This morning's CBS Sunday Morning featured a profile of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann in their series "The Cable Guy." Many are aware of Keith and his nightly newscast entitled, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and many are fans. This piece appears to have been intended for the uninitiated and may have left many scratching their heads.
Who is this guy who thinks he can diss the President, the Vice President or even for that matter the hero of koolaide drinkers of America, Bill O'Reilly? In Olbermann's words, "You need to make a newscast that looks like life; very serious, very angry, very stupid, very snarky, very much about pop culture.
"It can be exhausting," say Susan Spencer. Yes, Susan, it can, but that's really what it's about, isn't it?
Indeed it can. Olbermann's show is a roller coaster ride of all the elements of a good news day and a bad hair day.
His interview technique has improved markedly in the past year, but that could be attributed to his choice of guests, mostly NBC analysts and reporters and those he admires, such as John Dean. His writing is well done, although in my opinion his special comments have been rather long of late. He leads with the serious, except perhaps the night Anna Smith died, and wends its way through to my favorite segment, "Worse Person in the World." His final segment, the kicker, is often fluff and as KO reminds us, "very much about pop culture." If nothing else Olbermann is entertaining, which is what we are left with in Spencer's piece.
I am a fan, have been for a while. My problem is I want the show to be perfect, but that may not be realistic. It is, after all, a newscast that looks like life.
The piece, Keith Olbermann Takes On...Everything was produced by Jason Sacca, the editor David Bhagat and the reporter Susan Spencer.
