Olbermann and Matthews

OK, so MSNBC has announced that Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews won't be anchoring coverage of political news any more.

Now, I happen to like Olbermann. Yes, yes, he's over the top at times, and I wish he would tone it down a bit. (Memo to Keith: Calling people names [viz, "pinheads"] is the spécialité de la maison over at Fox. You don't need to sink to that level to make your point--your vocabulary didn't stop expanding in third grade as theirs apparently did.)

Nevertheless, this is the right move. Reporting should be separate from opinion, and the anchor desk should be manned by a reporter, not by op-ed people (MSNBC has tapped the excellent David Gregory as the new anchor). Doing this not only separates news from opinion, it affords Olbermann and Matthews the opportunity to voice what they think without the constraints of being reporters. They both crossed that line more than once; they knew it; so they fixed it.

What's really interesting to me is the gloating going on over at Fox. To see this in perspective, first look at what the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has to say:

Olbermann and Matthews will remain as analysts during major political events, and officials at [both NBC and MSNBC] ... said Olbermann had initiated the discussions to clarify his role. They said Olbermann's influence at MSNBC would in no way be diminished and that the shift would enable him and Matthews to offer more candid analysis during live coverage. Olbermann confirmed yesterday he had initiated the discussions [emphasis added].

"[MSNBC president Phil Grffin] and I have debated this set-up since late winter/early spring (with me saying, 'Are you sure this flies?' and him saying, 'Yes, but let's judge it event by event') and I think we both reached the same point during the RNC," Olbermann said by e-mail.

So Olbermann agrees that this is the right thing to do, and he initiated the discussion about the change in role.

OK, now here's how Fox "reports" the same story (under the enormous blood-red headline, "KEITH OLBERMANN, CHRIS MATTHEWS BOOTED FROM MSNBC POLITICAL ANCHOR DESK"):

Keith Olbermann may be the “voice” of MSNBC, but network executives have decided to yank the talkmeister off its political anchor desk after the cable channel finished dead last in the Nielsen rankings of all news coverage during the two weeks of political conventions.

and

The network’s weak ratings during the conventions may have given MSNBC executives the cover they needed to boot Olbermann and Matthews. FOX News Channel topped all broadcast and cable networks with 9.2 million viewers on each of the last two nights of the convention. MSNBC got barely more than a quarter of Fox’s total –2.5 million viewers.

MSNBC also ranked last among the three cable channels during primetime coverage of the last two nights of the Democratic convention.

and

A portion of the O’Reilly interview with Obama aired last Thursday and earned O’Reilly his second highest rating ever, with more than 6.6 million viewers.

Ratings-obsessed, much? It appears that Fox has fully internalized O'Reilly's mantra: "Good ratings prove I'm right." This is all about ratings, and not about reporting, not about integrity. Don't bother to mention that Olbermann himself appears to have initiated the change. That wouldn't fit the storyline, so let's leave that part out, OK?

But we didn't get to the really funny bit yet:

The network announced Monday that Olbermann and Chris Matthews have both been booted as co-hosts on political night coverage in favor of David Gregory, whose White House press corps experience may make him better suited to deliver sober and less opinion-driven assessments of the news.

Fox News thinks someone else delivers "opinion-driven assessments of the news"? Are they serious? They had to be howling with laughter when they finished typing that sentence, right? I visualize them gasping for breath, holding their sides, falling to the floor in gales of hilarity. Oh, the irony.

The big difference here, really, is that MSNBC saw that there was a problem in using pundits as anchors, and they did something about it. Fox News, which doesn't seem to have anyone who can report news without sharing an opinion, will never understand that. Not in a million years.

Fox Opinion Channel

Some things are just hard to understand. On Fox News, almost everything is hard to understand.

Last night, Fox's commentators, including the network's designated liberal Alan Colmes, decided that there was no point in our actually listening to the Democratic Convention's keynote address, so they talked over almost all of it. The keynote address, for God's sake. A twenty-minute address, and we got maybe two minutes of it. Instead, we are treated to a bunch of commercials and an interview with Rudy Giuliani. That's right, they used the Republican keynote speaker to talk over the Democratic keynote address. Couldn't have waited just a bit, guys? I'll be most interested to see if they jabber over the Republican keynote address next week.

Update: They didn't. No jabber. Broadcast the whole thing. Surprise!

But that is as nothing compared to the utterly bizarre commentary by Megyn Kelly just the previous night. It turns out, according to Megyn, that if you change the words someone says, they sound different. Megyn can prove it, too. Here is Megyn entering an alternate universe while yakking about Michelle Obama's address at the convention:

[W]hat [Michelle] said was, and I wrote it down, was, "The world as it is just won't do." If you replace "world" with "country," you're back to the same debate, arguably, that you have been having about Michelle Obama's feelings about this country.

Seriously. That is what Megyn said. Replace what Michelle did say with what Michelle didn't say, and it doesn't sound so good.

OK, let's see how this works. Here is what Megyn said when asked who her favorite active "journalist" is:

Brit Hume. The man truly knows everything about everything.

Now, if I replace the first "everything" with "nothing", and the second one with "anything", here's what I get:

Brit Hume. The man truly knows nothing about anything.

So, it turns out that Megyn thinks Brit Hume is an idiot. Hey, it does work!

At this point, Fox really has no option other than to remove the word "News" from its name.

It's Comcastic!

I hadn't planned, when I started this blog an hour ago, to use it for rants. But then this happened.

We have Comcast digital cable, but cable boxes for only two of our four TVs (yes, of course we need four TVs; there are four people in the house). So, the unfortunate two get only the analog stations. We noticed the other day that some of the channels we watch regularly--to wit, the D.C. network affiliates--had been disappeared. They were still on the two TVs with boxes, but not on the other two. Just snow. Easily solved, right? Just check the Comcast web site.

Oh dear, nothing there. The channel lineup shows them just where they always were.

OK, well, I'll just call Comcast. Not quite as convenient, perhaps, but they'll be able to tell me.

Let's try the local number first, the one they give us to call for trouble and such. Surprise, an automated response system! Yes, I speak English. Yes, I'm a current customer. Here's my phone number.

Welcome to Comcast's automated bill payment system. Oops, not what I really wanted. And I don't have my 14-digit account number handy. Oh, wait, it's OK: Press 0 at any time to speak to a representative. Good, they're transferring my call...ohhhh...Our normal business hours are 8AM to 5PM, Monday through Friday. Please call again during normal business hours. Damn. It's Saturday evening.

No worries, I'll call the big kahunas at the real number. 1-800-COMCAST, those guys really have all the answers.

A little dialing music, Paul (thanks for that one, Dave)...yes, I speak English...yes, I have cable...yes, I have trouble...Comcast repair service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week...Comcast, we're here when you need us...(now we're getting somewhere!)...

Welcome to Comcast's automated bill payment system.

It's not really all that Comcastic.