Keith Olbermann last night defended his brand of opinion journalism against Ted Koppel’s op-ed in the Washington Post, titled “Olbermann, O’Reilly and the death of real news.”
Koppel, former managing editor of ABC’s Nightline, lamented what he sees as the loss of objectivity in broadcast news in exchange for a more successful business model.
To which Olbermann responded last night:
I may ultimately be judged to have been wrong in what I am doing. Mr. Koppel does not have to wait. The kind of television journalism he eulogizes failed this country. Because when truth was needed, all we got were facts, most of which were lies anyway. The journalism failed, and those who practiced it failed and Mr. Koppel failed. I don’t know that I’m doing it exactly right here; I’m trying. I have to. Because whatever that television news was before, we now have to fix it.
MSNBC briefly suspended Olbermann without pay earlier this month, after it was discovered that he had made political contributions to three Democratic candidates. Olbermann was back on the air less than a week after his suspension took effect.
Watch:
