It was appointment viewing: What was Olbermann going to say that night? I'd do the rundown, and Keith would sit behind me and say, "Are you almost done? It was insane. And that happened every day. See, for me, that was fun, because as long as you were, as he put it, "on the raft," you were good, meaning you were in with him.
You didn't know from day to day if you were on or off, and it was tough for them, because they didn't have the power to say to Keith, "Hey, stop; grow up. And that was what made him great. And if he felt like you had just turned on him, then you had actually turned on him, and that was something that was very, very deep to him. When I got there, I was obviously very much influenced by Keith's style, and everything I did, I tried to make a joke. So I walked by Keith one day in the hallway, and he goes to me, "Nope, not yet," and kept walking.
About three days later, I walked past him again and he goes, "Nope, not yet. Why has he hijacked my program? So I went to Keith and said, "I don't know how to respond to this. Just one. Then try to do one segment without a joke. Then do an entire show where you go home and say, 'That was the most boring show I've ever done. Hands down the best advice I've ever been given. I've never seen anybody do SportsCenter as well as Olbermann. It hasn't even been close. I remember when Olbermann said to me, "Do you know how much this job is worth?
He said, "It's worth a million fucking dollars. Based on the reported profits of the Today show and the salaries of its key figures, a fair ratio was to pay your talent a total figure of about 10 percent of their show's profits. Working off numbers I had gotten from a sales guy in the N.
The number one thing that surprised me about ESPN was how little team spirit there was for a place that said that its business was sports. If I said "I think you're wrong" to someone who was higher in the organizational chart than I was, what I would get back was "You're not a team player. There was almost none of that at ESPN.
There was no encouragement, because the atmosphere was one of stick the knife in his back, climb the corporate ladder. It was a very, very negative place to work. Don't believe the mascot promos. Life is not like that at SportsCenter. The prevailing idea was that the network was much more important than individuals. In many ways, Chris Berman is their greatest nightmare, because he is a fabulously talented, extraordinarily hardworking, obsessed, dedicated, funny man who relates directly one-on-one to everyone who's ever watched him on television.
They have done everything in their power to prevent anybody from getting that kind of power again. Their greatest corporate nightmare is to need someone more than that person needs ESPN. I was enraged by Olbermann. Guys like that just piss me off, you know, because there's no loyalty. It's just me, me, me. There was no choice but to get rid of him. Keith and authority don't get along—ever.
But he can also be one of the most loyal employees. Do not take a shot at Keith's guys; he will protect them, always. But he was hard to manage—I mean hard! Keith is a dark guy. If you take everything Keith says at face value, you will find your reason for living diminished. Ley The message being sent? Keith is as talented as anybody I've ever worked with.
But he was a terribly unhappy person while he was up in Bristol. First of all, he was single. He didn't drive. What kind of social life can you possibly have?
He was not a happy camper up there, and it showed. People just didn't want to work with him anymore; he was tearing the newsroom apart. Keith had to fight management on every single point. So [in ] I finally came to the conclusion that despite his brilliance and talent, we would be better off without Keith. I didn't fire Keith; I just chose not to renew his contract. Keith did not respond well—although I'm sure it didn't come as a surprise. I saw Walsh in the hallway, and I said, "Our long national nightmare is over, huh?
And it may not be fair to him, because I don't know what his issues are. Some of what happened with him back then is romanticized, but there are still people there who remember how people were treated, spoken to, referred to, and no amount of subsequent gentle behavior is going to erase that. There was a rumor a few years ago that maybe Keith would come back, and one of our coordinating producers said, "I think it would be a good idea but with one caveat.
He first has to stand in the reception area, and everybody who wants to gets to come up and punch him in the stomach. James Andrew Miller was previously the senior ecutive producer for Anderson Cooper and ecutive vice president of original programming for USA Network.
All rights reserved. Keith Olbermann Anchor. Vince Doria Vice president of news. Olbermann I paid the ransom money. Karl Ravech. It's that the last President was completely lionized — his eight-year scamming of America — was swallowed whole because he somehow proved a negative, every day, this nonsense that he and he alone had prevented another terrorist attack.
One President prevents a financial meltdown, gets tepid thanks. The other President doesn't prevent a terrorist attack, gets worship and blind allegiance because he didn't allow another one. Whatever the dark lesson in that sick truth, however — the frustration over it should not be directed at the Professional Left.
The Professional Right is far more deserving. The President has shown a willingness to give the Professional Right not just "seats at the table" as we try to restore this country to where it was before Bush and Cheney got a hold of it, not just to give it half the seats at the table, but often — far too often —to give it all the seats, the table, and the damn carpet. The Professional Left didn't try to grease some skids with the minority by taxing union benefits, the Administration did.
The Professional Left didn't fire Shirley Sherrod and congratulate itself on quick exaction to avoid a media circus in this environment, the Administration did. The Professional Left didn't begin this presidency by handing everybody who broke the law and subverted the constitution a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free-Card and a virtual set of instructions on how to get away with all of it next time, too, the Administration did. President, you will not get disagreement from the Professional Left, that compromise is the essence of practical politics.
But you have gotten, you are getting, you always will get, that disagreement from the Professional Right. They do not want compromise, they want everything— everything from more profits for insurance companies, to you admitting you're not really president, and that you've decided to endorse Tea Party candidates at the mid-terms. Why on earth do you start every negotiation just left-of-center?
Anybody on this planet, haggling, always asks for far more than they expect to get. Start at Single Payer and maybe you get Public Option. But I'm veering off fully into policy and straying from your Mr.
Gibbs heckling the audience and Mr. Burton saying you agree with him doing so. You need to get past the premise that the Left differs from the Right in terms of ideology.
In this America, they differ in terms of the hard-wiring of the brain. The Right wants not leadership — it wants lockstep. The Right wants not nuanced thought from its adherents — it wants salutes and sworn fealty. The Right wants not critical analysis from its media — it wants propaganda. If, Mr. President, you have fallen into the trap of equating "The Professional Left" and "The Professional Right" of the false equivalency of msnbc and Fox News — you are going to spend the rest of the time in the White House curled up in a churlish ball in the corner wondering what happened to your encore.
If indeed I am part of the "Professional Left" I am here to applaud good policy and good leadership and good statesmanship, and to boo bad policy and bad leadership and bad statesmanship.
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