Profile of Keith Olbermann on Famous Like Me

Keith Olbermann (born January 27, 1959 in New York City, New York) is an American news anchor and former sportscaster. He currently hosts Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, an hour-long nightly newscast that counts down the top news stories of the day.

Early career

After earning his Bachelor of Science degree in communications arts from Cornell University in 1979, Olbermann began his career at UPI and RKO Radio before joining the nascent CNN in 1981. In 1984, he briefly worked as a sports anchor at WCVB-TV in Boston, before heading to Los Angeles to work at KTLA and KCBS. His work there earned him eleven Golden Mike Awards, and he was named Best Sportscaster by the California Associated Press three times.

Olbermann at ESPN

In 1992, he joined ESPN's SportsCenter, a position he would hold until 1997. His edition of SportsCenter was often hosted together with Dan Patrick, and the two became known as an anchor team. Olbermann quickly became known and loved for his acid wit, his brutally honest reporting style and clever catch phrases, as well for his tight chemistry with co-anchor Patrick. In 1995, Olbermann won a Cable ACE award for Best Sportscaster while co-anchoring the "big show" as he called it. Olbermann would later co-author a book with Patrick called The Big Show about their experiences working at SportsCenter.

While at ESPN, Olbermann was instrumental in helping to launch ESPN Radio and ESPN2. However, he became increasingly unhappy with commuting to ESPN's studios in Bristol, Connecticut. Bristol's remote location and lack of an active social scene were particularly problematic for Olbermann because he was single, lived in New York City, and could not drive due to a head injury on a New York City subway car where his head got caught in a door and permanently damaged his depth perception. Additionally there were whispers that, internally, he could be difficult to work with or get along with. Ultimately, Olbermann's dissatisfaction with Bristol contributed to his departure from ESPN in 1997. Even several years after his departure, many people still consider Olbermann to be one of the best anchors that SportsCenter ever had, and his pairing with Dan Patrick the best tandem ever.

Olbermann is a dedicated baseball fan and historian of the sport. He has argued, for example, that New York Giants baseball player Fred Merkle should not be denied inclusion into the Baseball Hall of Fame simply because of a single baserunning mistake. Olbermann also took documentarian Ken Burns to task about the accuracy of Burns' television series Baseball, pointing out dozens of factual and anachronistic errors in Burns' documentary. In high school, Olbermann compiled an extensive list of first and third base coaches in baseball history. This documentation now sits in the Hall of Fame, and is considered the definitive compendium of first and third base coaches in baseball history.

After SportsCenter

In 1997, Olbermann left ESPN to host his own primetime show on MSNBC, aptly named The Big Show. The news variety program covered three or four different topics in a one-hour broadcast. Olbermann also occasionally hosted the weekend edition of NBC Nightly News, and NBC Sports' coverage of the World Series.

When the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in 1998, he began hosting another news program, White House In Crisis. Olbermann says he became frustrated when the Lewinsky story would constantly consume his regular show. He left MSNBC after 17 months to return to sportscasting, although he has said that even if Lewinsky never happened, he still would have left to return to sports.

In 1998, Olbermann became an anchor and executive prodcer for The Keith Olbermann Evening News, a nightly sportscast similar to SportsCenter, which aired nightly on cable's Fox Sports Net. While at Fox, Olbermann was host of the World Series again and of Fox Broadcasting's baseball Game of the Week.

Return to reporting

Olbermann left Fox Sports in 2001 for "other opportunities" and kept a relatively low-profile. He worked for a time as a regular contributor on CNN and provided twice-daily sports commentary on the ABC Radio Network. The attacks of September 11, 2001 provided the impetus for Olbermann to return to full fledged news reporting. He won an Edward R. Murrow Award for reporting from the site of the attacks for 40 days on ABC Radio.

Olbermann was rehired by MSNBC in early 2003 as a substitute host on Nachman and as an anchor for MSNBC's coverage of the war in Iraq. His own show, Countdown, debuted shortly thereafter on March 31, 2003 in the 8pm ET timeslot previously held by Phil Donahue's show. On October 13, 2004, Olbermann launched Bloggermann, his Countdown weblog, hosted on MSNBC.com. Olbermann leverages the open format of the blog to expound on facts or ideas alluded to in the broadcast, to offer personal musings and reactions, and to break news at odd hours. As such, he has distinguished himself by making inroads into the blogosphere and bridging the gap between the "mainstream media" and the "new media".

Some conservatives feel that Olbermann's reporting carries a liberal bias. Olbermann insists that he is nonpartisan claiming he has taken shots at both sides.

In June of 2005, it was announced that Olbermann was returning to ESPN Radio every Friday, co-hosting with his friend and former colleague Dan Patrick's three-hour weekday program.

According to Dash Riprock of americanpolitics.com, Olbermann "tells the truth, and he does it in a sharp, subtlety stated, but unmistakable style. It's sad to realize that it is truly such an oddity these days to see someone with those qualities on TV."

Smoking

On Monday, August 8, 2005, the day following Peter Jennings's death from lung cancer, Olbermann revealed on-air that he had had a benign, fibrous tumor removed from the roof of his mouth just ten days earlier. In an explicit and controversial monologue, he attributed his tumor (and the resulting fear and pain) directly to his 27-year habit of smoking pipes and cigars. He vigorously urged his viewers not to wait until they see symptoms to quit. "Do whatever you have to do to stop smoking — now. While it's easier." According to Don Imus on the following morning's Imus In The Morning broadcast, that statement nearly got Olbermann fired.

This marks the beginning of "I quit," a recurring segment on Countdown which offers anti-smoking tips and encouragement. On August 16, 2005, Olbermann's colleague at NBC Mike Taibbi joined him for "I quit" to discuss kicking the habit.

See: "Flush the Butts" Bloggerman Entry from August 8, 2005.

Trivia

• Possesses six lumbar vertebrae instead of the usual five.
• Wears a size 14 shoe.
• Damaged depth perception in 1980 by rushing to catch a subway car at New York City's Shea Stadium and slamming his head into the top of the door frame.
• Has a mild case of Coeliac disease (gluten intolerance).
• Was raised Unitarian.
• Is related to boxer Mike Tyson by marriage. (Olbermann's father's brother married the niece of Tyson's adoptive father Cus D'Amato, making Olbermann and Tyson first cousins once removed.)
• Claims media personality Bill O'Reilly to be his nemesis, taking joy in poking fun at him and referring to him with nicknames such as "The Big Giant Head". O'Reilly's show, The O'Reilly Factor, airs on the Fox News Channel at the same time as Olbermann's show on MSNBC, garnering ratings several times higher than Olbermann's.
• New York Yankees second baseman Chuck Knoblauch accidentally hit Keith's mother in the head, during a botched play at Yankee Stadium in 1998.
• Is a well known vintage baseball card collector of T-206 tobacco cards.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Keith Olbermann