Keith Olbermann (born January 27, 1959) is an American journalist 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.

Contents

1 Early career 2 After SportsCenter 3 Return to reporting 4 Trivia 5 External links 5.1 Articles and interviews

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.

In 1992, Olbermann joined ESPN's SportsCenter, a position he held until 1997, often co-anchored with Dan Patrick. While there, he was instrumental in helping to launch ESPN Radio and ESPN2. In 1995, he won a Cable Ace award for Best Sportscaster while co-anchoring the "big show" as he called it. Olbermann would later write a book called The Big Show about his experiences working at SportsCenter.

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 senior correspondent on for Fox Sports 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 hired 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".

According to Dash Riprock of the liberal 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." [1] http://www.americanpolitics.com/20030401punditpap.html

Trivia

• Shoe size is 13 1/2 or 14.
• Possesses six lumbar vertebrae instead of the usual five.
• Damaged depth perception in 1980 by rushing to catch a subway car at New York's Shea Stadium and slamming his head into the top of the door frame.
• Has Celiac Disease (gluten intolerance).

External links

• MSNBC - Countdown with Keith Olbermann Front Page http://countdown.msnbc.com/
• Bloggermann, the Countdown blog http://bloggermann.msnbc.com/
• Petition to Start a Keith Olbermann Fan Club http://www.petitiononline.com/10212000/petition.html
• Olbermann Watch (Anti-Olbermann Blog by Bob Cox) http://www.olbermannwatch.com/

Articles and interviews

• "On Air and Online, Olbermann Draws Attention to Voting Problems," Mark Glaser, Online Journalism Review, November 30, 2004 http://209.200.80.136/ojr/stories/041130glaser/
• "Olbermann's Re-Countdown," Joe Hagan, New York Observer, November 29, 2004 http://www.independent-media.tv/itemprint.cfm?fmedia_id=9922&fcategory_desc=Unde
  r%20Reported
• "'Playgirl' picks Olbermann as its newscaster pinup boy," USAToday.com, September 13, 2004 http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2004-09-13-sexiest-newscaster_x.htm
• "Three, Two, One, Olbermann," Washington Post Media Notes, July 28, 2003 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A54273
  -2003Jul27&notFound=true
• "Keith Olbermann: The PBJ Interview," Bob Sassone, Professor Barnhardt's Journal, April 22, 2003 http://sassone.tripod.com/pbjissue18.html
• "So what do you do, Keith Olbermann?" Jesse Oxfeld, mediabistro.com, April 15, 2003 http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a177.asp
• "ESPN: Mea Culpa", Salon.com, November 17, 2002 http://www.salon.com/news/sports/col/olbermann/2002/11/17/meaculpa
• Olbermann's Convocation Speech at Cornell University. May 23, 1998 http://www.news.cornell.edu/campus/Olbermann_speech.html