MSNBC may have agreed to disclose Richard Wolffe’s gig with a major corporate P.R. firm — but that’s not good enough for Keith Olbermann.
The Countdown anchor — for whom Wolffe filled in last week as a guest host — wrote on Daily Kos yesterday evening that Wolffe would not appear on the show even as a guest “until we can clarify what else he is doing,” and suggested that the former Newsweek reporter had not been straight with the network about his duties for the P.R. firm, Public Strategies.
Olbermann wrote:
As to Richard Wolffe I can offer far less insight. I honor Mr. Greenwald’s insight into the coverage of GE/NewsCorp talks, and his reporting on Richard’s other jobs. I must confess I was caught flat-footed. I do not know what the truth is; my executive producer and I have spent the last two months dealing with other things (see above) but what appears to be the truth here is certainly not what Richard told us about his non-news job.
I am confident his commentary to this point has not been compromised – he has been an insightful analyst and a great friend to this show – but until we can clarify what else he is doing, he will not be appearing with us. I apologize for not being able to prevent this unhappy set of circumstances from developing.
In the same post, Olbermann addressed the recent report that a deal between G.E. and the News Corp. had led to an end to the juvenile and ratings-friendly on-air feud between him and Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly.
Olbermann wrote that “there is no ‘deal.’ I would never consent, and, fortunately, MSNBC and NBC News would never ask me to.” He pledged to go after Fox on the air that night, which he later followed through on.
