In the wake of Keith Olbermann's dismissal from Current TV, The Daily Beast's Howard Kurtz has obtained email correspondence between Olbermann's camp and the network's staff. Though there are no mentions of California Condor-egg omelets, Kurtz finds that shortly after Olbermann was hired last summer, his manager sent a list of 40 "deficiencies" that needed "immediate attention."
Kurtz also notes that Olbermann and Gore would sometimes correspond directly when the anchor felt he needed to cut the middlemen to get his point across, but Gore's emails were "polite but vague notes that essentially referred the questions to [co-owner of Current TV Joel Hyatt.]"
When Olbermann came down with a throat infection, he refused to speak at all off-air, "forcing those around him to communicate with him by email." We would have opted for an ongoing game of Charades.
So while Olbermann may have missed 19 of 41 workdays in January through February, the network never fixed the issues that Olbermann insisted were hurting the program: cheap sets, bad lighting, and poor editing.
The Times' David Carr thinks that Olbermann won't be without work too long, if for any reason that despite having "a terrible relationship with actual humans," he's pretty good at speaking in front of a camera.
He is a free agent in a business that is remarkably akin to pro sports, full of divas who are great at hitting the curve or making impossible catches, but baffled by the rest of life. Think Terrell (“I love me some me”) Owens. Or Randy Moss. Or Babe Ruth. Or Ted Williams. Jerks, louts and narcissists, all tolerated because within the four corners of the diamond, the football field and, yes, the television studio, they can do what others cannot.
