Okay, it has nothing to do with health insurance reform, or the Mideast, or even our major political parties.
The NY Times is announcing that there is a truce in the ongoing battle between Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly. It seems that Jeff Imelt and Rupert Murdoch had had enough of it...
Hmmmm....
More after the great orange jump:
The jist of it is that the tit-for-tat battle was becoming bad for both parent companies:
It was perhaps the fiercest media feud of the decade and by this year, their bosses had had enough. But it took a fellow television personality with a neutral perspective to bring it to an end.
At an off-the-record summit meeting for chief executives sponsored by Microsoft in May, the PBS interviewer Charlie Rose asked Jeffrey Immelt, chairman of G.E., and his counterpart at the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, about the feud.
Both moguls expressed regret over the venomous culture between the two networks. Then — even though the feud had increased the viewing audience of both programs — they instructed lieutenants to arrange a cease-fire, according to three people who work at the companies and have direct knowledge of the deal.
Of course, no one on either side wants to comment, but it does seem that things have toned down. Considering I pretty much never turn Fox on, I have no clue what is being said there. Of course, Keith stop mentioning Billo on air since the murder of Dr. Tiller in Kansas.
Keith says that he is not part of any deal:
Mr. Olbermann, who is on vacation, said by e-mail message, "I am party to no deal," adding that he would not have been included in any conversations between G.E. and the News Corporation. Fox News said it would not comment.
I'm not sure where this is going to go. Fox News has boxed themselves into a corner. They have the largest audience of the three cable news channels, but it is also the oldest audience and most reactionary. If they were to actually move a bit more to the center, beyond having to fire every on air personality, they'd lose their audience.
For MSNBC, it is recognition by NewsCorp that Keith was damaging them. For that alone, Keith deserves our eternal gratitude.