Apparently the non-story of Keith Olberman being suspended is becoming a bigger story that the non-story of NPR firing Juan Williams and there is no reason why. For those who don't know the story, Keith Olberman was suspended from MSNBC because he made 3 election donations to Democratic candidates before election night last Tuesday which violated NBC's current policy of newsmen not making political contributions. Personally, I believe this is a good policy.
First of all, the policy is a good one. While MSNBC is trying its best to emulate Fox News (leaving CNN as the only cable news network that tries to badly, but fairly report the news) it is at least trying the maintain the facade of objectivity. To restrict employees that report the news to the public from giving to political candidates and therefore forfeit their objectivity is a good thing. These people, by becoming news anchors, have chosen to represent the public and shouldn't betray that public trust by putting themselves in a compromising position.
In support of Olberman people are pointing out some previous contributions by Joe Scarborough and other news personalities like Mike Huckabee and Sean Hannity. Joe Scarborough is a quasi-different situation. On face value, MSNBC does look a little hypocritical, but according to them Scarborough had his contributions approved by the network and has since ceased making them as the policy has come under review and has a renewed focus by the network. Also, it doesn't do any good to point out that newsmen on other networks don't abide by the same rules. Just because Fox News allows their reporters to give political contributions doesn't mean you should. This is classic maneuvering in which you answer a charge by pointing out the fallacies of someone else, but avoids the question as to whether one is right or wrong. Basically, it doesn't change the fact that expecting some degree of objectivity from employees of a news organization is a good thing and just because one network doesn't enforce the protection of that objectivity, doesn't mean MSNBC shouldn't.
I feel for Keith Olberman and think he will return, but MSNBC's willingness to suspend one of its more popular news personalities shows that just maybe they haven't completely sold out to copying Fox News in being a mouthpiece for political interests. Let's hope they stick to their guns ans set an example for other news organizations.
