Objectivity is getting rarer, but there's still examples out there. Russert. Lehrer. (Brian) Lamb. Those are three off the top of my head. I also very much like the work that Factcheck.org does. That's the standard to be held to. Taking a "well, everybody's biased, so being that way is OK" stance is a cop-out.
While working an anchor - which is the big difference from O'Reilly* and Countdown, both of which are presented as commentary, not news - it isn't Olbermann's job to do editorial, and deserves to get called out on it when he does. Even Maher, no friend to the Bushes, thought Olbermann and Matthews went overboard in how they covered the D convention.
You are correct in that if O'Reilly isn't out of a job, neither should Olbermann be. But neither should be doing straight news anchoring anymore, either; they're both too associated with one side now, and the taint is too strong for them to be effective in that role. I still don't think Olbermann's talent is great enough to carry a show without having an animus to rail against, but we'll see.
* who we stopped watching a number of years back when he started talking over guests and not even pretending to be neutral.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-08-31 04:57 pm (UTC)While working an anchor - which is the big difference from O'Reilly* and Countdown, both of which are presented as commentary, not news - it isn't Olbermann's job to do editorial, and deserves to get called out on it when he does. Even Maher, no friend to the Bushes, thought Olbermann and Matthews went overboard in how they covered the D convention.
You are correct in that if O'Reilly isn't out of a job, neither should Olbermann be. But neither should be doing straight news anchoring anymore, either; they're both too associated with one side now, and the taint is too strong for them to be effective in that role. I still don't think Olbermann's talent is great enough to carry a show without having an animus to rail against, but we'll see.
* who we stopped watching a number of years back when he started talking over guests and not even pretending to be neutral.