to even see it. It's like there's a huge blind spot in your mind or something.

Yeah Jophiel, you really owed at least Gbaji a Thank You in your acceptance interview with Zam for your 50k.

Pfft. You mean when he reaches 50k, he owes me a thank you.

Alas, I was suspended indefinitely last night for donating to Wombat Awareness (a liberal cause if there ever was one!)

I have been reinstated as of this morning, though.

Pretty much. Want to post a ridiculous topic so we can make fun of you instead? It's a slow morning.

Technically, it's "opinion".

Unless their buddy is starting certain types of non profits or it is being done as a flowtbrough to a subcontractor for a charitable org, Or if they are classified as a religious org or several other neat tricks.

Specifics are important.