Keith Olbermann on his final "Countdown." Photo credit: MSNBC frame grab/AP Photo
People fondly remembered Peter Jennings and Walter Cronkite when they died.�Millions were sad when Tom Brokaw left SNBC Nightly News and Ted Koppel departed SNightline.
But Keith Olbermann"s last SCountdown on MSNBC was different. It was a sad time for only his fans, and it produced a feast of speculation for everyone who follows cable news. What was the story behind Olbermann"s�relationship with his bosses? Maybe we"ll find out when he talks.�
The reaction underscored Olbermann"s polarizing style and the scary frequency with which�news divisions generate headlines these days.
Olbermann certainly has a legacy. He put MSNBC on the map, a difficult feat in the cable universe. And his anti-George W. Bush commentaries were audacious and passionate.
Yet Olbermann also had a million fans a night in a splintering business. Neither he nor Fox News Channel"s Bill O"Reilly has a podium comparable to Cronkite, Brokaw or even Brian Williams. The cable news titans make their biggest impact with commentary something most news anchors avoid.
Commentary on�cable news channels�doesn"t wear well with the mass audience, which say it"s tired of the sniping.�In this fractured culture, commentary will bring you as many detractors as admirers.
You could get a sense of that this morning on CNN"s SReliable Sources. David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun like the Sentinel, owned by Tribune bemoaned Olbermann"s Srecklessness and Scharacter assassination. (Zurawik had been among Olbermann"s Worst Persons in the World several times.) SThat"s why I said he wanted to be Edward R. Murrow and he was more [Joseph] McCarthy than Murrow, Zurawick said.
Former MSNBC anchor David Shuster scoffed at that view and praised Olbermann: SHe was a valuable voice, never mind in terms of the media, in terms of politics. There are so many progressives out there who felt like he was the poetic, literary, intelligent, emotion[al] and passionate voice for them, and they are looking up now and saying, OK, where do we turn now?
Verne Gay of Newsday shared still another view of Olbermann on�Reliable Sources: SHe"s sometimes afflicted with logorrhea, no doubt about it. But he"s also sort of a bit of an actor to an extent. I think he believes it in the more flagrant your rhetoric, the greater attention you"re going to get. And I think to a large extent, he really sharpened those boundaries, and he sharpened them very, very well.
He sure did sharpen them, but will he be remembered?
Maybe if he has�young admirers out there. Edward R. Murrow"s legacy certainly got a lift from George Clooney"s SGood Night, and Good Luck.
More likely, Olbermann won"t be remembered the�fate of��most newspeople.
I"m reminded of something Ted Koppel told me as he was preparing to leave SNightline. He said: SI do this periodically with a group of interns, bright 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds, and ask, Who was Eric Sevareid?" Nothing. What about Howard K. Smith?" Nothing. Chet Huntley?" Nothing. David Brinkley?" One tentative hand will go up. Walter Cronkite?" I manage to get three or four hands. I"ve just talked about five of the most famous practitioners of our profession. These young people haven"t a clue. That tells you about the half-life of the fame of a TV anchor.
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