January 11, 2023 • 49 mins
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It is amazing but true: the coverage of the Biden document story by Fox News has been more restrained and responsible than has CNN’s. The desperate attempt to position the Think Tank Papers story as one that - in the words of a CNN commentator - "almost exonerates" Trump, continued last night. The raw numbers are startling: between 5 and 11 PM ET Monday, MSNBC gave the story 14 minutes, Fox News gave it 29 minutes, and CNN gave it 107 MINUTES. Three and a half times as much as Fox! And the worst perpetrator of CNN’s willingness to literally lie to its viewers has been Anderson Cooper. The first words out of his mouth last night were how quote “President Biden’s first public statement on the classified documents uncovered at his former private office” were 'breaking news.' I suggested in real time that if Cooper had any remaining self-respect he would quit before his program was over. He didn't. He doesn't.
There is much more than money to what CNN's new fascist troika - Chris Licht, David Zaslav, and John Malone - is doing. This is the Clinton-Lewinsky night-after-night brainwash play: convince America that if Biden is not guilty, Trump is not guilty. And having sold their souls, they will keep pushing this as long as we don't stop them.
B-Block (18:45) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Poor Mike Pompeo couldn't get anybody to blurb his book so he had to do it himself. He competes with a climate denier who insists if we reinstate wind power we will automatically reinstate The Atlantic Slave Trade, and the nimrods like Tomi Lahren who complained that Ukraine's president went to Hollywood for the Golden Globes last night - even though he didn't. (23:58) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL No. 1: The perfidy of using cable news to brainwash didn't start with Chris Licht. I was there the day the Chairman of GE was ready to shut down MSNBC because his Mommy the Bill O'Reilly fan believed her son was building IEDs to kill America because Fox told her so.
C-Block (41:55) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL No. 2: My first experience with the ad salesmen who pretend to be cable's journalistic decision-makers came even before my first MSNBC show in 1997. That's when the big meeting with the man Microsoft thought shared editorial control of MSNBC was to meet with me, and NBC's execs were worried about only one thing: how effectively I ignored him.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
The conversion of CNN from a news organization into a
(00:26):
whore house is now complete. CNN again let its primetime
newscasts last night with Breathless, also factless, indefensible, over inflated, scandalized,
factually altered headlines about a fictionalized story about Joe Biden.
The actual story is about documents that might be classified,
(00:48):
and we're not on anybody's missing list that we're discovered
without Biden's knowledge, in a safe at his think tank
and were immediately returned to the National Archives. Monday night,
a paid CNN commentator asserted, this story quote almost exonerates
Donald Trump. It does not. It has nothing to do
(01:08):
with Trump's threat to this country's national security, with Trump's
threat to the nuclear safety of this world, of Trump's
probable espionage of his theft of nuclear documents. I will
repeat my analogy. The ten or twelve misplaced and immediately
returned documents at the think tank are to Trump's crime
wave in exactly the same way as Swiss army knife
(01:30):
is to jack the rippers murder weapon. It is amazing,
but true. The coverage of the Biden document story by
Fox News has been more restrained and more responsible than
has CNN's coverage, and the worst perpetrator of CNN's willingness
(01:52):
to literally whore itself out to literally lie to its
viewers has been Anderson Cooper. The first words out of
his mouth last night were, how quote President Biden's first
public's statement on the classified documents uncovered at his former
private office, we're quote breaking news. I suggested in real
(02:13):
time that if Anderson Cooper had any remaining self respect,
he would quit before his program was over. I knew
as I said that I was offering a ridiculous theoretical
I worked with him at CNN in two thousand one
and two thousand two. If you can imagine a CNN
morning program starring Paulson with Jack Cafferty and Me as
the sidekicks, and the news read by Anderson Cooper, here's
(02:37):
a shock. It neither worked nor lasted. Since then, Cooper
has been CNNs man on the scene for all of
its coverage worldwide of disaster porn. When a bulletproof vest
has been required, he's always had one ready, and it
has always matched the color of his eyes. Anderson Cooper
is an actor who can look concerned. Now he has
(02:58):
become an actor who can look like this is breaking
news or important news, or just news when it is not.
He is an actor who is now employed solely to
satisfy CNN's new evil scientists. Chris Licked and the fascist
Licked works for CNN's new owner, John Malone. Anderson Cooper
is now just another Chris Licked John Malone prostitute. If
(03:21):
you think I'm overstating this, the Monday numbers are in
courtesy of the watchdog Media Matters for America, and in
the six hours beginning as the story broke at CBS's
website at five pm Eastern, threw straight up eleven o'clock
Monday Night. MSNBC gave it fourteen minutes, Fox News gave
it twenty nine minutes, and CNN gave it one hundred
(03:43):
and seven minutes. An hour and forty seven minutes. In
one stretch of eighty minutes, fifty minutes of CNN coverage
was about this story. CNN covered it three and a
half times more than Jesse Waters, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity,
and Laura Ingram did on Fox. It beggar description understand
(04:08):
the motive. It is not just about ratings, because it
did not get CNN ratings. They were a distant second
in the advertising demo at eight pm Monday night, the
distant third most of the rest of the night, the
distant third in the far less important total audience all night.
But the stock market liked the fascism it saw on CNN,
Warner Brothers, Discovery, that's Malone and David Zaslav and their
(04:32):
boy licked its. Shares ended eight percent higher on Tuesday,
and a Goldman Sacks clown declared it his favorite media
stock of And still this nightmare isn't even just about
ratings or about stocks, because while the pretend journalism of
(04:52):
Anderson Cooper and the appalling Aaron Burnett are fig leaves
for ratings and stock growth, ratings and stock growth are
themselves fig leaves for something even darker, the motive that
John Malone had in buying CNN, which was to try
to brainwash viewers who still think CNN is liberal oriented
news or even just news. Yes, some people slapped on
(05:15):
makeup or printed scripts at CNN these last three days,
thinking this is the story that will bring us back
to life. But the ones in the know realized this
was the first huge political can opener for Chris Licht
and John Malone to use against whatever is left of
the pre fascism CNN audience. It ex exactly the same
thing as this other theoretical. If I bought Fox News
(05:38):
tomorrow and paid or blackmailed or threatened Carlson and Hannity
and Ingram to suddenly preach the evangel of Biden, bipartisanship,
climate change, the evils of MAGA, and the deadliness of
conspiracy theories, most of the albermanized Fox News audience would
indeed recoil in horror, but enough would not to make
(06:02):
the scheme worth my trouble, And that is what CNN
is doing. What I have seen these last two nights
flashed me back to the first story of the modern
cable news television history, Clinton Lewinsky. I was right in
the middle of that. I was hosting an eight pm
news magazine on MSNBC so Sleepy that one night we
(06:27):
lead with the publication of the Farmers Almanac edition, and
our lead guest live was the editor of the Farmers Almanac,
the lead story. We were chugging along around one fuse
(06:47):
thousand viewers a night maybe. And then as I sat
down to interview John Lithgow on the set of Third
Rock from the Sun in January in l A, the
producer came over to me and said, it's site changing plan, buddy,
we have to record a new lead. You'll be interviewing
Tim Russers instead, because the president may have to resign
within hours. Our audience had jumped to a million, and
(07:10):
it kept going up, and the ratings and the profits
were the public excuse for continuing the story every night
for two hundred and eighteen consecutive shows, whether or not
there was any news about the story. As the producer
screamed in the control room on the first or second night,
we've found our nightline. That was what we all told
(07:34):
each other in America. Of course bought it because by then,
as the British TV playwright Dennis Potter had said in
his famous Dying interview, modern society worldwide had managed to
put a price tag on everything. Oh you're making money
on your failing news network. Now, well that's okay. Then
whatever you have to put on TV, put it on.
(07:54):
But still the real point of making Clinton Lewinsky and
nothing but Clinton Lewinsky into my show every night for
two consecutive nights, making it Everybody's Show on MSNBC, Everybody
Show on CNN, Everybody Show on Fox, Everybody's Show on CNBC.
The real point was to drum into people's heads one
(08:17):
theme that Bill Clinton was guilty of sex, and this
was the end of the world. And he fornicated, and
he lied, and he lied about fornicating, and lying is
illegal and lying is unconstitutional. And you might think this
was a trivial story about sex, but in fact it
was reason to impeach the president, and then I preached
the vice president so that Newt Gingridge could succeed them
(08:38):
both and become president. Night after night after night after
night of softening viewers brains with one message, impeach, remove,
and CNN is doing it now thanks to John Malone
and Anderson Cooper and Chris Licked. And they will try
(09:00):
to find something, anything with which to rationalize having Cooper's it,
there's straight up eight pm, and say anything that lets
them lead the show with this non story. During Clinton Lewinsky,
just before I told him I intended to quit, I
went up to the producer and said, during a particularly
dry spell why don't we lead with this breaking news?
(09:22):
There were no comments by Clinton, Lewinsky or Star today.
What could explain the universal silence is a deal in
the offing, is a blockbuster development near And the producer
got wide eyed and he said that was a great idea,
and he never knew I was being sarcastic, and I
went into the men's room and dry heaved. Trust me,
(09:46):
Chris lickt whilst lead CNN with this story every night,
all night, as long as we let him get away
with it. I find, incidentally that I waited nearly thirty
five minutes into the first episode of this podcast back
on October one to last year, tell you about Chris Licht,
And I said, I really wish you didn't need to
(10:08):
know Chris Licht's name, But he was Joe Scarborough's henchman,
and now he's the new president of CNN, and you
don't know how bad that news is for the future
of this country. How I wish I had been exaggerating. Now.
(10:29):
I want to emphasize here that I do not think
this story should be buried. There are some journalistically valid
angles to it. Sadly I have not heard them on
CNN or MSNBC or anywhere else the story has become.
The Biden office confirmed that these documents were there, but
that's not how the story started nor how it broke.
(10:50):
CBS News reported on Monday, based on sources, that these
documents had been found and returned in a period of
twenty four hours. Who are the sources? Where were the sources?
Were the sources in the Department of Justice? With the
sources in the Republican's favorite bettan noir, the deep State?
(11:13):
Were they there to try to put a band aid
of what about is um to Trump's crimes? And what
about the timing? Republicans take over the House on Monday
morning and launch their show trial committees in Monday afternoon,
and six hours later this story breaks. The co president
of CBS News already confessed to hiring Mick Mulvaney from
the Trump administration to give him access to Republicans after
(11:37):
the mid terms. Was this part of the deal CBS
News made? The co president hires Mick Mulvaney, and then
CBS News gets the think tank document story scoop. The
other aspect I would like to hear about is this
strange fact that the Republicans were so ferociously humping this
(11:58):
story and with the help of CNN and CBS and
NBC and the others both sides NG and what abouting
it to death. Nobody, nobody has examined the reality that
if there really were to be any meaningful comparison between
Trump's nuclear kleptomania and this book keeping error at a
think tank that if the Republican response, Biden should be impeached,
(12:20):
Biden should be removed from office, Biden's home should be
rated by the FBI, the White House should be rated
by the FBI. There must be a Biden special prosecutor.
Might must be prosecuted. Biden must be imprisoned. If there
really is something in this nothing burger, Aren't the Republicans
all confessing simultaneously and without reservation that all of Trump's
(12:42):
homes should be rated by the FBI. Aren't all the
Republicans confirming all of Trump's offices should be rated by
the Department of Justice. Aren't all the Republicans admitting that
the Trump special prosecutor is justified. Aren't all the Republicans
acknowledging that Trump must be prosecuted. Aren't all the Republicans
demanding that Trump being imprisoned. If Chris Licked wants Anderson
(13:05):
Cooper to do an hour forty seven of his show
on that tonight that I will watch, trust me, that
is the last thing Chris Licked and the fascists he
has hoard himself out to wants Anderson Cooper to do
(13:38):
still ahead. As I suggested, this is as much Clinton
Lewinsky too as it is, but her emails to the
cable news networks have always been like this, I swear
on whatever you think is holy. And as I went
into news for the first time, all the NBC guys
in charge of MSNBC cared about was making sure I
(13:58):
never ever did what the Microsoft guys in charge of
MSNBC wanted me to do, and in case I was
to forget that idiocy. Twelve years later, the ge guy
in charge of all of NBC wanted to take MSNBC
off the air because his mommy, the Bill O'Reilly fan,
(14:19):
was mad at what they were saying about him on
Fox News. I swear, I swear, I swear the tales
on all of that coming up first, when you write
a book, you get your friends to give you clever
one liners you can put on your book, or in
the advertisements to help sell your book. What does it
tell you that a key Trump crony has written a
book promoting his presidential aspirations and the only person you
(14:42):
could get to write I'm a clever one liner to
blurb his book was himself. Worst person's coming up. This
is countdown. This is countdown with Keith still ahead. To
(15:09):
understand why it's but her emails part? Do you have
to understand how the people who have run these reality
TV news channels like CNN and MSNBC and Fox for
the last twenty five years really think They are not journalists,
not in the slightest. They are there to fill space
between commercials. Any journalism that escapes is really an accident.
(15:32):
I have two stories to tell you again about how
they thought and how they think in management at MSNBC,
which has not been as bad as CNN these last
three days, but which has covered itself in excrement. Nevertheless,
now I'm still fighting off this killer sinus infection, but
I have negotiated with my crack medical staff to let
me do a new edition of the daily roundup of
(15:54):
the miscreants, morons and done in Kruger effect specimens. Who
Constitute to day is worst Parsons in the world, the
Bronze every Russian sympathizing conservative on Twitter slamming the Golden
Globes for including Ukrainian President vladimirre z Lensky last night,
Tommy larn wrote, so Zelinski is making an appearance at
(16:15):
the Golden Globes. What is the obsession with this man?
We aren't funding his entire government with billions of our
taxpayer dollars, so we can try to be an American celebrity.
Sick of this crap? Well, Timmy, nice Freudian slipped. They're typing,
we can try to be an American celebrity, since that's
what you've been so spectacularly failing at for a decade now, Tammy.
(16:36):
Then there's Lewis Brackpool, No, it's his name, self described
independent journalists from England. Why is Ulitsky going to be
making an appearance at the Golden Globes in Beverly Hills.
Lewis has misspelled Beverly, which is probably why he's an independent.
Nobody will hire a moron, not even on the far right,
(16:57):
but dumbasty of all James Bradley, who ran for Senate
from California on the I was in the middle terry
and I have a lion and a flag in my photos,
so you can't criticize me. Plank and got three of
the vote in the primary. Bradley tweeted if Ukraine is
at war, how and why is Zelenski coming to the
Golden Globes? The century must be such a mystery for
(17:21):
poor James Bradley and his flag and his lion, zoom
and video links and cams and prerecorded stuff and people
appearing at awards ceremonies and in front of Senate committees
without really being there. How dare Zelenski take fifteen minutes
away from trying to bury the goddamned Russians to appear
(17:42):
via video link on something as sacro sanc and as
important to the American public and the Ukrainians. It's the
Golden Globes? Why why the runner up Steve Malloy, who
builds himself as quote, perhaps the most influential climate science contrarian.
And if that's true, he's the most influential one. We
(18:04):
will actually save this planet after all. Malloy slammed as
Recline of The New York Times for suggesting that clean,
abundant energy is the foundation on which a more equal,
just and humane world can be built. Malloy's utterly clear
and convincing, damning argument against clean energy quote, wind power
(18:26):
made the Transatlantic slave trade possible. I yes, because the
moment we use wind power, especially to move ocean going vessels,
were immediately going to resume the Atlantic slave trade. You
heard him, wind power means reinstituting slavery. Steve doesn't make
the rules here, but our winner, Mike Pompeo, former Secretary
(18:47):
of State, whom history may judge to have been the
most underqualified schnook in the Trump administration. But who thinks
he can take that and make it into the next
president of the United States. Pompeo took out a full
page for his new book, Never Give a Crap Now
that that can't be right. That's not the title of
Pompeo's No, Oh here, it is never had an Inch
(19:10):
to give? No, No, that can't be right either. What's
the title of Pompeo's book, Never Give an Inch? Are
you sure? Is this is I'm Running for President book?
Or his weight Lost book? Anyway? Pompeo bought an ad
for the book in the official booklet of the annual
(19:30):
Iowa Republican Legislated Breakfast, And like all good book adds,
it has a blurb. Now, I have asked for blurbs,
and I have, I confess blurbed others, but I've never
done this. Pompeo's blurb he got for his own book.
It quotes himself. My new book reads like a thriller
with stories from my heart, it says on the cover
(19:53):
of the book. He couldn't get anybody else to blurb
his own book. You may recall that after Joe Biden's
victory in the electoral College had been cinched, Pmpeo came
out and boy did he prove that the words Pompeo
and pomposity are related. And he said there would be
a transition to a second Trump administration. Then President Elect
(20:15):
Biden answered, quote, so far there is no evidence of
any of the assertions made by the President or Secretary
of State Pompeo. And here Biden broke into a brief, calm,
almost cordial laugh that with what followed it destroyed the
ability of anybody to ever take mom My Pompeo seriously. Again,
(20:37):
by Secretary of State Pompeo, Secretary of State Pompeo, Mike
ha Secretary of State Pompeo, Today's worst person in the word.
(21:07):
So now, as promised, two stories I have told before,
but which mainline back to this feeding frenzy from the
cable news networks to make sure the Biden nothing burger
can be turned to do son of Hillary's emails in
pursuit of ratings and money for NBC, Comcast and the
new fascist owners of CNN and Rupert Murdoch. And you
(21:29):
know how old he is, He's two six. The first
story is of the day. MSNBC, at the height of
its success in two thousand nine, was almost taken off
the air because of complaints from the mother of the
chairman of the corporation that owned the network. Often it
(21:51):
happens in television that there are events so traumatic that
the cliche about your life flashing before your eyes does
not apply, but an equally hackneyed one about your career
flashing before your eyes might. The executive producer of our
MSNBC newscast Countdown, Izzy Povich, and I were on the
grown up elevator to the office of NBC President Jeff
(22:13):
Zucker on the fifty second floor of thirty Rock in
New York, summoned there by some garbled message from MSNBC
president Phil Griffin about MSNBC being taken off the air.
I was mumbling to Izzy Sundry imprecations and reminiscences. Eight
freaking months is we spent twelve freaking months forcing them
(22:34):
to create meadows showed last eight months, all the crap
prompter practice, getting her over her fears, Rockets passed CNN
only eight months of show, and now it's all gone.
Izzy reminded me it was not just Rachel's show that
was threatened, which was why poor Court Harson from Hardball
was already upstairs along with poor Ed Schultz and Phil Griffin,
(22:57):
at Rachel's executive producer Bill Wolf and some clown from
Morning Joe and a couple of other MSNBC executives and us.
I know, I know. I did the line from the
drunken Irishman from Hitchcock's The Birds, complete with the bad accent.
It's the end of the world, I said, Jeff Emil
is going to take MSNBC off the air. I didn't
(23:18):
need any of my overwrought visions from two years earlier
of the future of liberal news commentary falling out the
NBC window to its death on the rink. This was
the real thing. The chairman of General Electric was threatening
to open the window himself, throw us out the window himself,
and then race down to the pavement to stomp on
(23:39):
our dying remains himself. Poor Ed Schultz heard Jeff Zucker
say those words, and he had screwed up his face
and tilted his head like a puppy hearing a car crash.
He had not believed it the first time. He had
not believed it the second time. Zucker said it a
third time. MLT is going to take MSNBC off the
(23:59):
effing air at, Schultz groaned. After weeks of Griffin's hoaxing,
he had finally just moved from Nebraska to New York
the preceding weekend, yet he was still, somehow only the
second most strung out person in the room. You, Zucker
shouted at me, You're the smartest one in the room.
What the f do we do now? I'll confess I
(24:23):
was shaken by this because it appeared for once that
Zucker was not being sarcastic. I had never before seen
him flush nor flustered. This was a guy who wore
fleece in July. Now he was beat red and sweating.
Sometimes he knew what he was doing, and, as his
opposition to hiring Mattow had proved, sometimes he didn't know
what he was doing. But he always acted as the
(24:45):
most confident man in the galaxy. But now he literally
had no clue what to do next. And he not
only could not ignore my advice, he desperately needed it.
This situation and that color on his face were almost
worth watching the corporate fascists knuke my network. I asked
Zucker to exp playing what happened? You God, dad, well
(25:06):
know what happened. Zucker moved towards me, and I stood
up and I told him I would see myself out.
He stopped, remembering that he did indeed actually need my help.
I'm sorry. I apologize. This isn't rational, this is this
is I melt. Last week sometime Bill O'Reilly snapped. He
told Murdach he wasn't gonna take any more of what
you were saying about him on the air. So he
(25:27):
did a piece last night, accusing Ge of manufacturing The
components have been used in roadside bombs. That were built
in a rand to kill Americans in Iraq, which is
which is true? Legally, that's legally true. They found roadside
bombs that had like thirty year old GE transistors or
or TV tubes from nineteen fifty four or is something
(25:47):
in them? Legally g E did manufacture components that were
used in roadside bombs that were built in I ran
to kill Americans in Iraq. So O'Reilly puts this on
his effing show as a lead story, and then Fox
sent two camera crews in this little crap producer from
O'Riley show, jess e Water Something to stake Immilt out
(26:07):
and chase him around the GE shareholders meeting in Charlotte.
Zucker finally came up for air and I jumped in,
why didn't m L have six camera crews to stake
out the two Fox crews and chase them around in Charlotte?
I mean, isn't that one of our news hubs Charlotte
doesn't m L own like twenty camera crews? There? He
bring a camera crew, you'll bring two camera crews. Zucker
(26:31):
started to not like me again. Now you suggest that
where were you in? All right? Never mind, it doesn't matter.
M L says, if there's one more story on Bill
O'Reilly about GE manufacturing components for roadside bombs inter rack,
he's taking MSNBC off the air immediately. It'll just be
twenty four hours of lock up. And I'm fired, and
(26:51):
you're fired. And then he pointed at Chris Matthews, producer,
and Matthews is fired. And he pointed at poor Ed
Sheltz and you're fired, and Ed whimpered, So smart asked,
what the f do we do? I feigned all the
non chalance I could feign. If I could have lit
a shroot by striking a match on the soul of
my boot, I would have. It's manageable. But Jeff, why
(27:15):
is m L so worked up about what O'Reilly said
about him? Only O'Reilly's nutjob viewers actually believe any of
that crap. Nobody had GE, nobody investing in GE could
possibly believe we're building components for roadside bombs. Zucker inhaled deeply.
M L's mother believes it. All the heads in the
(27:38):
room turned towards the president of NBC. Mrs m L,
back in Cincinnati, is a devoted Bill O'Reilly viewer. Watches
him every night, sees this, calls him, says, Sonny, why
are you manufacturing components that were used in roadside bombs
built in a Randy kill Americans in Iraq? I had
(27:58):
not expected that, I said to Zooker. So so he'll
really burn what two million a year in profits just
between Rachel and me because he's mom watches Bill O'Reilly.
Zucker got angry again. You bet your effing ass he will.
Now you said it was manageable. How how the hef
do we manage it? Ulm him just a minute? How
(28:21):
old is she? Zucker summoned all his annoyance? How old
is who m ELTs mother? How old is she? Jeff
Zucker was really annoyed. How the eff should I know?
You're missing the point? I had him really worked up,
nearly to the boiling point. It was great, guess, Zucker spluttered,
(28:43):
I don't know. He's in his mid fifties. She's gotta
be eighty nineties something. I stifle to fake yawn. Yeah,
you're right, probably closer to ninety now that I think
of it. So the problem is she watches O'Reilly. She
tells him what's on Fox? What O'Reilly? Saying about Ge, Well,
(29:03):
I think you have a simple solution. I'd say, the
first thing you do is you send over a couple
of big guys to her house and you pull the
freaking cable out of the wall. Zucker actually gasped my producer,
is Hepovich unsuccessfully stifled a laugh, and I saw Rachel
crack a smile. Zucker regained himself. This isn't funny, Alderman,
I crossed my legs. Oh, it's a little funny. And anyway,
(29:27):
it's not essential. If the problem is email is threatening
to take the network off the air because O'Reilly is
avenging himself against me by attacking him and attacking Ge.
The short term solution is easy, and in fact it
is manageable. The long term solution that's not easy, and
that's not manageable. But the short term one that's simple.
Rest of this week, next week, maybe the week after that,
(29:48):
even we just don't mention Fox News on MSNBC. Something
resembling a smile crossed Zuker's face. It made him look
a little less like a lizard person and more like
a monkey with glasses. You do that forever, No, not forever.
(30:08):
I would not do that I said to Bias time. Yes,
but remember who was it who was in my office
last winter telling me that I should go on the
air and and just to f with Fox? I should
ask why Rupert Murdoch was still running a huge international
media company like News Corp. Despite all the reports that
he's suffering from dementia, even though there haven't been any
(30:30):
reports that he's suffering from dementia. For everybody's sake, here,
who was that again who told me to do that?
Zucker's goodwill was gone again? Obviously that was me. What's
your point? My point is we built this new brand
of ours organically on a couple of themes, a couple
of statements of principle, and one of them is to
(30:50):
use your words just to f with Fox. If we
don't f with Fox for a couple of weeks at
the start of the summer, who's gonna care. Who's gonna notice?
But like after two weeks, three weeks, our viewers are
gonna notice, and the TV writers are gonna notice, and
then the crap will hit from every direction. You can
think of temporary freeze on mentioning Fox, then mentioning O'Reilly,
(31:13):
and mentioning Murdock, fine, permanent freeze. Might as well let
him L turn us off in the morning. After all,
I don't think Zucker actually heard the last part about
m L turning us off. After all, the lack of
color was returning to his face. Okay, breathe, he kept
saying to himself. Breathe, breathe, Okay, breathe. He looked at
(31:35):
me and nodded. He pointed at Izzy and at Phil
Griffin and me, You and you and you and I
will we will talk tomorrow, maybe tonight, and we'll all
meet again next week. Until then, nothing about Fox, anybody,
Are we clear? Nothing on the air about Fox. Silence
in the room. Then the assorted noises of people rising,
mixed with attempts to resuscitate poor Ed Schultz. Somebody Matthew's guy,
(31:59):
Harson I think, was almost at the door out of
Zooker's office, and office so big that it was to
steal the ring Lardner line the size of the Yale Bowl,
but with lamps. And then a voice spoke up, quietly
but firmly, Excuse me, it was Rachel Maddow. Excuse me.
I will not have the content of my show dictated
(32:21):
by any corporations, including the one I work for. Remember
this is June two nine. She still felt that way then,
and especially one I don't work for. I will walk
out first. I cannot have the audience wondering what else
I have not told them. I don't do a lot
about Fox on my show. But if there is a
story about Fox, I will not honor this freeze. I
will report that story. And if I'm prevented from reporting
(32:44):
that story, I will leave. Whereupon she left, Zucker barked
Phil all rouman, is he stay? When the rest of
the room had cleared, Zucker blew air out of his
mouth as if it were smoke. He gestured violently at
me with his right arm. I told you she was
a mistake. You didn't listen to me. I told you.
Now she's your problem. Oh, this is your problem. Get
(33:06):
her back on the reservation or else. Now I had
run out of goodwill and jokes. Oh, I'll get her
back on the reservation, Jeff. But if you think this
is my problem, just think about what happens if he
really does take us off the air, or if it
just gets out that he threatened to take us off
the air because his mother didn't like what Fox said
(33:31):
about him. That's my problem. Uh, that's your problem, And
it's the problem of the CEO of the freaking sixth
largest corporation in the world who makes his business decisions
involving hundreds of millions of dollars of profits based on
what his mother says. At this point, Phil Griffin managed
(33:54):
to pull Zooker away and Izzy and I made for
the door, saying nothing until we were in the elevator. Finally,
she asked, what are you going to do about Rachel?
I looked straight ahead. I have depth reception issues while
traveling forward, backwards, up or down the if I know
what I'm gonna do about her? But I got an idea.
I mean, the only person she was really talking to
(34:15):
in there was herself. This isn't a brand new surprise
success for her anymore. This is successful. This is what
nine ten months she's successful. She said she was once
a dancing cell phone outside of cell phone store outside
of Boston. She ain't going back to that. I went
to talk to Rachel about an hour later and reassured her.
(34:37):
I mentioned that powerful as Fox was, they were not
going to be able to re invade Iraq by themselves.
And unless she moved it way closer than it had been,
nobody would cross her censorship line. And I said, just
give me as much time as the French government took
before fleeing during the Nazi advance in ninety I said,
give me, what was it, thirty three days? Give me
(34:58):
thirty three days. If we aren't back where we were
this morning, we can both quit on the air. I
mean to be fun right. Three nights later, well after
midnight on a Friday, my NBC issued BlackBerry buzzed with
a quick email from Rachel Maddow. Hey, she wrote, don't
necessarily quote me because I'm really drunk, but just make
(35:19):
the best deal you can for us. I trust you.
We don't need to do Fox all the time. I
never do Fox stories anyway. I just had to say that,
and this is the best platform we will ever have.
Well she was right, at least for the time being.
A couple of weeks later, I had to sneak in
a script that blasted Fox, and at ten thirty at
home that night, I got a call from a drunken
(35:39):
Phil Griffin shouting into the phone, I have a family.
Zooker had to go meet with Roger Ales secretly inside
thirty Rock, and I hope they remember to clean the
room afterwards, and m l even had to meet with Murdoch,
and then happily, some idiot GE executive decided to boast
to The New York Times about getting us little talent
(36:02):
children under control in a big deal with the executives
over at Fox, and how they'd settled everything, which blew
up the whole deal instantly, because the moment the deal
went public, NBC looked so stupid, and even NBC News
was now risked. The only point of the whole thing
was to keep the mlts and the Zookers and the
(36:22):
Griffins and the ailes Is from throwing us and our
little island of liberal commentary out of that window at
thirty Rock. But as Rachel Maddow and I would be
constantly reminded in the ensuing years, thirty Rock has a
lot of freaking windows still ahead. And I swear to
(36:55):
God that happened, and so did this. I should have
known it was going to happen with Jeff m LT
and Jeff m LT's mother and g E because I
was tipped off to what these idiots into levision news
were like weeks before I started my first show for MSNBC,
literally plus years ago, the day the president of NBC
News told me to make sure, I nodded politely to
(37:16):
the Microsoft executive in charge of MSNBC and then ignored
everything he had to say. That's next. This is countdown
to the top of the countdown on our number one
story and my favorite topic, me and things I promised
(37:39):
not to tell. And Saturday is twenty five years since
the moment I realized that there was something crazy built
into the structure of NBC News and in fact, built
into the structure of television news. On the night of Wednesday, September,
I was told to show up at six thirty p m.
(38:00):
At the apartment of Phil Griffin on Central Park West
in Manhattan. Din Her with Phil and his wife Corey,
and Andy Lack and his wife Betsy, and Jeff Zucker
and Merrill Brown was at seven pm, but I was
supposed to be there at six thirty. One week and
ninety minutes later, we were all launching my new newscast
on MSNBC, and it didn't get much newer than this.
(38:22):
I had done some newscasts in college as recently as
Waiteen years prior twice in local news, I had been
pressed into service as a news field reporter, and once
in l A when our married newscaster anchored couple Jim
Lampley and Bree Walker were late coming back from dinner,
I had to do the live teas for Channel two
(38:43):
Action News at eleven, right in the middle of the
airing of the show Falcon Crest on CBS, and I
started it by saying, Hi, Jim and Bree can't come
to the TV right now, Here's what they'll have for
you at eleven. But I had not done more than
fifteen minutes of news in a row in my life.
One week later, I would become the lynch pin in
(39:03):
the lineup on m CNBC, which itself had only been
doing news for a year and nine weeks. So when
Andy Lack, the president of NBC News and Zooker, then
the executive producer of The Today Show and unofficial chief
executive of MSNBC, and Griffin, executive producer of my new newscast,
called the Big Show, said show up at six thirty, Alderman,
(39:24):
I just assumed we were going to have some final
discussion of what we should be doing during the series
or at least during the first show, or at least
three the first segment. Because we were a week out
and I really didn't have any clues to what they
expected the show to look like or what they expected
me to say. I kept mentioning that I was fascinated
by something called the Mandel brought set, which is in
(39:47):
real Lehman's essence mathematical formula which if you keep running
it long enough in a computer, eventually turns into the
shapes of all the leaves and the tales of sea
lions and everything else from nature. When I mentioned the
Mandel Brought set to one of the show producers, he
nodded enthusiastically and smilingly, and then said, in evident seriousness, Great,
(40:09):
we can do that after we do the first half
an hour on the Murder of Jehan ben A Ramsey.
I had just moved into my new apartment, ten blocks
south of Griffin's. I had left ESPN perfectly successful time
for me and a nice enough but very remote place
called Bristol, Connecticut, which didn't really have sidewalks, And so
I walked uptown with a mixture pride, excitement and apprehension,
(40:34):
and on sidewalks by the time I was within five blocks.
I was hoping I'd be able to talk them into
one show a week where we talked about stuff like
the Mandelbrot set. I arrived right on time, got great
handshakes from Griffin and Lack and Zucker, and a kiss
from Griffin's wife, who I knew, and then the two
ladies excused themselves to go out onto the balcony somewhere,
(40:54):
and I noticed it was just those three guys in me.
The seventh person at this dinner, this Meryl Brown, who
I did not know, was not there, and I soon
found out why. When the women were out of the room.
News President Lack barked first, So you're here early, so
we can talk about this Meryl Brown. Guy. Zucker looked
(41:14):
away from me. He muttered, freaking Meryl Brown. Griffin said,
we need to tell you about Meryl Brown. Buddy Lack
began to pace up and down Griffin's living room. He
had unruly, thinning hair, and he kept running his hands
through it, like he was checking to see if it
was still there. It's god, damn Meryl Brown. Lack suddenly
stopped and began to look angrily at me. Meryl Brown
(41:37):
you're here so we can make sure you never listen
to Meryl Brown. Three thoughts rocketed through my mind. One,
this felt like a scene from a bad movie, like
something they cut out of The Fugitive or maybe Wall Street. Two,
these guys in ascending order, Griffin, Zucker Lack seemed to
(41:58):
be crazy. And three, if only we were rolling tape on,
this would make a great segment for the first show.
Oh and then we talked about the Mandelbrot. Set Zuker apologized, Look,
we already had part of this meeting at thirty Rocks,
so we're pretty worked up about this. There's nothing for
you to worry about here. You didn't do anything wrong,
and you probably don't have any idea who Meryl Brown is.
(42:20):
I joked to my three bosses that I was beginning
to think Meryl Brown was just a renamed version of
Goldstein from George Orwell. To my horror, nobody laughed and
nobody corrected me. Lack resumed a little calmer this time.
Meryl Brown used to write for the Washington Post, and
somehow he's he helped start Court TV, and now he's
(42:43):
he's the TV guy at Microsoft, and Microsoft thinks they
own MSNBC and Meryl Brown. Freaking Meryl Brown thinks he
runs MSNBC. He doesn't run MSNBC. God damn it, I
run MSNBC. It was a brief, dangerous silence. Then lack
amended his remark, well, I run it with Jeff and Phil.
(43:05):
Phil Griffin spoke up. Now I had known him sixteen years.
He had been my producer on literally my first day
in television, and now coincidence would make him my producer
on literally my first day in television news. We're just
a little worn out by Meryl Buddy. He sends all
of us emails and messages every day. Lack now interrupted
Griffin all day. He sends them all day like he
invented computers. He can't do anything out there in Redmond
(43:28):
freaking Washington except watch MSNBC and tell us how I
have to change it. Like I wasn't the man who
saved NBC News, and he wasn't working in Redmond freaking Washington.
This was the first I had learned of the contempt
in which the NBC people held the Microsoft people. I
would hear of it again every hour or so for
(43:51):
the next year. It was symbolized by their blind hatred
of the otherwise pleasant town that was home to the
Microsoft operation, Redmond, Washington. The two companies had quote partnered
unquote to create MSNBC, this first synergy between a major
television company and the earliest giant of computers and the Internet.
(44:12):
That's why it was called m S NBC MS for
Microsoft NBC for NBC. They were a team. No, they weren't.
Lack was still fared up christ Stone Mighty, who only
brought these Microsoft idiots in on this deal for their money.
They don't have editorial input. Their here to put in
the money, and they're wiring. That's it. Zucker took over.
(44:34):
Here's why we wanted to talk to in advance of
Meryl Brown getting here. He's asked to sit next to
you during dinner. He wants to share his his vision
for the big show. What we want you to do
is listen carefully to him, nod, laugh, agree, say that's
very interesting, but don't say what you might think would
be good to say, like Andy, what do you think
(44:54):
of this? Andy interrupted again, because I'll goddamn tell you
what I think of it. It's crap, crap from Redmond, Washington,
Crap from guys who are Alwaly supposed to give us
money and computer rminals. That's it. Don't tell me what
we have to synergize cable television and the Internet with
whatever the hellthy internet is. This network is so we
can train talent and amortise expenses and give Brian Williams
(45:16):
someplace to anchor until Brocall leaves and another thing. Phil
Griffin Central Park West Apartment building intercom buzzer suddenly went off.
His wife raced out of wherever she and Mrs Lack
had been hiding and where I hope they were secretly
recording all this, and she answered the call from the
building's lobby desk with a series of a huhz. She
(45:37):
looked at her husband and said, with some fear, Meryl
Brown is on the way up. God damn it, shouted Black.
He pointed again at me. Okay, not a word of
what you've been told. Just humor um, humor room, humor um,
humor um. And don't ask me or Zucker or Phil
what we think because there could be bloodshed here. Dinner
catered was spectacular. Meryl Brown was charming, well informed. He
(46:00):
had ideas about that the word synergy between TV and
the Internet about eventually getting viewers to watch TV via
their computers, especially when the computers would one day be
handheld seriously and maybe even interacting with the shows as
they were being televised or watching them whenever the viewer
(46:22):
wanted some sort of delay system. It was interesting and
forward looking. And to make sure I could not see
the anger barely being suppressed by Lack until lesser degrees
by Griffin and Zooker, I took my glasses off mid meal. Finally,
Meryl Brown said he had to go. He knew the
rest of us needed to talk over some details about
the launch of my show. He wished me luck silently.
(46:45):
I wished him luck. Lack and Griffin showed him to
the door and actually waited there until Meryl Brown made
it down the hallway and into the elevator. Before he
even closed the apartment door, Lack shouted, and that's another
thing we have all but goddamn synergy between TV and
the Internet already. Tell him, Phil, tell him Phil. Griffin
(47:05):
looked at me sheepishly. Zucker took over for him. We
figured out how to mesh between cable TV and the Internet.
Phil figured it out that the name of the show
that will be your lead in. This is the kind
of synergy we want. Tell him, Phil, tell him the
name of the show and how it combines the Internet
and nighttime TV. Phil looks slightly past me. It's it's
(47:26):
it's called it's called internight. He paused, it's it's called internight. See,
it's it's it's Internet plus, you know night internight. Got
it putty. At that exact moment, I knew that on
(47:47):
MSNBC we would never, not once, not even in passing,
make the slightest reference to the Mandelbrot set. Countdown and
(48:10):
my Sinus Infection have come to you from the studios
of Alberman Broadcasting Empire World headquarters here in the Sports
Capsule Building in New York City. Thank you for listening.
Here are the credits. Most of the music, including our
theme from Beethoven's Ninth arranged, produced and performed by Brian
Ray and John Philip Channel. They are the Countdown musical directors.
All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Channel. Guitars, Bassed
(48:35):
and drums by Brian Ray, produced by t Ko Brothers.
Another Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No
Horns allowed The sports music is the Alberman theme from
ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Faust. The
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was Larry
(48:55):
David and just in Clase. Any of you conservatives are
confused by this, None of them were here in the
building with me. We had them on what we call
take everything else is pretty much my fault. So that's
countdown for this the seven dred and thirty ninth day
since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
government of the United States. Arrest him now while we
(49:16):
still can. I will try to be back with a
completely new episode tomorrow. The sinus infection, of course, has
the final word until whenever. I'm Keith all Reman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(49:38):
old Reman is a production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
The conversion of CNN from a news organization into a
(00:26):
whore house is now complete. CNN again let its primetime
newscasts last night with Breathless, also factless, indefensible, over inflated, scandalized,
factually altered headlines about a fictionalized story about Joe Biden.
The actual story is about documents that might be classified,
(00:48):
and we're not on anybody's missing list that we're discovered
without Biden's knowledge, in a safe at his think tank
and were immediately returned to the National Archives. Monday night,
a paid CNN commentator asserted, this story quote almost exonerates
Donald Trump. It does not. It has nothing to do
(01:08):
with Trump's threat to this country's national security, with Trump's
threat to the nuclear safety of this world, of Trump's
probable espionage of his theft of nuclear documents. I will
repeat my analogy. The ten or twelve misplaced and immediately
returned documents at the think tank are to Trump's crime
wave in exactly the same way as Swiss army knife
(01:30):
is to jack the rippers murder weapon. It is amazing,
but true. The coverage of the Biden document story by
Fox News has been more restrained and more responsible than
has CNN's coverage, and the worst perpetrator of CNN's willingness
(01:52):
to literally whore itself out to literally lie to its
viewers has been Anderson Cooper. The first words out of
his mouth last night were, how quote President Biden's first
public's statement on the classified documents uncovered at his former
private office, we're quote breaking news. I suggested in real
(02:13):
time that if Anderson Cooper had any remaining self respect,
he would quit before his program was over. I knew
as I said that I was offering a ridiculous theoretical
I worked with him at CNN in two thousand one
and two thousand two. If you can imagine a CNN
morning program starring Paulson with Jack Cafferty and Me as
the sidekicks, and the news read by Anderson Cooper, here's
(02:37):
a shock. It neither worked nor lasted. Since then, Cooper
has been CNNs man on the scene for all of
its coverage worldwide of disaster porn. When a bulletproof vest
has been required, he's always had one ready, and it
has always matched the color of his eyes. Anderson Cooper
is an actor who can look concerned. Now he has
(02:58):
become an actor who can look like this is breaking
news or important news, or just news when it is not.
He is an actor who is now employed solely to
satisfy CNN's new evil scientists. Chris Licked and the fascist
Licked works for CNN's new owner, John Malone. Anderson Cooper
is now just another Chris Licked John Malone prostitute. If
(03:21):
you think I'm overstating this, the Monday numbers are in
courtesy of the watchdog Media Matters for America, and in
the six hours beginning as the story broke at CBS's
website at five pm Eastern, threw straight up eleven o'clock
Monday Night. MSNBC gave it fourteen minutes, Fox News gave
it twenty nine minutes, and CNN gave it one hundred
(03:43):
and seven minutes. An hour and forty seven minutes. In
one stretch of eighty minutes, fifty minutes of CNN coverage
was about this story. CNN covered it three and a
half times more than Jesse Waters, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity,
and Laura Ingram did on Fox. It beggar description understand
(04:08):
the motive. It is not just about ratings, because it
did not get CNN ratings. They were a distant second
in the advertising demo at eight pm Monday night, the
distant third most of the rest of the night, the
distant third in the far less important total audience all night.
But the stock market liked the fascism it saw on CNN,
Warner Brothers, Discovery, that's Malone and David Zaslav and their
(04:32):
boy licked its. Shares ended eight percent higher on Tuesday,
and a Goldman Sacks clown declared it his favorite media
stock of And still this nightmare isn't even just about
ratings or about stocks, because while the pretend journalism of
(04:52):
Anderson Cooper and the appalling Aaron Burnett are fig leaves
for ratings and stock growth, ratings and stock growth are
themselves fig leaves for something even darker, the motive that
John Malone had in buying CNN, which was to try
to brainwash viewers who still think CNN is liberal oriented
news or even just news. Yes, some people slapped on
(05:15):
makeup or printed scripts at CNN these last three days,
thinking this is the story that will bring us back
to life. But the ones in the know realized this
was the first huge political can opener for Chris Licht
and John Malone to use against whatever is left of
the pre fascism CNN audience. It ex exactly the same
thing as this other theoretical. If I bought Fox News
(05:38):
tomorrow and paid or blackmailed or threatened Carlson and Hannity
and Ingram to suddenly preach the evangel of Biden, bipartisanship,
climate change, the evils of MAGA, and the deadliness of
conspiracy theories, most of the albermanized Fox News audience would
indeed recoil in horror, but enough would not to make
(06:02):
the scheme worth my trouble, And that is what CNN
is doing. What I have seen these last two nights
flashed me back to the first story of the modern
cable news television history, Clinton Lewinsky. I was right in
the middle of that. I was hosting an eight pm
news magazine on MSNBC so Sleepy that one night we
(06:27):
lead with the publication of the Farmers Almanac edition, and
our lead guest live was the editor of the Farmers Almanac,
the lead story. We were chugging along around one fuse
(06:47):
thousand viewers a night maybe. And then as I sat
down to interview John Lithgow on the set of Third
Rock from the Sun in January in l A, the
producer came over to me and said, it's site changing plan, buddy,
we have to record a new lead. You'll be interviewing
Tim Russers instead, because the president may have to resign
within hours. Our audience had jumped to a million, and
(07:10):
it kept going up, and the ratings and the profits
were the public excuse for continuing the story every night
for two hundred and eighteen consecutive shows, whether or not
there was any news about the story. As the producer
screamed in the control room on the first or second night,
we've found our nightline. That was what we all told
(07:34):
each other in America. Of course bought it because by then,
as the British TV playwright Dennis Potter had said in
his famous Dying interview, modern society worldwide had managed to
put a price tag on everything. Oh you're making money
on your failing news network. Now, well that's okay. Then
whatever you have to put on TV, put it on.
(07:54):
But still the real point of making Clinton Lewinsky and
nothing but Clinton Lewinsky into my show every night for
two consecutive nights, making it Everybody's Show on MSNBC, Everybody
Show on CNN, Everybody Show on Fox, Everybody's Show on CNBC.
The real point was to drum into people's heads one
(08:17):
theme that Bill Clinton was guilty of sex, and this
was the end of the world. And he fornicated, and
he lied, and he lied about fornicating, and lying is
illegal and lying is unconstitutional. And you might think this
was a trivial story about sex, but in fact it
was reason to impeach the president, and then I preached
the vice president so that Newt Gingridge could succeed them
(08:38):
both and become president. Night after night after night after
night of softening viewers brains with one message, impeach, remove,
and CNN is doing it now thanks to John Malone
and Anderson Cooper and Chris Licked. And they will try
(09:00):
to find something, anything with which to rationalize having Cooper's it,
there's straight up eight pm, and say anything that lets
them lead the show with this non story. During Clinton Lewinsky,
just before I told him I intended to quit, I
went up to the producer and said, during a particularly
dry spell why don't we lead with this breaking news?
(09:22):
There were no comments by Clinton, Lewinsky or Star today.
What could explain the universal silence is a deal in
the offing, is a blockbuster development near And the producer
got wide eyed and he said that was a great idea,
and he never knew I was being sarcastic, and I
went into the men's room and dry heaved. Trust me,
(09:46):
Chris lickt whilst lead CNN with this story every night,
all night, as long as we let him get away
with it. I find, incidentally that I waited nearly thirty
five minutes into the first episode of this podcast back
on October one to last year, tell you about Chris Licht,
And I said, I really wish you didn't need to
(10:08):
know Chris Licht's name, But he was Joe Scarborough's henchman,
and now he's the new president of CNN, and you
don't know how bad that news is for the future
of this country. How I wish I had been exaggerating. Now.
(10:29):
I want to emphasize here that I do not think
this story should be buried. There are some journalistically valid
angles to it. Sadly I have not heard them on
CNN or MSNBC or anywhere else the story has become.
The Biden office confirmed that these documents were there, but
that's not how the story started nor how it broke.
(10:50):
CBS News reported on Monday, based on sources, that these
documents had been found and returned in a period of
twenty four hours. Who are the sources? Where were the sources?
Were the sources in the Department of Justice? With the
sources in the Republican's favorite bettan noir, the deep State?
(11:13):
Were they there to try to put a band aid
of what about is um to Trump's crimes? And what
about the timing? Republicans take over the House on Monday
morning and launch their show trial committees in Monday afternoon,
and six hours later this story breaks. The co president
of CBS News already confessed to hiring Mick Mulvaney from
the Trump administration to give him access to Republicans after
(11:37):
the mid terms. Was this part of the deal CBS
News made? The co president hires Mick Mulvaney, and then
CBS News gets the think tank document story scoop. The
other aspect I would like to hear about is this
strange fact that the Republicans were so ferociously humping this
(11:58):
story and with the help of CNN and CBS and
NBC and the others both sides NG and what abouting
it to death. Nobody, nobody has examined the reality that
if there really were to be any meaningful comparison between
Trump's nuclear kleptomania and this book keeping error at a
think tank that if the Republican response, Biden should be impeached,
(12:20):
Biden should be removed from office, Biden's home should be
rated by the FBI, the White House should be rated
by the FBI. There must be a Biden special prosecutor.
Might must be prosecuted. Biden must be imprisoned. If there
really is something in this nothing burger, Aren't the Republicans
all confessing simultaneously and without reservation that all of Trump's
(12:42):
homes should be rated by the FBI. Aren't all the
Republicans confirming all of Trump's offices should be rated by
the Department of Justice. Aren't all the Republicans admitting that
the Trump special prosecutor is justified. Aren't all the Republicans
acknowledging that Trump must be prosecuted. Aren't all the Republicans
demanding that Trump being imprisoned. If Chris Licked wants Anderson
(13:05):
Cooper to do an hour forty seven of his show
on that tonight that I will watch, trust me, that
is the last thing Chris Licked and the fascists he
has hoard himself out to wants Anderson Cooper to do
(13:38):
still ahead. As I suggested, this is as much Clinton
Lewinsky too as it is, but her emails to the
cable news networks have always been like this, I swear
on whatever you think is holy. And as I went
into news for the first time, all the NBC guys
in charge of MSNBC cared about was making sure I
(13:58):
never ever did what the Microsoft guys in charge of
MSNBC wanted me to do, and in case I was
to forget that idiocy. Twelve years later, the ge guy
in charge of all of NBC wanted to take MSNBC
off the air because his mommy, the Bill O'Reilly fan,
(14:19):
was mad at what they were saying about him on
Fox News. I swear, I swear, I swear the tales
on all of that coming up first, when you write
a book, you get your friends to give you clever
one liners you can put on your book, or in
the advertisements to help sell your book. What does it
tell you that a key Trump crony has written a
book promoting his presidential aspirations and the only person you
(14:42):
could get to write I'm a clever one liner to
blurb his book was himself. Worst person's coming up. This
is countdown. This is countdown with Keith still ahead. To
(15:09):
understand why it's but her emails part? Do you have
to understand how the people who have run these reality
TV news channels like CNN and MSNBC and Fox for
the last twenty five years really think They are not journalists,
not in the slightest. They are there to fill space
between commercials. Any journalism that escapes is really an accident.
(15:32):
I have two stories to tell you again about how
they thought and how they think in management at MSNBC,
which has not been as bad as CNN these last
three days, but which has covered itself in excrement. Nevertheless,
now I'm still fighting off this killer sinus infection, but
I have negotiated with my crack medical staff to let
me do a new edition of the daily roundup of
(15:54):
the miscreants, morons and done in Kruger effect specimens. Who
Constitute to day is worst Parsons in the world, the
Bronze every Russian sympathizing conservative on Twitter slamming the Golden
Globes for including Ukrainian President vladimirre z Lensky last night,
Tommy larn wrote, so Zelinski is making an appearance at
(16:15):
the Golden Globes. What is the obsession with this man?
We aren't funding his entire government with billions of our
taxpayer dollars, so we can try to be an American celebrity.
Sick of this crap? Well, Timmy, nice Freudian slipped. They're typing,
we can try to be an American celebrity, since that's
what you've been so spectacularly failing at for a decade now, Tammy.
(16:36):
Then there's Lewis Brackpool, No, it's his name, self described
independent journalists from England. Why is Ulitsky going to be
making an appearance at the Golden Globes in Beverly Hills.
Lewis has misspelled Beverly, which is probably why he's an independent.
Nobody will hire a moron, not even on the far right,
(16:57):
but dumbasty of all James Bradley, who ran for Senate
from California on the I was in the middle terry
and I have a lion and a flag in my photos,
so you can't criticize me. Plank and got three of
the vote in the primary. Bradley tweeted if Ukraine is
at war, how and why is Zelenski coming to the
Golden Globes? The century must be such a mystery for
(17:21):
poor James Bradley and his flag and his lion, zoom
and video links and cams and prerecorded stuff and people
appearing at awards ceremonies and in front of Senate committees
without really being there. How dare Zelenski take fifteen minutes
away from trying to bury the goddamned Russians to appear
(17:42):
via video link on something as sacro sanc and as
important to the American public and the Ukrainians. It's the
Golden Globes? Why why the runner up Steve Malloy, who
builds himself as quote, perhaps the most influential climate science contrarian.
And if that's true, he's the most influential one. We
(18:04):
will actually save this planet after all. Malloy slammed as
Recline of The New York Times for suggesting that clean,
abundant energy is the foundation on which a more equal,
just and humane world can be built. Malloy's utterly clear
and convincing, damning argument against clean energy quote, wind power
(18:26):
made the Transatlantic slave trade possible. I yes, because the
moment we use wind power, especially to move ocean going vessels,
were immediately going to resume the Atlantic slave trade. You
heard him, wind power means reinstituting slavery. Steve doesn't make
the rules here, but our winner, Mike Pompeo, former Secretary
(18:47):
of State, whom history may judge to have been the
most underqualified schnook in the Trump administration. But who thinks
he can take that and make it into the next
president of the United States. Pompeo took out a full
page for his new book, Never Give a Crap Now
that that can't be right. That's not the title of
Pompeo's No, Oh here, it is never had an Inch
(19:10):
to give? No, No, that can't be right either. What's
the title of Pompeo's book, Never Give an Inch? Are
you sure? Is this is I'm Running for President book?
Or his weight Lost book? Anyway? Pompeo bought an ad
for the book in the official booklet of the annual
(19:30):
Iowa Republican Legislated Breakfast, And like all good book adds,
it has a blurb. Now, I have asked for blurbs,
and I have, I confess blurbed others, but I've never
done this. Pompeo's blurb he got for his own book.
It quotes himself. My new book reads like a thriller
with stories from my heart, it says on the cover
(19:53):
of the book. He couldn't get anybody else to blurb
his own book. You may recall that after Joe Biden's
victory in the electoral College had been cinched, Pmpeo came
out and boy did he prove that the words Pompeo
and pomposity are related. And he said there would be
a transition to a second Trump administration. Then President Elect
(20:15):
Biden answered, quote, so far there is no evidence of
any of the assertions made by the President or Secretary
of State Pompeo. And here Biden broke into a brief, calm,
almost cordial laugh that with what followed it destroyed the
ability of anybody to ever take mom My Pompeo seriously. Again,
(20:37):
by Secretary of State Pompeo, Secretary of State Pompeo, Mike
ha Secretary of State Pompeo, Today's worst person in the word.
(21:07):
So now, as promised, two stories I have told before,
but which mainline back to this feeding frenzy from the
cable news networks to make sure the Biden nothing burger
can be turned to do son of Hillary's emails in
pursuit of ratings and money for NBC, Comcast and the
new fascist owners of CNN and Rupert Murdoch. And you
(21:29):
know how old he is, He's two six. The first
story is of the day. MSNBC, at the height of
its success in two thousand nine, was almost taken off
the air because of complaints from the mother of the
chairman of the corporation that owned the network. Often it
(21:51):
happens in television that there are events so traumatic that
the cliche about your life flashing before your eyes does
not apply, but an equally hackneyed one about your career
flashing before your eyes might. The executive producer of our
MSNBC newscast Countdown, Izzy Povich, and I were on the
grown up elevator to the office of NBC President Jeff
(22:13):
Zucker on the fifty second floor of thirty Rock in
New York, summoned there by some garbled message from MSNBC
president Phil Griffin about MSNBC being taken off the air.
I was mumbling to Izzy Sundry imprecations and reminiscences. Eight
freaking months is we spent twelve freaking months forcing them
(22:34):
to create meadows showed last eight months, all the crap
prompter practice, getting her over her fears, Rockets passed CNN
only eight months of show, and now it's all gone.
Izzy reminded me it was not just Rachel's show that
was threatened, which was why poor Court Harson from Hardball
was already upstairs along with poor Ed Schultz and Phil Griffin,
(22:57):
at Rachel's executive producer Bill Wolf and some clown from
Morning Joe and a couple of other MSNBC executives and us.
I know, I know. I did the line from the
drunken Irishman from Hitchcock's The Birds, complete with the bad accent.
It's the end of the world, I said, Jeff Emil
is going to take MSNBC off the air. I didn't
(23:18):
need any of my overwrought visions from two years earlier
of the future of liberal news commentary falling out the
NBC window to its death on the rink. This was
the real thing. The chairman of General Electric was threatening
to open the window himself, throw us out the window himself,
and then race down to the pavement to stomp on
(23:39):
our dying remains himself. Poor Ed Schultz heard Jeff Zucker
say those words, and he had screwed up his face
and tilted his head like a puppy hearing a car crash.
He had not believed it the first time. He had
not believed it the second time. Zucker said it a
third time. MLT is going to take MSNBC off the
(23:59):
effing air at, Schultz groaned. After weeks of Griffin's hoaxing,
he had finally just moved from Nebraska to New York
the preceding weekend, yet he was still, somehow only the
second most strung out person in the room. You, Zucker
shouted at me, You're the smartest one in the room.
What the f do we do now? I'll confess I
(24:23):
was shaken by this because it appeared for once that
Zucker was not being sarcastic. I had never before seen
him flush nor flustered. This was a guy who wore
fleece in July. Now he was beat red and sweating.
Sometimes he knew what he was doing, and, as his
opposition to hiring Mattow had proved, sometimes he didn't know
what he was doing. But he always acted as the
(24:45):
most confident man in the galaxy. But now he literally
had no clue what to do next. And he not
only could not ignore my advice, he desperately needed it.
This situation and that color on his face were almost
worth watching the corporate fascists knuke my network. I asked
Zucker to exp playing what happened? You God, dad, well
(25:06):
know what happened. Zucker moved towards me, and I stood
up and I told him I would see myself out.
He stopped, remembering that he did indeed actually need my help.
I'm sorry. I apologize. This isn't rational, this is this
is I melt. Last week sometime Bill O'Reilly snapped. He
told Murdach he wasn't gonna take any more of what
you were saying about him on the air. So he
(25:27):
did a piece last night, accusing Ge of manufacturing The
components have been used in roadside bombs. That were built
in a rand to kill Americans in Iraq, which is
which is true? Legally, that's legally true. They found roadside
bombs that had like thirty year old GE transistors or
or TV tubes from nineteen fifty four or is something
(25:47):
in them? Legally g E did manufacture components that were
used in roadside bombs that were built in I ran
to kill Americans in Iraq. So O'Reilly puts this on
his effing show as a lead story, and then Fox
sent two camera crews in this little crap producer from
O'Riley show, jess e Water Something to stake Immilt out
(26:07):
and chase him around the GE shareholders meeting in Charlotte.
Zucker finally came up for air and I jumped in,
why didn't m L have six camera crews to stake
out the two Fox crews and chase them around in Charlotte?
I mean, isn't that one of our news hubs Charlotte
doesn't m L own like twenty camera crews? There? He
bring a camera crew, you'll bring two camera crews. Zucker
(26:31):
started to not like me again. Now you suggest that
where were you in? All right? Never mind, it doesn't matter.
M L says, if there's one more story on Bill
O'Reilly about GE manufacturing components for roadside bombs inter rack,
he's taking MSNBC off the air immediately. It'll just be
twenty four hours of lock up. And I'm fired, and
(26:51):
you're fired. And then he pointed at Chris Matthews, producer,
and Matthews is fired. And he pointed at poor Ed
Sheltz and you're fired, and Ed whimpered, So smart asked,
what the f do we do? I feigned all the
non chalance I could feign. If I could have lit
a shroot by striking a match on the soul of
my boot, I would have. It's manageable. But Jeff, why
(27:15):
is m L so worked up about what O'Reilly said
about him? Only O'Reilly's nutjob viewers actually believe any of
that crap. Nobody had GE, nobody investing in GE could
possibly believe we're building components for roadside bombs. Zucker inhaled deeply.
M L's mother believes it. All the heads in the
(27:38):
room turned towards the president of NBC. Mrs m L,
back in Cincinnati, is a devoted Bill O'Reilly viewer. Watches
him every night, sees this, calls him, says, Sonny, why
are you manufacturing components that were used in roadside bombs
built in a Randy kill Americans in Iraq? I had
(27:58):
not expected that, I said to Zooker. So so he'll
really burn what two million a year in profits just
between Rachel and me because he's mom watches Bill O'Reilly.
Zucker got angry again. You bet your effing ass he will.
Now you said it was manageable. How how the hef
do we manage it? Ulm him just a minute? How
(28:21):
old is she? Zucker summoned all his annoyance? How old
is who m ELTs mother? How old is she? Jeff
Zucker was really annoyed. How the eff should I know?
You're missing the point? I had him really worked up,
nearly to the boiling point. It was great, guess, Zucker spluttered,
(28:43):
I don't know. He's in his mid fifties. She's gotta
be eighty nineties something. I stifle to fake yawn. Yeah,
you're right, probably closer to ninety now that I think
of it. So the problem is she watches O'Reilly. She
tells him what's on Fox? What O'Reilly? Saying about Ge, Well,
(29:03):
I think you have a simple solution. I'd say, the
first thing you do is you send over a couple
of big guys to her house and you pull the
freaking cable out of the wall. Zucker actually gasped my producer,
is Hepovich unsuccessfully stifled a laugh, and I saw Rachel
crack a smile. Zucker regained himself. This isn't funny, Alderman,
I crossed my legs. Oh, it's a little funny. And anyway,
(29:27):
it's not essential. If the problem is email is threatening
to take the network off the air because O'Reilly is
avenging himself against me by attacking him and attacking Ge.
The short term solution is easy, and in fact it
is manageable. The long term solution that's not easy, and
that's not manageable. But the short term one that's simple.
Rest of this week, next week, maybe the week after that,
(29:48):
even we just don't mention Fox News on MSNBC. Something
resembling a smile crossed Zuker's face. It made him look
a little less like a lizard person and more like
a monkey with glasses. You do that forever, No, not forever.
(30:08):
I would not do that I said to Bias time. Yes,
but remember who was it who was in my office
last winter telling me that I should go on the
air and and just to f with Fox? I should
ask why Rupert Murdoch was still running a huge international
media company like News Corp. Despite all the reports that
he's suffering from dementia, even though there haven't been any
(30:30):
reports that he's suffering from dementia. For everybody's sake, here,
who was that again who told me to do that?
Zucker's goodwill was gone again? Obviously that was me. What's
your point? My point is we built this new brand
of ours organically on a couple of themes, a couple
of statements of principle, and one of them is to
(30:50):
use your words just to f with Fox. If we
don't f with Fox for a couple of weeks at
the start of the summer, who's gonna care. Who's gonna notice?
But like after two weeks, three weeks, our viewers are
gonna notice, and the TV writers are gonna notice, and
then the crap will hit from every direction. You can
think of temporary freeze on mentioning Fox, then mentioning O'Reilly,
(31:13):
and mentioning Murdock, fine, permanent freeze. Might as well let
him L turn us off in the morning. After all,
I don't think Zucker actually heard the last part about
m L turning us off. After all, the lack of
color was returning to his face. Okay, breathe, he kept
saying to himself. Breathe, breathe, Okay, breathe. He looked at
(31:35):
me and nodded. He pointed at Izzy and at Phil
Griffin and me, You and you and you and I
will we will talk tomorrow, maybe tonight, and we'll all
meet again next week. Until then, nothing about Fox, anybody,
Are we clear? Nothing on the air about Fox. Silence
in the room. Then the assorted noises of people rising,
mixed with attempts to resuscitate poor Ed Schultz. Somebody Matthew's guy,
(31:59):
Harson I think, was almost at the door out of
Zooker's office, and office so big that it was to
steal the ring Lardner line the size of the Yale Bowl,
but with lamps. And then a voice spoke up, quietly
but firmly, Excuse me, it was Rachel Maddow. Excuse me.
I will not have the content of my show dictated
(32:21):
by any corporations, including the one I work for. Remember
this is June two nine. She still felt that way then,
and especially one I don't work for. I will walk
out first. I cannot have the audience wondering what else
I have not told them. I don't do a lot
about Fox on my show. But if there is a
story about Fox, I will not honor this freeze. I
will report that story. And if I'm prevented from reporting
(32:44):
that story, I will leave. Whereupon she left, Zucker barked
Phil all rouman, is he stay? When the rest of
the room had cleared, Zucker blew air out of his
mouth as if it were smoke. He gestured violently at
me with his right arm. I told you she was
a mistake. You didn't listen to me. I told you.
Now she's your problem. Oh, this is your problem. Get
(33:06):
her back on the reservation or else. Now I had
run out of goodwill and jokes. Oh, I'll get her
back on the reservation, Jeff. But if you think this
is my problem, just think about what happens if he
really does take us off the air, or if it
just gets out that he threatened to take us off
the air because his mother didn't like what Fox said
(33:31):
about him. That's my problem. Uh, that's your problem, And
it's the problem of the CEO of the freaking sixth
largest corporation in the world who makes his business decisions
involving hundreds of millions of dollars of profits based on
what his mother says. At this point, Phil Griffin managed
(33:54):
to pull Zooker away and Izzy and I made for
the door, saying nothing until we were in the elevator. Finally,
she asked, what are you going to do about Rachel?
I looked straight ahead. I have depth reception issues while
traveling forward, backwards, up or down the if I know
what I'm gonna do about her? But I got an idea.
I mean, the only person she was really talking to
(34:15):
in there was herself. This isn't a brand new surprise
success for her anymore. This is successful. This is what
nine ten months she's successful. She said she was once
a dancing cell phone outside of cell phone store outside
of Boston. She ain't going back to that. I went
to talk to Rachel about an hour later and reassured her.
(34:37):
I mentioned that powerful as Fox was, they were not
going to be able to re invade Iraq by themselves.
And unless she moved it way closer than it had been,
nobody would cross her censorship line. And I said, just
give me as much time as the French government took
before fleeing during the Nazi advance in ninety I said,
give me, what was it, thirty three days? Give me
(34:58):
thirty three days. If we aren't back where we were
this morning, we can both quit on the air. I
mean to be fun right. Three nights later, well after
midnight on a Friday, my NBC issued BlackBerry buzzed with
a quick email from Rachel Maddow. Hey, she wrote, don't
necessarily quote me because I'm really drunk, but just make
(35:19):
the best deal you can for us. I trust you.
We don't need to do Fox all the time. I
never do Fox stories anyway. I just had to say that,
and this is the best platform we will ever have.
Well she was right, at least for the time being.
A couple of weeks later, I had to sneak in
a script that blasted Fox, and at ten thirty at
home that night, I got a call from a drunken
(35:39):
Phil Griffin shouting into the phone, I have a family.
Zooker had to go meet with Roger Ales secretly inside
thirty Rock, and I hope they remember to clean the
room afterwards, and m l even had to meet with Murdoch,
and then happily, some idiot GE executive decided to boast
to The New York Times about getting us little talent
(36:02):
children under control in a big deal with the executives
over at Fox, and how they'd settled everything, which blew
up the whole deal instantly, because the moment the deal
went public, NBC looked so stupid, and even NBC News
was now risked. The only point of the whole thing
was to keep the mlts and the Zookers and the
(36:22):
Griffins and the ailes Is from throwing us and our
little island of liberal commentary out of that window at
thirty Rock. But as Rachel Maddow and I would be
constantly reminded in the ensuing years, thirty Rock has a
lot of freaking windows still ahead. And I swear to
(36:55):
God that happened, and so did this. I should have
known it was going to happen with Jeff m LT
and Jeff m LT's mother and g E because I
was tipped off to what these idiots into levision news
were like weeks before I started my first show for MSNBC,
literally plus years ago, the day the president of NBC
News told me to make sure, I nodded politely to
(37:16):
the Microsoft executive in charge of MSNBC and then ignored
everything he had to say. That's next. This is countdown
to the top of the countdown on our number one
story and my favorite topic, me and things I promised
(37:39):
not to tell. And Saturday is twenty five years since
the moment I realized that there was something crazy built
into the structure of NBC News and in fact, built
into the structure of television news. On the night of Wednesday, September,
I was told to show up at six thirty p m.
(38:00):
At the apartment of Phil Griffin on Central Park West
in Manhattan. Din Her with Phil and his wife Corey,
and Andy Lack and his wife Betsy, and Jeff Zucker
and Merrill Brown was at seven pm, but I was
supposed to be there at six thirty. One week and
ninety minutes later, we were all launching my new newscast
on MSNBC, and it didn't get much newer than this.
(38:22):
I had done some newscasts in college as recently as
Waiteen years prior twice in local news, I had been
pressed into service as a news field reporter, and once
in l A when our married newscaster anchored couple Jim
Lampley and Bree Walker were late coming back from dinner,
I had to do the live teas for Channel two
(38:43):
Action News at eleven, right in the middle of the
airing of the show Falcon Crest on CBS, and I
started it by saying, Hi, Jim and Bree can't come
to the TV right now, Here's what they'll have for
you at eleven. But I had not done more than
fifteen minutes of news in a row in my life.
One week later, I would become the lynch pin in
(39:03):
the lineup on m CNBC, which itself had only been
doing news for a year and nine weeks. So when
Andy Lack, the president of NBC News and Zooker, then
the executive producer of The Today Show and unofficial chief
executive of MSNBC, and Griffin, executive producer of my new newscast,
called the Big Show, said show up at six thirty, Alderman,
(39:24):
I just assumed we were going to have some final
discussion of what we should be doing during the series
or at least during the first show, or at least
three the first segment. Because we were a week out
and I really didn't have any clues to what they
expected the show to look like or what they expected
me to say. I kept mentioning that I was fascinated
by something called the Mandel brought set, which is in
(39:47):
real Lehman's essence mathematical formula which if you keep running
it long enough in a computer, eventually turns into the
shapes of all the leaves and the tales of sea
lions and everything else from nature. When I mentioned the
Mandel Brought set to one of the show producers, he
nodded enthusiastically and smilingly, and then said, in evident seriousness, Great,
(40:09):
we can do that after we do the first half
an hour on the Murder of Jehan ben A Ramsey.
I had just moved into my new apartment, ten blocks
south of Griffin's. I had left ESPN perfectly successful time
for me and a nice enough but very remote place
called Bristol, Connecticut, which didn't really have sidewalks, And so
I walked uptown with a mixture pride, excitement and apprehension,
(40:34):
and on sidewalks by the time I was within five blocks.
I was hoping I'd be able to talk them into
one show a week where we talked about stuff like
the Mandelbrot set. I arrived right on time, got great
handshakes from Griffin and Lack and Zucker, and a kiss
from Griffin's wife, who I knew, and then the two
ladies excused themselves to go out onto the balcony somewhere,
(40:54):
and I noticed it was just those three guys in me.
The seventh person at this dinner, this Meryl Brown, who
I did not know, was not there, and I soon
found out why. When the women were out of the room.
News President Lack barked first, So you're here early, so
we can talk about this Meryl Brown. Guy. Zucker looked
(41:14):
away from me. He muttered, freaking Meryl Brown. Griffin said,
we need to tell you about Meryl Brown. Buddy Lack
began to pace up and down Griffin's living room. He
had unruly, thinning hair, and he kept running his hands
through it, like he was checking to see if it
was still there. It's god, damn Meryl Brown. Lack suddenly
stopped and began to look angrily at me. Meryl Brown
(41:37):
you're here so we can make sure you never listen
to Meryl Brown. Three thoughts rocketed through my mind. One,
this felt like a scene from a bad movie, like
something they cut out of The Fugitive or maybe Wall Street. Two,
these guys in ascending order, Griffin, Zucker Lack seemed to
(41:58):
be crazy. And three, if only we were rolling tape on,
this would make a great segment for the first show.
Oh and then we talked about the Mandelbrot. Set Zuker apologized, Look,
we already had part of this meeting at thirty Rocks,
so we're pretty worked up about this. There's nothing for
you to worry about here. You didn't do anything wrong,
and you probably don't have any idea who Meryl Brown is.
(42:20):
I joked to my three bosses that I was beginning
to think Meryl Brown was just a renamed version of
Goldstein from George Orwell. To my horror, nobody laughed and
nobody corrected me. Lack resumed a little calmer this time.
Meryl Brown used to write for the Washington Post, and
somehow he's he helped start Court TV, and now he's
(42:43):
he's the TV guy at Microsoft, and Microsoft thinks they
own MSNBC and Meryl Brown. Freaking Meryl Brown thinks he
runs MSNBC. He doesn't run MSNBC. God damn it, I
run MSNBC. It was a brief, dangerous silence. Then lack
amended his remark, well, I run it with Jeff and Phil.
(43:05):
Phil Griffin spoke up. Now I had known him sixteen years.
He had been my producer on literally my first day
in television, and now coincidence would make him my producer
on literally my first day in television news. We're just
a little worn out by Meryl Buddy. He sends all
of us emails and messages every day. Lack now interrupted
Griffin all day. He sends them all day like he
invented computers. He can't do anything out there in Redmond
(43:28):
freaking Washington except watch MSNBC and tell us how I
have to change it. Like I wasn't the man who
saved NBC News, and he wasn't working in Redmond freaking Washington.
This was the first I had learned of the contempt
in which the NBC people held the Microsoft people. I
would hear of it again every hour or so for
(43:51):
the next year. It was symbolized by their blind hatred
of the otherwise pleasant town that was home to the
Microsoft operation, Redmond, Washington. The two companies had quote partnered
unquote to create MSNBC, this first synergy between a major
television company and the earliest giant of computers and the Internet.
(44:12):
That's why it was called m S NBC MS for
Microsoft NBC for NBC. They were a team. No, they weren't.
Lack was still fared up christ Stone Mighty, who only
brought these Microsoft idiots in on this deal for their money.
They don't have editorial input. Their here to put in
the money, and they're wiring. That's it. Zucker took over.
(44:34):
Here's why we wanted to talk to in advance of
Meryl Brown getting here. He's asked to sit next to
you during dinner. He wants to share his his vision
for the big show. What we want you to do
is listen carefully to him, nod, laugh, agree, say that's
very interesting, but don't say what you might think would
be good to say, like Andy, what do you think
(44:54):
of this? Andy interrupted again, because I'll goddamn tell you
what I think of it. It's crap, crap from Redmond, Washington,
Crap from guys who are Alwaly supposed to give us
money and computer rminals. That's it. Don't tell me what
we have to synergize cable television and the Internet with
whatever the hellthy internet is. This network is so we
can train talent and amortise expenses and give Brian Williams
(45:16):
someplace to anchor until Brocall leaves and another thing. Phil
Griffin Central Park West Apartment building intercom buzzer suddenly went off.
His wife raced out of wherever she and Mrs Lack
had been hiding and where I hope they were secretly
recording all this, and she answered the call from the
building's lobby desk with a series of a huhz. She
(45:37):
looked at her husband and said, with some fear, Meryl
Brown is on the way up. God damn it, shouted Black.
He pointed again at me. Okay, not a word of
what you've been told. Just humor um, humor room, humor um,
humor um. And don't ask me or Zucker or Phil
what we think because there could be bloodshed here. Dinner
catered was spectacular. Meryl Brown was charming, well informed. He
(46:00):
had ideas about that the word synergy between TV and
the Internet about eventually getting viewers to watch TV via
their computers, especially when the computers would one day be
handheld seriously and maybe even interacting with the shows as
they were being televised or watching them whenever the viewer
(46:22):
wanted some sort of delay system. It was interesting and
forward looking. And to make sure I could not see
the anger barely being suppressed by Lack until lesser degrees
by Griffin and Zooker, I took my glasses off mid meal. Finally,
Meryl Brown said he had to go. He knew the
rest of us needed to talk over some details about
the launch of my show. He wished me luck silently.
(46:45):
I wished him luck. Lack and Griffin showed him to
the door and actually waited there until Meryl Brown made
it down the hallway and into the elevator. Before he
even closed the apartment door, Lack shouted, and that's another
thing we have all but goddamn synergy between TV and
the Internet already. Tell him, Phil, tell him Phil. Griffin
(47:05):
looked at me sheepishly. Zucker took over for him. We
figured out how to mesh between cable TV and the Internet.
Phil figured it out that the name of the show
that will be your lead in. This is the kind
of synergy we want. Tell him, Phil, tell him the
name of the show and how it combines the Internet
and nighttime TV. Phil looks slightly past me. It's it's
(47:26):
it's called it's called internight. He paused, it's it's called internight. See,
it's it's it's Internet plus, you know night internight. Got
it putty. At that exact moment, I knew that on
(47:47):
MSNBC we would never, not once, not even in passing,
make the slightest reference to the Mandelbrot set. Countdown and
(48:10):
my Sinus Infection have come to you from the studios
of Alberman Broadcasting Empire World headquarters here in the Sports
Capsule Building in New York City. Thank you for listening.
Here are the credits. Most of the music, including our
theme from Beethoven's Ninth arranged, produced and performed by Brian
Ray and John Philip Channel. They are the Countdown musical directors.
All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Channel. Guitars, Bassed
(48:35):
and drums by Brian Ray, produced by t Ko Brothers.
Another Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No
Horns allowed The sports music is the Alberman theme from
ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Faust. The
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was Larry
(48:55):
David and just in Clase. Any of you conservatives are
confused by this, None of them were here in the
building with me. We had them on what we call
take everything else is pretty much my fault. So that's
countdown for this the seven dred and thirty ninth day
since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
government of the United States. Arrest him now while we
(49:16):
still can. I will try to be back with a
completely new episode tomorrow. The sinus infection, of course, has
the final word until whenever. I'm Keith all Reman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(49:38):
old Reman is a production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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