True confession time: I am worried by how much I like “Olbermann.”
That’s a common problem for Keith Olbermann fans. Because we know how skilled a broadcaster he is and how it could all go away in a flash if he begins another feud with a boss or co-workers.
Still, watching the opening segment of Olbermann’s self-titled, late-night ESPN2 show on Tuesday, you saw the stuff that sets him a cut above most others working on TV today.
He began with a sardonic look at how a golf course in Wisconsin had the bad taste to offer a special on the anniversary of 9/11 attacks giving customers nine holes of golf for just $9.11. Everyone from ABC News to the New York Daily News covered the reaction, which included death threats and promises to burn down Tumbledown Trails Golf Course near Madison.
Olbermann had his own fun with the horrible gaffe, before suggesting that the silver lining might be that some people at least have enough emotional distance from the deaths of 3,000 people in the downing of the World Trade Center a dozen years ago that someone could create a newspaper ad touting this golf special without batting an eye.
But then he proved why he’s earning millions communicating with the masses through the small screen by noting that the folks at the golf course were likely trying, in their own odd way, the pay tribute. He then remembered covering 9/11 one day after the attacks and coming across a policeman who surprised him by insisting on talking to him about how the Mets might do that season.
“That’s what sports is supposed to mean on 9/11,” Olbermann noted. “You, (disaster) survivor, cop, tone deaf golf course owner, whatever — sports says to you ‘You get to put your feet up and watch something and pretend things didn’t change.’”
Sure, he sometimes needs an editor and can get a little lost in sports nerd land on occasion, but Olbermann is also proving, night after night, why he’s so good at grabbing a subject of interest and talking to us all about it through that tiny box with the flashing lights.
It’s probably betraying my own biases, but I seem to enjoy Olbermann most when he’s in media critic mode, lampooning the limitations of sports journalists in a way I wish I could manage in this space more often.
The opening salvo of his first show took aim at a New York Daily News story saying Jets coach Rex Ryan would lose his job that wasn’t based, seemingly, on any scraps of actual reporting. “Reporting is dead,” Olbermann crowed, “Long live making something out of nothing.”
Later, he had recently-returned ESPN colleague and columnist Jason Whitlock on to echo his observations about how sports writers too often chase impact online and buzz rather than consider treating folks such as Ryan or basketball star-turned-Kardashian-spouse Lamar Odom in a fairer way.
But, admittedly, talk of fairness seemed odd coming from two guys who were mercilessly criticizing the work of the Daily News’ Jets beat writer, Manish Mehta, without giving the reporter a chance to defend himself. I couldn’t tell from the tone of the segment if Olbermann or his producers had even tried to contact the writer before spending more than 13 minutes using him as an excuse to pillory a wide swath of sports journalists.
And, as several critics noted online, Olbermann spent quite a bit of time tearing into one lame story about the Jets, while passing up the chance to talk about how ESPN pulled out of a partnership with PBS’ Frontline while assembling a landmark documentary on the NFL’s response to concussions in players.
Still, watching KO get his knickers in a knot about bad sports reporting is about as entertaining as it gets on sports television these days.
So, despite having to watch in horror as his conflicts with MSNBC and Current TV led him to leave both channels, I’m going to stick with Olbermann in hopes he’s learned how to get along with his bosses decades after ushering in the first broadcast on ESPN2 by insulting it.
Because the only thing worse than having your favorite show yanked off the air unexpectedly, is not getting to enjoy it in the first place.
Read more about this and other media issues on my blog for the Tampa Bay Times, The Feed, by clicking here. Info on my new book, Race-Baiter, can be found here.
