From Bloggermann, Keith Olbermann’s blog at MSNBC (what will take the place of the MS part after Microsoft, as announced, completes its pullout?):
Oops.
One of the fun aspects of reading Keith’s blog is that, since I’ve heard him hundreds of times, I hear his voice as he writes. Keith would SAY “Oooops!” in a mock falsetto just as easily as he writes it, accompanied by a grin evidencing the pleasure he’s taking in skewering Mr. O’Reilly one more time. In these embarrassing days for journalism, we at least have Keith to wink at the sorry mess.
More below:
The Bloggermann continues his latest blog entry. “Judging books by their covers”:
And Keith, an experienced observer of people in all kinds of settings, noticed something:
Occasionally, a particular photograph a family releases of a missing relative will not be especially flattering. But all the images of this woman were identical: her eyes were so impossibly wide open that in each, it looked like she was either headed to, or just back from, extreme electrolysis. I said it to my staffers. I said it on the air: This woman looks like she’s about to flee, run, book, or start screaming hysterically. This is somebody on the verge of something in which she exits, stage left.
Keith not only noticed something odd about the woman from the scant information he had, but he also had the moxie to speak to his audience about it.
Keith dared to question, and let us in on his concerns. I cannot express just how refreshing that is. And how important.
And thank goodness, when he gets the chance, Keith also opines on vastly more serious topics. His knowledge of U.S. history is impressive.
The remainder of Keith’s latest entry is about Jason Giambi:
I’ll let Booman, the baseball expert, weigh in on that one.
Thanks, Keith, for your perceptive tea-leaf reading. You’ve got the news experience, the brains, and the honed instincts to deliver.
Booman, what’s the deal on the steroid issue? I haven’t read up on it, sorry to say.
Steroids? Ugh.
It’s a long story. Baseball athletes have been taking steroids for a long time. It really took off in the 90’s.
They started testing for them, but a company in California came up with some undetectable stuff. Giambi, Barry Bonds and other high profile athletes got busted for taking them.
On a funnier note that relates to Olbermann:
A few years ago the Yankees had a second baseman named Chuck Knobluach. He was all-star caliber player. But he suddenly lost the ability to throw. The short throw from his position to first base became a challenge he could not master. He would throw the ball straight into the ground, or way to the right or left.
One day he let one sail so high it went straight into the stands and hit Keith Olbermann’s mother in the head.
Olbermann went off about it.
I remember Knoblauch was great early in his career with the Twins (he got ROTY, didn’t he?). So I guess that wild throw thing must have been what they call the “yips”.
I hadn’t heard about this missing woman until she was already revealed to have been a fraud. But remember about fifteen years ago, when that guy in Boston said a black guy had carjacked him and his pregnant wife, and in so doing killed her and wounded the husband? I said to people at the time, though I had never heard it even hinted as a possibility in the media, “I bet it’s that guy who really did it and he made up a story to cover it up.” My friends were like “ooh, you’re sick” etc. I looked like Sherlock Holmes a couple weeks later!
I’ve usually had good instincts on these things–for instance, I was also very sceptical of Susan Smith (but so were the police in that case). But I’ll confess I got the Elizabeth Smart thing all wrong. I had her dad pegged for some kind of weirdo molester (as did the SLC police, apparently, from what I heard later about the course of their investigation). But of course, we all know the amazing way that ended (the photo of her at the keg party is so bizarre, it in particular belongs in the “truth stranger than fiction” category).
Alan
Maverick Leftist
Kid Oakland and Keith Olbermann who routinely deliver quality.
Keith had the right instincts on the story. But I wish Keith would go one step further. It’s a polite request, Keith. Drive down here to Philadelphia and go through the missing persons reports. Find someone the media is ignoring that might make for compelling television. Then your network can do its 24-hour round the clock news coverage until you find them, or the ratings tank, whichever comes first. Wait, does MSNBC have ratings? Nevermind. Do whatever you want, and keep it funny and serious at the same time.
In all seriousness, it bothers me that the media is under such a Pavlovian-ratings spell that it will only cover tragedies that happen to white people, and (mostly) trials that happen to black people.
Can’t remember what site I was on, may have been Bet. and there was a discussion board going or something about a young Black woman from middle class family I think who has been missing for quite some time and absolutely no one at all in the white media has covered this or seems to give a dam…
This whole thing with only reporting white woman missing isn’t even hidden racism but pretty obvious.
is that is not exactly racism. But it basically amounts to racism.
I think that the cable news channels have discovered that their audience will watch black people on trial, but not white people.
They tried Robert Blake, but it just didn’t get them ratings.
But Jon-Benet Ramsey? Oh boy!! Kiddie porn. It got great ratings. Laci Peterson, or Chandra Levy? Ratings. Of course, Levy involved a Congressman and was a real story. But they overplayed it to death.
I don’t think the network execs are deciding not to cover missing person’s of color because they are racist. They are doing it because their audience (collectively) cares more about missing white people.
In the end, it is racist because the information is not supposed to be about ratings but about finding someone who is missing.
And in the case of trials, it reinforces a negative stereotype.
Ok, I’ve gone on too long.
http://tamikahuston.com/pages/1/index.htm This is a young black women(who I was thinking of) who is 24 who has been missing since May of 2004 and police believe under suspicious circumstances…and who the hell has ever heard of her.
Kinda surprised in a way as she’s extremely attractive and looks like the ‘right’ kind of young Black woman the media might be interested in….ok, I’m not surprised but it is depressing.
I was channel surfing and came across E!’s dramatic reenactment of Michael Jackson’s trial. I thought I was watching MadTV or SNL, and I waited for a punchline. But then I realized they were SERIOUS!
from my Sat. story here:
A Word About Missing Persons:
There are thousands and thousands of other missing people in this country alone. Look at the photos of missing people in Manhattan alone: Stephanie Servio, Last seen 07/03/04, Manhattan (black); Veronica Aguires, Last Seen 12/22/03, Manhattan (Hispanic); Rafine Caballero, Last seen 04/15/04, Manhattan (Hispanic), Lucia Casa, Last seen 04/15/04, Manhattan (Hispanic), and on and on. The police department asks that their photos not be reproduced elsewhere.
Then, as we learned last night from David Brancaccio on PBS’s NOW, the family of Haj Ali — the famous man in the hood — searched for him after he went missing. Haj’s family went to Abu Ghraib and, when they asked if he were a prisoner, were told by U.S. authorities that no, he was not at Abu Ghraib. One can only imagine his family’s suffering, not knowing what had become of him until his abrupt release from Abu Ghraib.
Did we ever hear a word about the Ali family’s search? Or about the search for Stephanie, Veronica, Rafine, or Lucia? Of course not.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again..if it wasn’t for Olbermann and the Daily Show there would be absolutely no reason to believe media ‘news’ at all.
The sad part is is that he is only doing his job as a reporter, nothing spectacular yet it seems that way compared to the basic propaganda from Faux or the rest of the media who have abdicated any semblance of reporting much less any investigative reporting.
I’m glad that I don’t watch the cable news much anymore and especially if a story like this takes over the media 24/7. Watching several of these almost hysterically reported media concoctions was enough, and for what? I actually had no clue really who this was until the whole thing was over. Then it seemed that anytime I checked channels the whole day yesterday was continued to 24/7 coverage as to why she did this-who the hell cares except maybe her family and the town that were out there yaking about her and how she’d never leave on her own.
So I saved myself a lot of second guessing and wondering of course if her fiance had something to do with her disappearance. What a nightmare for him as he was of course a suspect..and all for nothing. And yeah that picture I’ve now seen is a bit freaky.
All the news on this woman when ten of our troops have been killed in the last several days and at least 50 Iraqi’s but who cares right. My guess would be that people could tell you this woman’s name but not that ten troops and dozens of Iraqi’s have been killed in the same time span. Any bets?
And any bets that NBC will go even more right now with MS gone?
if MSNBC will go further to the right without MS.
But I will have to come up with a replacement for MSGOP.
Of course, Olbermann is the exception that proves the rule.
I wonder if he even talks to Joe Scarborough.
I also wonder how Chris Matthews’s neck supports his giant mutant head.
ha ha, now I can sign off on a snarky laugh instead of my usual pissed off state.