This guy thinks Countdown has become too predictable. Agree or disagree?

[Berry Cool]

http://allyourtv.com/0708season/theproblemwithcountdown.html

Note: the author is not a freeper; he likes Keith and the show; and he doesn't accuse Countdown of lacking some artificial notion of "opinion balance," in which a program must feature a person from the right and a person from the left screaming talking points at each other for five minutes. Nor is he unfairly accusing Keith (as so many people do when they want to complain about him) of being merely a liberal version of Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. But he still feels that Countdown could do more in terms of broadening the guest list and having people on who don't agree with Keith.

I can think of times when guests have disagreed with Keith and even corrected him on a misconception, but this guy is asking whether those times are frequent enough.

Are they? Should there be more? Or are you of the belief that with just about every other show on television either espousing a conservative viewpoint or blowing with the wind based on what the host ate that day (Tweety), it's high time some show unapologetically featured the NON-conservative view of things, and that's exactly why you watch? Or, do you feel that the only reason that few people are on Countdown who disagree with Keith is that Keith is always, or at least usually, right?

Discuss. (I know we can do that civilly here. It wouldn't be possible elsewhere, where those angry at Keith for not pounding the drum for Hillary have already declared him dead.)

[DeepModem Mom]

1. I don't think KO should have on people who don't agree with him.

There are plenty of conservo shows with nothing except conservo opinions, so why not a liberal show with a smart, gifted-broadcaster host, with no conflict? It was about time when KO came along, and still is.

I'm wondering if the focus on the political race has caused this guy to grow tired of the same faces. If Keith devotes the first half or so of every show to politics, the same faces (Wolffe, Shuster, Fineman) are going to appear. If he mixes in other topics, he draws from his larger stable of guests: John Dean, the Constitutional law professors, etc.

I don't know if MSNBC, as "the place for politics," has mandated that every show focus on politics, or not. I know KO is not one to follow orders, but he does seem to be trying to get along with his bosses and colleagues (after a history of not doing so, by his own admission), and/or maybe in his own mind he wants to focus on politics.

I know the KOEB may hate me for having some criticism of KO, especially those most opposed to Hillary, but I do wish he wouldn't focus on politics to what I'm afraid may be an exclusion of some of those things (like Constitutional issues) which only he brings to attention. And I know some can't believe I'm actually an Obama supporter, when I post articles that defend Hillary.

To that, I would say I advocated Barack by rounding up supporters, writing a mission statement, and proposing, and getting approved, the DU Obama Group when there wasn't one. I contributed a maxed-out amount to his campaign, from the joint checkbook I share with DeepModem Dad, a staunch Hillary supporter. I abandoned my friends on caucus night when the polls closed, and stood across from them on the Obama side of the firehouse line. But there's something about the treatment of Hillary during the campaign that angers me. I'm sorry.

And, again I'm sorry -- Keith is not dead to me because he doesn't pound the drum for Hillary. But I do wish he hadn't, IMO, replaced Bush with her as his show's nightly villain. I think that's premature. Bush and Cheney aren't gone yet.

Anyway, in the atmosphere at DU these days, I hesitate to do anything except post articles (both positive and negative about both candidates, without comment). I used to post in GDP, but I stopped posting threads there, and now have decided not even to post responses to threads there. You said you thought we could be civil here, and I hope I have been. I treasure this little corner of DU, and you clever KOEBers. If this has been too much criticism for your (and still my) hero, I'm sorry -- and I'll don my flamesuit, and wear it to dinner now with DM Dad.

[CC]

2. Very well said.

Tired right now so not going to type a lot but have to say I agree with pretty much all you have said. Thanks for putting it so well.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Thank YOU, CC! nt

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Berry: "Becky" at "Either Relevant or True" is also asking opinions about that piece --

and giving hers:

"I do admit that I’m not enjoying the show as much these days as I did in he past. A more general mix of news and features has given way to a near steady diet of politics. I am what you’d call a kind of politics junkie, but even people like me have a saturation point. As near to fed up as I am now of all-politics-all-the-time, I can’t imagine what I’ll feel like come October. And honestly, I miss the days when the show didn’t take itself quite so seriously all the time (especially after watching some of Keith’s Greatest Hits)"

http://bloggingolbermann.com/2008/03/its-not-you-its-me-okay-maybe-its-you/

[Berry Cool]

5. With all due respect, I want to know what the KOEB thinks.

I don't know what Countdown was like in 2004 at this stage of the presidential race because I was not a regular viewer then. Even so, I'm not sure it was like this, because at that time neither party had its candidate choice still up in the air, at least in a figurative sense.

I remember learning in journalism school that in presidential election coverage, the media tend to become fixed on the horse race--it's all polls and who is ahead and who is behind--and we discussed whether this didn't cause the media to fail the public in terms of reporting more in depth on the candidates themselves and their policy ideas. Also, and this has just gotten worse since my J-school days, whether the media don't just jump from potential scandal to potential scandal regarding the candidates. It seems to me as if that whole trend began in 1988 with the Gary Hart thing. All of a sudden, all we heard about was Donna Rice and the Monkey Business, and that photo of her on his lap was everywhere. It was as if the game for the media became seeing whether they could hype a scandal enough to force a candidate to drop out.

When I look at this year's race, I am reminded of those things. Because the Dem contest has been so close, it's been easy to fixate on the horse race. And, because it's been so long and dragged on so much, the temptation to find "the" scandal that, properly hyped, will force one of the candidates to drop out and end this nonsense once and for all also seems to be there. It's for this reason that we hear so much about Jeremiah Wright and the Bosnian sniper-fire thing. Because if you bombard with sufficient messages implying that "Obama has a preacher who hates America" or "Hillary is a liar," the idea is that you can influence the race yourself, by FORCING one of the candidates out. That's a temptation not just for the managers of the other candidate's campaign, but for the media themselves. They can get drunk on that power to pick and choose candidates by poisoning the image of one of them so badly that he or she can never recover.

I would hope that Keith would refrain from that temptation and stay loyal, above all else, to simply reporting the truth. And that he still has enough control of his show that he feels that if the day's news offers nothing notable in terms of the election race, just a few combating sound bites that amount to nothing or that someone is trying to whip up into a scandal that's not really worth the effort, he doesn't need to build the show around it.

Then again, there are ways to focus on politics--REAL politics, other than just an electoral horse race.

And I've never been one of those people who derided him for having any sort of fluff on his show. Or who saw the entire second half of the show as nothing but fluff until lately.

DMM, you don't have to defend yourself or your actions here. That's all that really needs to be said about that.

Do I agree with you that Keith has replaced Bush with Hillary as nightly villain? Not entirely. The mere fact that he instituted the "BUSHED!" segment of the show (which sometimes preempts Best People in the World) contradicts that. I think he uses it as his way of continuing to remind people of the mess Bush has created and that still needs to be cleaned up while focusing most of the rest of the show on the future.

Do I think he's concerned that if Hillary wins the nomination, we'll have only a choice between More of the Same and a Democratic Version of More of the Same? Yes, and I think that comes across. So does his disappointment with what I believe he thought Hillary could be or do. And that keeps me from becoming enraged like certain people on DU who have decided that he "hates" Hillary and is sexist and blahblahblah. The unsavory thing we are seeing here is that some people fall victim very easily to binary thinking--the same kind of "If you're not with us, you're against us" attitude that GWB himself has--and they know no middle ground for themselves or anyone between love and hate, good and evil. We've seen that all too sharply from people who used to think Keith was God so long as he was criticizing Bush and now that he criticizes Hillary, they think he's Satan.

I hope Keith is wise enough to stay above all this, listen only to well-considered and well-tempered praise and criticism, and remain, above all, true to himself.

In the beginning, when I was looking for a news/politics show to watch that wouldn't drive me crazy, there was one thing that attracted me to this one above the others and kept me watching: the personality, intelligence, wit and moral force of its host. (That's right, it was not his good looks. His general attractiveness didn't even hit me until a few months in.) It's been said (by me if no one else) that doing Countdown without Keith Olbermann is like doing Hamlet without Hamlet. If Keith doesn't remain the one who continues to make the main decisions about the show and drive what type of show it is, and becomes only a kind of figurehead steering the wheel of a ship he doesn't really run, it'll be pointless. That's what's most important to me.

For me, Countdown is news and politics interpreted by someone who thinks much the way I do, with knowledge and inside information added by people who know things I don't. If they get to be much the same people over time, that's OK, so long as it gets mixed up once in a while--and so long as the host doesn't take TOO many days off to go watch baseball.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Thanks, Berry! And thanks, particularly, for the "Bushed" reminder.

You're right -- that is a nightly "eye-on-the-ball" update on the damage Bush has done, and continues to do.

You're right, too, with your reminder about the power of the media. Both in 2000 and 2004 we had it aimed squarely at our candidates, to disastrous effect. I think if Obama gets the nom, things might be different this time -- although the conventional view is that the press also likes McCain. In any case, it is an awesome power the press has, and we can only hope it's used responsibly in the run-up to this election.

And you also make such a good point about "binary thinking." Can we leave W-type "with us or against us" to W?

Surely, KO will continue to steer his own show. I think NBC/MSNBC realizes that that has brought his and their success with the show. I think discussion about the piece you referenced is an interesting one, however. The show has changed with the campaign, and will surely change once Bush is gone. Thanks for your post, and I hope you'll give us more opportunities to discuss the show as time goes on.

Two things that won't change, of course, as you say -- the excellence of the host, and baseball.

[Gogi]

7. KO still makes me laugh out loud but this Primary has just gone on ...

too long! I can't think of a more important story right now except the Afghanistan and Iraq wars which are entangled with the number one political story of our lifetimes. Everything economic is also in thrall to the election! This is what happens when there is no clear successor to a President who is a total idiot. Countdown, though, has lost a certain vibe it had earlier. It's more focused, less loopier than it used to be. Perhaps fun for fun's sake will re-emerge after the election this fall and they have to cast a wider net for stories.

[Berry Cool]

8. The depressing thing for me is that we don't have another primary till when? April 22?

And until then, all we have to look forward to as far as political coverage is this:

--More attempts at digging out "scandals" with which to sink one of the Dem candidates
--Polls, polls and yet more polls, in which even the slightest fraction of a shift in any direction is touted as some great "trend"
--Continued attempts to beat the Jeremiah Wright/Bosnia stuff into the ground. (OK, I was as bothered by Hillary's "misremembering" of Bosnia as anyone else, but how many nights can you flog it before it becomes overkill?)
--More reportage of nasty things various campaign figures fling at each other, and attempts to whip them up into scandals
--More calls for Hillary to quit, and more defensive stances on the part of the Clintons
--(and this is most depressing) More stories on that wonderful, sunny, controversy-free candidate, John McCain (AAAGHHHHHHHHH!)

I'm kind of hoping that Keith will get bored with all this and find another horse to ride. And no, I don't mean 45 minutes of baseball coverage per show. :rofl:

[Gogi]

9. BRING ON THE BASEBALL COVERAGE!

As long as he covers all the teams (almost said bases, bad Gogi, bad!) not just the Bronx Bombers. There's plenty to cover: Scandal (Barry Bonds), crime (Scott Spezio), drugs (see Bonds, Pettite, Clemens, et al.)and destruction (why do they want to tear down The House That Ruth Built?). Maybe one of the minor league clubs will have an American Idol promotion so we can hear more bad singing and have our own American Idol Princess critique it. There's plenty of goofy video and fodder for Worst Persons to fill several shows. So bring it on!!!!!!!!!!!!!:bounce: