Keith Olbermann (born January 27, 1959) is an American news anchor, commentator and radio sportscaster. He currently hosts Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, an hour-long nightly newscast that reviews the top news stories of the day along with political commentary by Olbermann. Starting with the 2007 NFL season, Olbermann also serves as co-host of NBC's Football Night in America with Bob Costas.
Early life and career
Originally from New York City, Olbermann grew up in Westchester County, attending school at Hastings-on-Hudson. Keith Olbermann is of German ancestry. He graduated from the Hackley School in Tarrytown two years after future ESPN broadcaster Chris Berman. Olbermann then earned his bachelor of science degree in communications arts from Cornell University in 1979 while serving as sports director for WVBR, a student-run commercial radio station in Ithaca. As a teenager, Olbermann was a prolific writer of articles about baseball card collecting, appearing in many sports card collecting periodicals of the mid-1970s. He is credited in Sports Collectors Bible, a 1975 book by Bert Randolph Sugar, which is considered one of the important early books for trading card collectors.

Olbermann began his professional career at UPI and RKO Radio before joining then 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 11 Golden Mike Awards, and he was named Best Sportscaster by the California Associated Press three times.

In 1988, Olbermann's KTLA/Channel 5 salary reportedly was about $80,000 a year, according to the Los Angeles Times. Olbermann had joined KTLA in 1985. Sources said at the time that he received a five-year contract worth about $250,000 a year. His agent had reportedly been approached by many stations, including ESPN.

Soon after arriving at KCBS/Channel 2, Olbermann issued an on-air apology for the station's reporting that runner Florence Griffith Joyner used steroids. "We were one of the news organizations which reported the allegations against Florence Griffith Joyner," Olbermann said on the air at the time. "We did not mean to imply there was further evidence against her beyond the speculation of other athletes such as Joaquim Cruz. For our part, we apologize for any confusion we may have caused."

In 1990, Olbermann went public with his battle to lose weight. The 6-foot-4, 250-pound broadcaster said he hoped to lose 50 pounds (he had already lost 15 of those). His battle with the bulge was featured on his evening sportscasts. He offered layman's tips on how to gain control over what you eat and he weighed himself in front of the camera. Olbermann decided to attack his problem when he heard a second-hand comment a friend had made about his weight. He went on to lose the weight but quickly gained it back.

On September 14, 2007, Olbermann suffered a ruptured appendix and was rushed into emergency surgery.
Career at ESPN
In 1992, he joined ESPN’s SportsCenter, a position he held until 1997. He often co-hosted SportsCenter with Dan Patrick, the two becoming a popular anchor team. In 1995, Olbermann won a Cable ACE award for Best Sportscaster. Olbermann would later co-author a book with Patrick called The Big Show about their experiences working at SportsCenter. On the May 10, 2004, episode for Countdown, Olbermann said that the short-lived ABC dramedy Sports Night was based on his time on SportsCenter with Patrick.
Leaving ESPN
In 1997, Olbermann abruptly left ESPN under a cloud of controversy, apparently burning his bridges with the network's management. This began a long and drawn out feud between Olbermann and ESPN. During the time between 1997 and 2007 incidents between the two sides included Olbermann publishing an essay on Salon.com in November of 2002 entitled "Mea Culpa" in which he conceded that his own insecurities and neurotic behavior had led to many of his problems at work. In the essay, it imparted an instance of where his former bosses remarked he had "too much backbone," which actually hit on a literal truth. Olbermann has six lumbar vertebrae instead of the normal five. In 2004 ESPN famously snubbed him from the guest lineup of its 25th Anniversary SportsCenter "Reunion Week," which saw the likes of personalities such as Craig Kilborn and Charley Steiner return to the SportsCenter set. In 2007, ten years after Olbermann's departure, in an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, he said "If you burn a bridge, you can possibly build a new bridge, but if there's no river any more, that's a lot of trouble." During the same interview, Olbermann stated that he recently learned that as a result of ESPN agreeing to let him back on the airwaves, he was banned from ESPN's main Bristol, Connecticut campus.
Return to ESPN
Olbermann has co-hosted an hour-long segment of the syndicated Dan Patrick Show on ESPN radio since 2004, first on Fridays only but since late 2005 on an everyday basis. Olbermann and Patrick used to refer to this segment as "The Big Show", harkening back to Olbermann's SportsCenter days, and Patrick often introduces Olbermann with the tagline "saving the democracy", a nod to his work on Countdown. Olbermann's time at ESPN radio ended on August 17, 2007, when Patrick left the network to pursue other interests.
Other sports broadcasting
Fox Sports
In 1998, Olbermann joined Fox Sports Net as anchor and executive producer for The Keith Olbermann Evening News, a sportscast similar to SportsCenter, airing weekly on Sunday evenings. While at Fox, he again hosted the 2000 World Series as well as Fox Broadcasting’s baseball Game of the Week.

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ABC Radio
After Olbermann left Fox Sports in 2001, he provided twice-daily sports commentary on the ABC Radio Network, reviving the "Speaking of Sports" and "Speaking of Everything" segments begun by Howard Cosell.
NFL on NBC
Olbermann was named on April 16, 2007 as co-host of Football Night in America, NBC's NFL pre-game show that precedes their Sunday Night NFL game.
Career at NBC Universal
First NBC stint
In 1997, Olbermann left ESPN to host his own primetime show on MSNBC. The news-variety program covered three or four topics in a one-hour broadcast. Olbermann also occasionally hosted the weekend edition of NBC Nightly News, and, along with Hannah Storm, co-hosted NBC Sports’ pre-game coverage of the 1997 World Series.

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When the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in 1998, the show morphed into White House in Crisis. Olbermann became frustrated as his show was consumed by the Lewinsky story. In 1998, he stated that his work at MSNBC would "make me ashamed, make me depressed, make me cry."
Return to MSNBC on Countdown

M Countdown with Keith Olbermann

On his return to MSNBC in 2003, he served as a substitute host on Nachman and as an anchor for the network's coverage of the war in Iraq. His own show, Countdown, debuted shortly thereafter on March 31, 2003, in the 8 p.m. ET time slot previously held by programs hosted by Phil Donahue and, briefly, Lester Holt. Olbermann uses Edward R. Murrow's signature sign-off, "Good night and good luck," to end his show. On October 13, 2004, Olbermann launched Bloggermann, his Countdown weblog, hosted on MSNBC.com. Olbermann used the open format of the blog to expand on facts or ideas alluded to in the broadcast, to offer personal musings and reactions, and to break news at odd hours. However, in February 2007, Olbermann launched a new blog, The News Hole.

Countdown's format, per its name, involves Olbermann ranking the five biggest news stories of the day or sometimes "stories my producers force me to cover" as Olbermann puts it. This is done in numerical reversal or counting down with the first story shown being ranked fifth but apparently the most important. The segments ranked numbers two and one typically are of a lighter fare than segments ranked five through three. The first few stories shown are typically oriented toward government, politics, and world events. The last two typically involve celebrities, sports, or the bizarre.

Olbermann wrote an e-mail to a viewer concerning fellow MSNBC reporter Rita Cosby, saying, “Rita's nice, but dumber than a suitcase of rocks.” Olbermann has since apologized for the email saying he had been stupid and should have known better.

Countdown posted a 77 percent gain in total viewers (52 percent in viewers aged 25 to 54) for the first quarter of 2007 over the first quarter of 2006 in the 8pm timeslot, Bill O'Reilly's gains during that period were 5 percent, Nancy Grace's 12 percent, and Paula Zahn's suffered a loss of 10 percent.""Q1 #'s: Q1 2007 vs. Q1 2006"", MediaBistro, 2007-04-12. In the age 25-54 demographic, O'Reilly had 507,000 viewers versus Olbermann's 250,000,""Q1 #'s: Q1 2007 vs. Q1 2006"", MediaBistro, 2007-04-12. and O'Reilly's overall viewer pool was larger than Olbermann's (2.2 million viewers a night this year versus Olbermann's 710,000 viewers).

On February 16, 2007, MSNBC reported that Olbermann had signed a four-year extension on his contract with MSNBC for Countdown, as well as the inclusion of another show set to air on NBC in the fall. The details of the show have not been fully disclosed, but Olbermann was quoted on air as saying it will deal with commentary segments similar to his "special comments", but not so politically oriented. He has referred to them as "essays."
Allegations of bias
Although it began as a traditional newscast, Countdown With Keith Olbermann has gradually adopted an opinion-oriented format. The show frequently features criticism of prominent Republicans, especially the George W. Bush Administration and commentator Bill O'Reilly, whom Olbermann routinely dubs the “Worst Person In The World."

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has written that Olbermann is "position[ing] his program as an increasingly liberal alternative to The O'Reilly Factor." The conservative media watchdog group Media Research Center (MRC) has accused Olbermann of liberal bias. The MRC compiled a list of the recipients of Olbermann's “World's Worst” and reported that, of the approximately 600 recipients, 174 (29 percent) of those fit their definition of “conservative” people or ideas while only 23 (4 percent) were what they considered “liberal.”

In an interview with Al Franken, Olbermann noted that in 2003, after having Janeane Garofalo and Franken on his show, the Vice President of NBC had questioned him on inviting "liberals" on consecutive nights.

Olbermann has responded to the accusations of bias by saying, "I'm not a liberal, I'm an American."
Criticism of the Bush administration
In Olbermann's "Special Comment" segment on July 3, 2007, he called President George W. Bush's commutation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence the "last straw", and called for the resignation of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Olbermann said:
We enveloped our President in 2001. And those who did not believe he should have been elected — indeed, those who did not believe he had been elected — willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship. And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it.
Feud with Bill O'Reilly
Olbermann's show on MSNBC occupies the same time slot as Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel. Olbermann has repeatedly named O'Reilly his “Worst Person in the World," naming him more than 60 times from June 2005 - August 2007. O'Reilly has petitioned for the ousting of Olbermann from MSNBC and the return of Phil Donahue to Olbermann's time slot, stating that Donahue's ratings far exceeded Olbermann's.

The feud blossomed with Olbermann's public celebration of O'Reilly's sexual harassment suit by former Fox News Channel producer Andrea Mackris; he jokingly kept track of money his viewers pledged to buy the tapes from Mackris and ran a “Save the Tapes” campaign.

In March 2006, O'Reilly dropped a caller from his live radio show, seemingly for mentioning Olbermann's name. O'Reilly accused the caller of being part of a larger group of individuals that had been calling O'Reilly with the sole purpose of mentioning Olbermann. The caller said, “I like to listen to you during the day. I think Keith Olbermann's show…” when O'Reilly cut in, responding to “Mike” as follows:
Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks.

While Westwood One broadcasts O'Reilly's radio show, the program does originate from Fox News Channel's New York City studios. Olbermann noted that it would be unlawful for O'Reilly to send anyone to a listener's home for purposes of intimidation.

On a subsequent episode of Countdown, Olbermann had "Mike" on as a guest to discuss the incident, and he denied that he had said anything obscene before O'Reilly cut him off. He did state that he was one of a group of individuals from the Web site "Calling All Wingnuts" who had decided to call into the O'Reilly show to voice their disagreement. He mentioned that a woman from that group was upset by a call from the same "Fox News Security" official.

Olbermann has gone on (on August 30, September 5, September 11, and November 1 commentaries) from criticizing O'Reilly to confronting the Bush administration directly. In a recent “Worst Person in the World” segment, Olbermann said, “I'm sorry, Bill. I can't play with you right now. I have bigger fish to fry.”

According to The New York Times, O'Reilly eventually stopped criticizing Olbermann on The O'Reilly Factor, but Fox News spokeswoman Irina Briganti has released the following public statement in response:

Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks.
A press release by NBC indicates that ratings for Countdown are up significantly since Fox’s 2006 statement.

Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks.

While attending a Television Critics Association breakfast session on July 22, 2006, Olbermann was photographed holding up "an O’Reilly mask while raising his right arm in a Nazi salute." The next week, while a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Olbermann was asked to comment on the photo, which had appeared on the Drudge Report. Olbermann said he had been waving to a friend, though he added that "Bill O'Reilly has defended the Nazis from World War II on three separate occasions." Olberman's comments referred to an episode of The O'Reilly Factor, in which O'Reilly stated that American troops were the aggressors in the Malmedy massacre.

On July 28, 2006, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) sent an open letter to Olbermann at MSNBC stating, "We are deeply dismayed by your ongoing use of the Nazi 'Sieg Heil' salute, both on your program and in public appearances…" The letter explains that Olbermann's use of the salute prompted many complaints from its members, including Holocaust survivors, and that any use of it "serves to trivialize the Holocaust and the six million Jews and others who died as a result of Hitler's Final Solution." The letter closed by asking Olbermann to "reconsider [his] use of the Nazi salute in the future."

Olbermann had written a year earlier in his weblog that Nazi references have "no place...in this culture" and "the analogies are wrong, offensive, and deeply hurtful" when used in partisan politics.
Other news journalism
Olbermann was a fill-in for newscaster Paul Harvey. The September 11, 2001 attacks 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 and Los Angeles radio station KFWB. Olbermann wrote a weekly column for Salon.com from July 2002 until early 2003.
Baseball historian and fan
Olbermann is a dedicated baseball fan and historian of the sport, with membership in the Society for American Baseball Research. He is also a well known vintage baseball card collector, particularly of T-206 tobacco cards and other rare cards, such as the very rare 2006 Alex Gordon rookie card. He argues that New York Giants baseball player Fred Merkle should not be denied inclusion into the Baseball Hall of Fame because of a baserunning mistake." He contributed the foreword to More Than Merkle (ISBN 0-8032-1056-6), a book requesting amnesty for Merkle's error, also known as the "Merkle Boner". Olbermann was also one of the founders of the first experts' fantasy baseball league. He was one of the founders of the USA Today Baseball Weekly Labr league, giving the league its nickname (LABR stands for League of Alternative Baseball Reality). Because of his extensive baseball knowledge, Olbermann is a consultant to Topps, the baseball card manufacturer. Topps allowed him to open the first pack of 2007 baseball cards on Countdown the week before they hit stores. The first card of the pack was Johnny Damon of the New York Yankees.
Anti-smoking
On Monday, August 8, 2005, the day following Peter Jennings’s death from lung cancer, Olbermann revealed on-air that he had a benign fibrous tumor removed from his palate just 10 days earlier. In an explicit monologue (in which he described, among other things, his experience spitting blood into a trash can), he attributed his tumor 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."

This marked the beginning of "I Quit," once a recurring segment on Countdown which offered anti-smoking tips and encouragement. On August 16, 2005, Olbermann's NBC colleague Mike Taibbi joined him for "I Quit" to discuss kicking the habit.
Other television appearances

* He appeared in a cameo as himself in an episode of NBC's Surface.
* He appeared in a series of television commercials for the Boston Market restaurant chain in 1997, in which he tells a bunch of Calvin-Klein type models to "eat something"
* He briefly appeared in episode of Arli$$ as himself. During his appearance he was working at Fox Sports.
* A self-described fan of the Fox animated television sitcom Family Guy, he announced in June 2006 on the Dan Patrick Show that he had recorded some voice tracks to be used in an upcoming episode of the series. ("It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One", featuring Olbermann as a character named Bob Grossbeard, aired on May 13, 2007.) Also, Seth MacFarlane (creator of the animated Family Guy series) guested on Countdown on January 19, 2007 to discuss Stephen Colbert's appearance on The O'Reilly Factor and O'Reilly's subsequent appearance on The Colbert Report. Olbermann had previously appeared on The Colbert Report himself, and discussed his disputes with O'Reilly.
* Olbermann has stated, during a story on The Simpsons Movie, that he would be providing a voice on an episode on the TV show's 2007-2008 season.
* On October 3, 2006, Olbermann appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman.
* Olbermann appears, with Dan Patrick, in the opening segment of the Hootie & the Blowfish music video Only Wanna Be With You.
* On February 23, 2007, he appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
* On February 25, 2007, he was featured in the "Cable Guy" segment on CBS Sunday Morning.
* On June 27, 2007, Olbermann and Patrick appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman.
* On the HBO series Big Love, Olbermann appeared in Season 2, Episode 9 ("Swing Vote Margene") as himself during a fictitious newscast.

Bibliography

* Truth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration's War on American Values (Random House, to be released December 26, 2007)
* The Worst Person In the World and 202 Strong Contenders (Wiley, September 2006). ISBN 0-470-04495-0.
* Deadball Stars of the National League (Potomac Books, February 2004). ISBN 1-57488-860-9. — Foreword written by Olbermann.
* More Than Merkle: A History of the Best and Most Exciting Baseball Season in Human History (University of Nebraska Press, April 2000). ISBN 0-8032-1056-6. — Foreword written by Olbermann.
* Stats 1999 Baseball Scoreboard (STATS, March 1999). ISBN 1-884064-62-0. — Foreword written by Olbermann.
* The Big Show: Inside ESPN's Sportscenter (Atria, 1997). ISBN 0-671-00918-4.
* The Major League Coaches: 1921-1973 (Card Memorabilia Associates, 1973)