KOS Media is a multimedia company based in the county of Kent in South East England. The company operates local newspapers and internet sites throughout the county.

History[link]

KOS Media's first newspaper, the Kent on Sunday was launched as a free newspaper in 2002. The company is based in Smeeth, near Ashford.

The company also produces YourKentTV, an internet based TV channel providing local news and features.

Until May 2009 all KOS Media newspapers were free. In June both Kent on Saturday and Kent on Sunday became paid for in the newsagents, in order to increase availability, whilst the free copies were diverted to business rounds and home delivery. The mid-week local papers remain free. All titles have a fast growing online audience as they are available free as a page turning e-edition, or by subscription on Kentnews.co.uk.

KOS Media was purchased by Archant in June 2010^[1], having had had a minority interest in KOS Media since 2005.

Newspapers[link]

Free newspapers[link]

In the summer of 2007 KOS Media introduced free, local papers for different parts of Kent. These are published on Wednesdays. The papers are listed below with their coverage as of March 2009^[2]

• Kent on Saturday
• Kent on Sunday
• yourashford
• yourcanterbury
• yourdover
• yourmaidstone
• yourmedway
• yourshepway
• yourswale
• yourthanet

These were joined in 2009 by four more local newspapers.

• yourdeal
• yoursandwich
• your Tunbridge Wells

The latter two both serve Royal Tunbridge Wells and are published on their respective title days.

Magazines[link]

KOS Media publishes magazines accompanying its paid for papers, such as the "Kent Weekend" entertainment and leisure guide. It also publishes Isle Magazine (published quarterly for the Isle of Thanet); and BBC Radio Kent County Life for the BBC^[3]. This caused a complaint against KOS Media and the BBC by rival group the KM Group^[4].

Television[link]

KOS Media operates the YourKentTV internet television channel. The channel features local news and sport, and videos both sent in by viewers and provided by the company.

References[link]

External links[link]

• KentNews, the KOS Media's flagship site
• YourKentTV

Look up media in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Media may refer to:

Communications[link]

• Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data
  • Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
  • Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass electronic communication networks
  • Digital media, electronic media used to store, transmit, and receive digitized information
  • Electronic media, communications delivered via electronic or electromechanical energy
  • Hypermedia, media with hyperlinks
  • Mass media, all means of mass communications
  • Multimedia, communications that incorporate multiple forms of information content and processing
  • New media, a broad term encompassing the amalgamation of traditional media with the interactive power of computer and communications technology
  • News media, mass media focused on communicating news
  • News media (United States), the news media of the United States of America
  • Print media, communications delivered via paper or canvas
  • Published media, any media made available to the public
  • Recording media, devices used to store information
  • Social media, media disseminated through social interaction
  • MEDIA Programme, a European Union initiative to support the European audiovisual sector

Computing[link]

• Media (computer), used in computer data storage devices
• Media player (application software), a piece of software designed to play audio and videos

Fine art[link]

• Media (arts), materials and techniques used by an artist to produce a work

History[link]

• Median Empire, an ancient Iranian kingdom of the Medians (Medes) in north-western Iran

Life sciences[link]

• Growth medium, objects in which microorganisms or cells can experience growth
• Media filter, a filter consisting of several different filter materials
• Tunica media, the middle layer of the wall of a blood vessel
• A group of insect wing veins in the Comstock-Needham system

Places[link]

• Media, Illinois
• Media, Pennsylvania

Music[link]

• Media (album), the 1998 album by The Faint

Mythology[link]

• Medea, the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis in Greek mythology

Ships[link]

• RMS Media, a Cunard Line cargo liner in service 1948-61

See also[link]

• Media ecology
• Media meshing
• Media psychology
• Media studies
• Medium (disambiguation)
• Multimedia learning
• Kaus Media, a star system in the constellation Sagittarius

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Keith Olbermann
Olbermann in 2008
Born	Keith Theodore Olbermann[1] (1959-01-27) January 27, 1959 (age 53) New York City, United States
Education	B.S. Communications Arts
Alma mater	Cornell University
Occupation	sports announcer, broadcast journalist, political commentator
Years active	1980s–present
Height	1.92 m (6 ft 3 1⁄2 in)[2]
Television	Countdown with Keith Olbermann (2003–2012) SportsCenter (1992–1997) Football Night in America (2007–2010)
Awards	three Edward R. Murrow Awards[3]

Keith Theodore Olbermann ( /ˈoʊlbərmən/; born January 27, 1959) is an American political commentator and writer. Most recently, he was the chief news officer of the Current TV network and the host of the Current TV weeknight political commentary program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, until March 30, 2012, a program he hosted with the same title and a similar format on MSNBC from March 2003 to January 2011.^[4][5]

During his time at MSNBC, Olbermann established a niche in cable news commentary, gaining note for his pointed criticism of mainly right-leaning politicians and public figures^{[6][7][8][9][10]} such as Fox News Channel commentator Bill O'Reilly,^[11][12] President George W. Bush and 2008 Republican presidential nominee, John McCain.^[13] Though he has been described as a "liberal", he has resisted being labelled politically, stating "I'm not a liberal. I'm an American".^[14]

Olbermann spent the first twenty years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and radio stations in the 1980s, winning the Best Sportscaster award from the California Associated Press three times. He co-hosted ESPN's SportsCenter from 1992 to 1997. From 1998 to 2001, he was a producer and anchor for Fox Sports Net and a host of Major League Baseball on Fox.

Early life[link]

Olbermann was born January 27, 1959, in New York City to Marie Katherine (née Charbonier),^[15] a preschool teacher, and Theodore Olbermann, a commercial architect,^[9] and is of German descent.^[16] He has one younger sister, Jenna, who was born in 1968.^[17] Olbermann grew up in a Unitarian household^[18] in the town of Hastings-on-Hudson^[19] in Westchester County, and attended Hackley School^[9][10] in nearby Tarrytown.

Olbermann became a devoted fan of baseball at a young age, a love he inherited from his mother who was a lifelong New York Yankees fan.^[15] As a teenager, he often wrote about baseball card-collecting and appeared in many sports card-collecting periodicals of the mid-1970s. He is also referenced in Sports Collectors Bible, a 1979 book by Bert Sugar, which is considered one of the important early books for trading card collectors.^[20]

While at Hackley, Olbermann began his broadcasting career as a play-by-play announcer for WHTR. After graduating from Hackley in 1975, Olbermann enrolled at Cornell University at the age of 16.^[21] At college, Olbermann served as sports director for WVBR, a student-run commercial radio station in Ithaca.^[21] Olbermann graduated from Cornell in 1979 with a B.S. in communications arts.^[22]

Sports broadcasting[link]

Olbermann began his professional career at UPI and the RKO Radio Network before joining then nascent CNN in 1981. Among the early stories he covered was the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid including the "Miracle on Ice."^[21] In the early-to-mid '80s he was a sportscaster on the old WNEW 1130-AM radio station in New York City. Also in the mid-1980s, he did the voice-over on the USA Cable Network's "Cartoon Express", with cheering kids heard in the background. 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.^[23]

ESPN[link]

In 1992, Olbermann joined ESPN's SportsCenter, a position he held until 1997 with the exception of a period from 1993–1994 when he was at ESPN2 on SportsNight. He joined ESPN2 as their "marquee" personality to help launch the network.^[24][25] He often co-hosted SportsCenter 11 PM show with Dan Patrick, the two becoming a popular anchor team. In 1995, Olbermann won a Cable ACE award for Best Sportscaster.^[22] Olbermann later co-authored a book with Patrick called The Big Show about their experiences working at SportsCenter; he also said that the short-lived ABC dramedy Sports Night was based on his time on SportsCenter with Patrick.^[26] In his last year with KCBS before moving east to work for ESPN, Olbermann's salary was $475,000 but started "just over $150,000" with ESPN.^[27] He made $350,000 at the end of his tenure at ESPN.^[28]

Early in 1997, Olbermann was suspended for two weeks after he made an unauthorized appearance on The Daily Show on Comedy Central with then-host and former ESPN colleague Craig Kilborn. At one point in the show, he referred to Bristol, Connecticut (ESPN's headquarters), as a "'Godforsaken place."^[28] Later that year, Olbermann abruptly left ESPN under a cloud of controversy, apparently burning his bridges with the network's management;^[29] this began a long and drawn-out feud between Olbermann and ESPN. Between 1997 and 2007, incidents between the two sides included Olbermann's publishing an essay on Salon.com in November 2002, titled "Mea Culpa", in which he stated: "I couldn't handle the pressure of working in daily long-form television, and what was worse, I didn't know I couldn't handle it."^[30] The essay told of an instance when his former bosses remarked he had "too much backbone," a claim that is literally true, as Olbermann has six lumbar vertebrae instead of the normal five.^[30]

In 2004, Olbermann was not included in ESPN's guest lineup for its 25th anniversary SportsCenter "Reunion Week," which saw 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 had recently learned that as a result of ESPN's agreeing to let him return to the airwaves, he was banned from ESPN's main (Bristol, Connecticut) campus.^[31]

[edit] Post-SportsCenter

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. In May and July 1999, Olbermann also guest starred ten times on the Hollywood Squares.^[32]

According to Olbermann, he was demoted by Fox when he asked for a slight reduction in duties for health reasons, and then was fired from Fox in 2001 after reporting on rumors that Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation owns Fox, was planning on selling the Los Angeles Dodgers.^[33] Olbermann characterized the demotion as "blackmail".^[34] When asked about Olbermann, Murdoch said: "I fired him...He's crazy."^[35][36] News Corp. went on to sell the Dodgers to Frank McCourt in 2004. That year, Olbermann remarked, "Fox Sports was an infant trying to stand [in comparison to ESPN], but on the broadcast side there was no comparison—ESPN was the bush leagues."^[21]

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.^[37]

In 2005, Olbermann made a return to ESPN on the radio when he began co-hosting an hour of the syndicated Dan Patrick Show on ESPN radio, a tenure that lasted until Patrick left ESPN on August 17, 2007.^[38] Olbermann and Patrick referred to this segment as "The Big Show," just as their book was known. Patrick often introduced Olbermann with the tagline "saving the democracy," a nod to his work on Countdown.

On April 16, 2007, Olbermann was named co-host of Football Night in America, NBC's NFL pre-game show that precedes their Sunday Night NFL game, a position which reunited him in 2008 with his former SportsCenter co-anchor Dan Patrick. Olbermann left the show prior to the start of the 2010 season.^[39]

News journalism[link]

In 1997, Olbermann left ESPN to host a primetime show on MSNBC, The Big Show with Keith Olbermann (ESPN objected to the use of the title).^[28] The news-driven program, with substantial discussion, relied on Olbermann to carry the 8 to 9 PM hour.^[28] The show typically covered three or four topics in a one-hour broadcast. Olbermann also hosted two Sunday editions of NBC Nightly News and once co-anchored a Saturday edition of the Today show.^[40][41] During that period, Olbermann along with Hannah Storm, also co-hosted NBC Sports' pre-game coverage of the MLB 1997 World Series.

When the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in 1998, The Big Show with Keith Olbermann 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."^[29] Olbermann left MSNBC for Fox Sports Net shortly thereafter.

After leaving Fox Sports in 2001, Olbermann returned once more to news journalism. In 2003, his network won an Edward R. Murrow Award for writing on the "Keith Olbermann Speaking of Everything" show.^[42] In addition, Olbermann wrote a weekly column for Salon.com from July 2002 until early 2003,^[43] worked for CNN as a freelance reporter,^[21] and was a fill-in for newscaster Paul Harvey.^[44][45]

Olbermann revived his association with MSNBC in 2003 briefly as a substitute host on Nachman and as an anchor for the network's coverage of the war in Iraq.

[edit] Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Olbermann's own show, Countdown, debuted on March 31, 2003, in the 8 p.m. ET time slot previously held by programs hosted by Phil Donahue and, briefly, Lester Holt. On October 13, 2004, Olbermann launched Bloggermann, his Countdown blog, hosted on MSNBC.com.^[46] 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. 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 numerically reverse order, 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. His stories usually involve celebrities, sports, and, regularly and somewhere in the middle, the bizarre, in a segment he calls "Oddball." Opinions on each are offered by Olbermann and interviewed guests. Olbermann has been criticized for only having guests that agree with his perspective. Former Los Angeles Times television critic Howard Rosenberg stated that "Countdown is more or less an echo chamber in which Olbermann and like-minded bobbleheads nod at each other."^[47]

In a technique similar to that of former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite in connection to the Iran Hostage Crisis,^[48] Olbermann for many years closed^[49] the program by counting the days since May 1, 2003, the day that President George W. Bush declared the end of "major combat operations" in Iraq under a banner that read "Mission Accomplished", and then crumpling up his notes, throwing them at the camera and saying "Good night and good luck" in the mode of another former CBS newsman, Edward Murrow. Olbermann discounts this gesture to his hero as "presumptuous" and a "feeble tribute." ^[50]

On February 16, 2007, MSNBC reported that Olbermann had signed a four-year extension on his contract with MSNBC for Countdown which also provided for his hosting of two Countdown specials a year to be aired on NBC as well as for his occasional contribution of essays on NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams.^[51]

Olbermann co-anchored, with Chris Matthews, MSNBC's coverage of the death of fellow NBC News employee Tim Russert on June 13, 2008.^[52] He presented a tribute, along with several fellow journalists, in honor of Russert.^[53]

During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Olbermann co-anchored MSNBC's coverage with Chris Matthews until September 7, 2008, when they were replaced by David Gregory after complaints from both outside and inside of NBC that they were making partisan statements.^[13] This apparent conflict of interest had been an issue as early as May 2007, when Giuliani campaign officials complained about his serving in dual roles, as both a host and a commentator.^[54] Despite this, Countdown was broadcast both before and after each of the presidential and vice-presidential debates, and Olbermann and Matthews joined Gregory on MSNBC's Election Day coverage.^[55] Olbermann and Matthews also led MSNBC's coverage of the inauguration of President Barack Obama.^[56][57]

In November 2008, it was announced that Olbermann had signed a four-year contract extension worth an estimated $30 million.^[58]

Feud with Bill O'Reilly[link]

Since beginning Countdown's "Worst Person in the World" segment in July 2005, Olbermann has repeatedly awarded Bill O'Reilly, host of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel, the dubious honor.^[6] The feud between the anchors originated with Olbermann's extensive coverage of a 2004 sexual harassment suit brought against O'Reilly by former Fox News Channel producer Andrea Mackris during which Olbermann asked Countdown viewers to fund the purchase of lurid audio tapes allegedly held by Mackris.^[59][60] In 2008 O'Reilly decided to avoid mentioning Olbermann's name on the air, and once cut off a caller who mentioned Olbermann.^[61] O'Reilly has also led campaigns against MSNBC's political coverage without ever specifically mentioning Olbermann.^[6][62][63] The rivalry continued when in 2006 at Television Critics' Association in California, Olbermann donned a mask of O'Reilly and made a Nazi salute, leading to a letter of protest from the Anti-Defamation League.^[64][65][66]

In an article on "perhaps the fiercest media feud of the decade", the New York Times's Brian Stelter noted that as of early June 2009 the "combat" between the two hosts seems to have abruptly ended due to instructions filtered down to Olbermann and O'Reilly from the chief executives of their respective networks.^[67] On the August 3, 2009 edition of Countdown, Olbermann asserted that he had made statements to Stelter before the article was published denying that he was a party to such a deal, or that there was such a deal between NBC and Fox News, or that any NBC executive had asked him to change Countdown's content. Olbermann maintained that he had stopped joking about O'Reilly because of O'Reilly's attacks of George Tiller, and soon resumed his criticism of O'Reilly.^[68]

Suspension[link]

On October 28, 2010, days before the 2010 U.S. elections, Olbermann donated $2,400 each to three Democratic candidates for Congress: Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway, and Arizona Democratic Representatives Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords.^[69] Grijalva had appeared on Olbermann's show immediately before Olbermann mailed the donations. In response, on November 5, MSNBC President Phil Griffin suspended him indefinitely without pay for violating a network policy which required employees to obtain approval from management before making political contributions.^[70][71] An online petition calling for his reinstatement received over 250,000 signatures;^[72] two days after the suspension began, Griffin announced that Olbermann would return to the air on November 9.^[72]

Departure[link]

On January 21, 2011, Olbermann announced his departure from MSNBC and the episode would be the final episode of Countdown.^[73][74] MSNBC issued a statement that it had ended its contract with Olbermann, with no further explanation. Additional reporting in the days immediately following suggested that the negotiations for the end of Olbermann's tenure at MSNBC had begun soon after the end of his suspension.^[75]

Current TV and FOKNewsChannel.com[link]

On February 8, 2011, it was announced that Olbermann had taken the position of chief news officer for the Al Gore/Joel Hyatt–owned public affairs channel Current TV and would begin hosting a one-hour prime time program on the network.^[76] The new show was scheduled to air at 8 PM Eastern — the same time slot that Countdown was in.^[77] On April 26, 2011 it was announced that Olbermann's new show would debut on June 20 and would be named Countdown with Keith Olbermann.^[78] Olbermann was also heavily involved in the development of the rest of the network's news programming.^[79] The deal also included an equity stake in Current TV.^[80]

During the interim between shows, Olbermann launched an "official not-for-profit" blog called FOKNewsChannel.com, "FOK" being an abbreviation for "Friends Of Keith". The blog featured political commentaries by Olbermann—including viral video versions of Countdown's "Special Comment" and "Worst Person" segments, as well as photographs of his outings at professional baseball games.^[81] On May 29, 2011, the FOKNewsChannel.com domain redirected to the Current website promoting the June 20 launch.^[82]

Olbermann was fired on March 30, 2012. In a statement from Current TV, they stated that "Current was [...] founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it." Olbermann released his own statement, apologizing for "the failure of Current TV" and "that the claims against me implied in Current's statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently." His show was replaced by a show hosted by Eliot Spitzer.^[83][84]

Olberman was on This Week as a roundtable participant on Sunday April 22, 2012.

Political positions[link]

Viewpoints[link]

Although it began as a traditional newscast, Countdown with Keith Olbermann eventually adopted an opinion-oriented format. In a Countdown interview with Al Franken on October 25, 2005, Olbermann noted that in 2003, after having Janeane Garofalo and Franken on his show, a vice president of MSNBC had questioned him on inviting "liberals" on consecutive nights, contrasting that occurrence to the apparent ideological latitude he enjoyed at the time of the second Franken interview.^[85] In January 2007 The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz wrote that Olbermann was "position[ing] his program as an increasingly liberal alternative to The O'Reilly Factor."^[86] Much of the program has featured harsh criticism of prominent Republicans and right-leaning figures, including those who worked for or supported the George W. Bush Administration, 2008 Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain and running mate Governor Sarah Palin,^[13][87] and rival news commentator Bill O'Reilly, whom Olbermann has routinely dubbed the "Worst Person In The World".^[7]

During the 2008 Democratic Party primaries, Olbermann frequently chastised presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton for her campaign tactics against her principal opponent, Senator Barack Obama, and made her the subject of two of his "special comments".^[88][89] Olbermann has also posted on the liberal blog Daily Kos.^[90]

In November 2007, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph placed Olbermann at #67 on their Top 100 list of most influential US liberals. It said that he uses his MSNBC show to promote "an increasingly strident liberal agenda." It added that he would be "a force on the Left for some time to come."^[91] Avoiding ideological self-labeling, Olbermann described his reporting in 2006 to Salon.com, "I don’t think in these issues that I’m a liberal; I think that I’m an American. I think I’m acting almost as a historian on these particular things".^[7]

Before the 2010 Massachusetts special election, Olbermann called Republican candidate Scott Brown "an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, Tea Bagging supporter of violence against women, and against politicians with whom he disagrees".^[92] This was criticized by his colleague Joe Scarborough, who called the comments "reckless" and "sad".^[93] Yael T. Abouhalkah of the Kansas City Star said that Olbermann "crossed the line in a major way with his comments".^[94] Jon Stewart criticized him about this attack in his show by noting that it was "the harshest description of anyone I've ever heard uttered on MSNBC", following which Olbermann apologized by noting, "I have been a little over the top lately. Point taken. Sorry."^[95]

He has accused the Tea Party movement of being racist due to what he views as a lack of racial diversity at the events, using photos that show overwhelmingly Caucasian crowds attending the rallies. In response, the Dallas Tea Party invited Olbermann to attend one of their events and also criticized his network for a lack of racial diversity, pointing out that an online banner of MSNBC personalities that appears on the website shows only white personalities. Olbermann declined the invitation, citing his father's prolonged ill health and hospitalization and noted that the network has minority anchors, contributors and guests.^[96]

Criticism of the Bush administration[link]

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.^[97]

On his February 14, 2008 "Special Comments" segment, Olbermann castigated Bush for threatening to veto an extension of the Protect America Act unless it provided full immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies.^[98] During the same commentary, Olbermann called Bush a fascist.^[98]

In a special comment on May 14, 2008, Olbermann criticized Bush for announcing that he had stopped playing golf in honor of American soldiers who died in the Iraq war. He stated that Bush never should have started the war in the first place, and he accused Bush of dishonesty and war crimes.^[9]

Baseball fan[link]

Olbermann is a dedicated baseball fan and historian of the sport, with membership in the Society for American Baseball Research.^[99] In 1973, when he was only 14 years old, Card Memorabilia Associates published his book The Major League Coaches: 1921–1973. The September issue of Beckett Sports Collectibles Vintage included a T206 card that depicted Olbermann in a 1905-era New York Giants uniform.^[100] He argues that New York Giants baseball player Fred Merkle has been unduly criticized for his infamous baserunning mistake.^[101] He contributed the foreword to More Than Merkle (ISBN 0-8032-1056-6), a book requesting amnesty for "Merkle's Boner". Olbermann was also one of the founders of the first experts' fantasy baseball league, the USA Today Baseball Weekly League of Alternative Baseball Reality, and he gave the league its nickname "LABR".^[102] Olbermann wrote the foreword to the 2009 Baseball Prospectus Annual.^[103]

In March 2009, Olbermann began a baseball-related blog entitled Baseball Nerd. He has also written a series of articles on baseball cards for the Sports Collectors Digest.^[104]

Personal life[link]

In June 2006, Olbermann began dating Katy Tur, now a reporter with WNBC-TV.^[10][105] According to Mediaite, the couple broke up in 2009 after three years of cohabitation.^[106]

Olbermann suffers from a mild case of coeliac disease,^[107] as well as restless legs syndrome.^[9] In August 1980, he also suffered a head injury while "leaping" onto a New York City Subway train.^[108] This head injury permanently upset his equilibrium, resulting in his avoidance of driving.^[9] Along with Bob Costas, he supports the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation as an honorary board member.^[109]

During a period in the mid-1990s, Olbermann appeared in a series of Boston Market advertisements, in which he would instruct a group of underweight models to "Eat something!"^[28]

Olbermann's father, Theodore, died on March 13, 2010 of complications from colon surgery the previous September. His mother had died several months before.^[110] Olbermann had cited the need to spend time with his father for taking a leave of absence shortly before his father's death, occasionally recording segments to air at the beginning of the shows which Lawrence O'Donnell guest hosted in his absence, giving his views on the state of the American health care system and updating viewers on his father's condition.^[111]

Career timeline[link]

• SportsCenter, co-anchor (1992–1997)^[112]
• The Big Show, anchor (1997–1998)^[112]
• White House in Crisis, anchor (1997–1998)^[112]
• Major League Baseball on Fox, studio host (1999–2000)^[112]
• The Keith Olbermann Evening News, anchor (1998–2001)^[112]
• Football Night in America, co-host (2007–2010)
• Countdown with Keith Olbermann, anchor (MSNBC: 2003–2011; Current TV: 2011–2012)^[112]

Bibliography[link]

• The Major League Coaches: 1921–1973 (Card Memorabilia Associates, 1973).
• The Big Show: Inside ESPN's Sportscenter (Atria, 1997) (coauthor: Dan Patrick). ISBN 0-671-00918-4.
• The Worst Person In the World and 202 Strong Contenders (Wiley, September 2006). ISBN 0-470-04495-0.
• Truth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration's War on American Values (Random House, December 2007). ISBN 978-1-4000-6676-6.
• Pitchforks and Torches: The Worst of the Worst, from Beck, Bill, and Bush to Palin and Other Posturing Republicans (Wiley, October 25, 2010). ISBN 0-470-61447-1.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Keith Olbermann

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Keith Olbermann

• Keith Olbermann on Twitter
• Keith Olbermann's blog on The Daily Kos
• Baseball Nerd, Olbermann's Major League Baseball blog
• Biography at TV guide
• Appearances on C-SPAN
  • C-SPAN Q&A interview with Olbermann, March 12, 2006
• Keith Olbermann on Charlie Rose
• Keith Olbermann at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Keith Olbermann in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (December 2011)

Chris Matthews
Matthews at the 2011 Time 100 Gala.
Born	Christopher John Matthews (1945-12-17) December 17, 1945 (age 66) Somerton, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Ethnicity	Irish
Education	College of the Holy Cross
Occupation	News anchor and political commentator
Notable credit(s)	Hardball with Chris Matthews The Chris Matthews Show
Religion	Roman Catholic
Spouse	Kathleen Matthews
Relatives	Montgomery County, PA County Commissioner Jim Matthews (brother)

Christopher John "Chris" Matthews (born December 17, 1945) is an American news anchor and political commentator known for his nightly hour-long talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, which is televised on the American cable television channel MSNBC. On weekends he hosts the syndicated NBC News–produced panel discussion program The Chris Matthews Show. Matthews makes frequent appearances on many other NBC and MSNBC programs. On March 22, 2009, Matthews renewed the contract for Hardball with Chris Matthews through 2012.^[1]

Early life and education[link]

Matthews was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Irish American parents and is a Roman Catholic.^[2] He attended La Salle College High School. He is a 1967 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and did graduate work in economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.^[3][4]

Matthews served in the United States Peace Corps in Swaziland from 1968 to 1970^[5] as a trade development adviser.

Career[link]

Political career and views[link]

When Matthews first arrived in Washington, D.C., he worked as a police officer with the United States Capitol Police.^[6] Subsequently, he served on the staffs of four Democratic members of Congress, including Senators Frank Moss and Edmund Muskie. In 1974, he mounted an unsuccessful campaign for Pennsylvania's 4th congressional district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in which he received about 24% of the vote in the primary.^[7] Matthews was a presidential speechwriter during the Carter administration and later worked for six years as a top aide to longtime Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neill, playing a direct role in many key political battles with the Reagan administration.

Matthews in October 2007

Despite having worked for Democrats, Matthews has said, "I'm more conservative than people think I am.... I voted for George W. in 2000."^[8] Salon.com has called him the "most conservative voice" on MSNBC's primetime lineup.^[9] Matthews has been accused by media watchdogs^[10] of having panels of guests that skew to the right and of supporting Republicans in his own questions and comments.^[11][12] Conversely, he is also often criticized by conservatives for his opposition to the Iraq War among other stances he took against the Bush administration.

On the April 14, 2008, edition of The Colbert Report, Matthews alluded to a possible run for the United States Senate from Pennsylvania. When directly questioned by Stephen Colbert about his intentions, he stated that there is a difference between celebrities and those who work for the people, and it's a greater thing to work for the people. He also said that his boyhood dream was to be a senator. Four days later, on April 18, 2008, Matthews told Bill Maher that he has "made a commitment to covering politics in a liberal way, starting in 1987, and [he is] honoring that commitment, not getting involved in it."^[13] The seat in question was the one held by Sen. Arlen Specter, whose term in the Senate ended in January 2011. On November 28, 2008, Fivethirtyeight.com and The Politico reported that Matthews had been in contact with senior staffers of Barack Obama's campaign about a possible run.^[14][15] On January 7, 2009, The New York Times reported that Matthews told his staffers that he would not run for the Senate.^[16] On May 25, 2009 Chris Matthews appeared on Charlie Rose where he stated that he was intending to run for Specter's Senate seat in 2010, stating, "I could see myself winning the Democratic primary and I could see myself going on to face Arlen in the general [election]," but that he felt he had to decide between being a journalist and being a politician once Specter became a national figure by supporting the stimulus.

While discussing proposed healthcare reform on the December 17, 2009, edition of Hardball, Matthews stated, "The Republicans will know they have lost.... Let them keep score and it's easy. It's complicated when liberals get to keep score. We're always arguing. Well, I'm a liberal, too."^[17][18]

Author and talk show host[link]

Matthews during a special edition of Hardball

Matthews worked in print media for 15 years, spending 13 years as Washington, D.C. bureau chief for the San Francisco Examiner (1987–2000) and two years as a nationally syndicated columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Matthews covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first all-races election in South Africa, and the Good Friday Peace Talks in Northern Ireland. In 1997 and 1998, his research in the National Archives produced a series of exclusives on the Nixon presidential tapes. Matthews has covered American presidential election campaigns since 1988.

In 1997, Matthews began his own talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, which originally aired on CNBC but is currently on MSNBC. Hardball features pundits and elected officials as guests.

In 2002, The Chris Matthews Show began airing in syndication. The show is formatted as a political roundtable consisting of four journalists and Matthews, who serves as the moderator. He is estimated to earn more than $5 million a year. He also wrote a book called Hardball.^[19]

Personal life[link]

Matthews has been married since 1980 to Kathleen Matthews, who anchored News 7 on WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C., before accepting a position as an executive vice president with J.W. Marriott. The couple have three children: Michael, Thomas, and Caroline. His brother Jim Matthews, a Republican, is a county commissioner in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

In 2002, Matthews was hospitalized with malaria, which he evidently contracted on one of his visits that year to Africa.^{[citation needed]} He has also had other health problems, including diabetes (which he acknowledged having on the Hardball broadcast of December 7, 2009) and pneumonia.^[20]

Criticisms and controversy[link]

Matthews and his wife Kathleen at the 2010 Time 100 Gala.

Liberal blogger Glenn Greenwald has called Matthews "the most vivid example of all that is wrong with political coverage," saying "[H]e’s endlessly obsessed with personality-based politics and likes to promote the strong, masculine tough guy who you can have a beer with, versus the nerdy loser. And he has a cast of characters who go on his show, like Newsweek’s Howard Fineman, who gush over the maleness of the Republican candidates and warn Democrats about how that has real appeal to American voters. Most political reporters judge candidates on the basis of the likeability factor—Matthews is just more explicit about it."^[21]

Others have criticized Matthews for talking too much on air, not letting his guests talk, and often talking over and interrupting them. One who also worked in the Carter Administration has written: "Generally in those days Chris was a relatively quiet person around the White House, and in meetings or briefings would frequently say very little, or nothing at all. I guess he's making up for lost time—or 'lost talk'—now. Nevertheless, I'm a big fan of his show, always fascinating without fail—at least if you're a political junkie."^[22]

The progressive media watchdog group Media Matters for America named Matthews its 2005 "Misinformer of the Year," citing statements he made in support of President George W. Bush.^[23]

On January 9, 2008, the morning after Hillary Clinton's surprise victory in the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, Matthews appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe program and said of Clinton,

The comments were criticized by such media figures as Bill O'Reilly, Joy Behar, and Gloria Steinem.^[24][26][27] They also resulted in protests outside NBC's Washington, D.C., studios as well as a joint letter of complaint to NBC from the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority, and the National Women's Political Caucus. Matthews apologized for the comments on the January 17, 2008, edition of Hardball.^[27]

After Matthews and Keith Olbermann made controversial on-air comments during the 2008 Republican National Convention, NBC News correspondent David Gregory replaced them, but Matthews and Olbermann continued working as analysts.^[28] On November 4–5, he teamed with Rachel Maddow, Eugene Robinson, David Gregory, and Keith Olbermann to cover the presidential election.

On February 12, 2008, during MSNBC's coverage of the Potomac primary, Matthews had this to say about then presidential candidate Barack Obama:

This led some on the political right to assert that both he and MSNBC were biased toward Obama.^[30]

On November 6, 2008, he was a guest on the MSNBC television program Morning Joe, wherein he stated, "I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work." Host Joe Scarborough asked if that was his job as a journalist. "Yeah, that’s my job. My job is to help this country," Matthews replied.^[31]

On December 1, 2009, preceding Obama's speech announcing a troop increase in Afghanistan, Matthews criticized the president for choosing the United States Military Academy as his venue, referring to it as "the enemy camp."^[32] Soon after, Matthews apologized for his remarks, saying, "[To] the cadets, their parents, former cadets, and everyone who cares about this country and those who defend it: I used the wrong words and worse than that I said something that is just not right and for that I deeply apologize."^[33]

In January 2010, in Matthews's comments after President Obama's first State of the Union Address, he said, "You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour."^{[34][35][36][37][38]} The next day, on the Rachel Maddow show, Matthews clarified his remarks, saying, "I think he’s taken us beyond black and white in our politics, wonderfully so, in just a year."^[39]

Bibliography[link]

• Matthews, Christopher (2011). Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-3508-9. 
• Matthews, Christopher (2007). Life’s a Campaign: What Politics Has Taught Me About Friendship, Rivalry, Reputation, and Success (1st ed. ed.). New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1-4000-6528-8. 
• Matthews, Christopher (2002). American: Beyond Our Grandest Notions. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-4086-3. 
• Matthews, Christopher (2001). Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think (1st ed. ed.). New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-684-86236-0. 
• Matthews, Christopher (1999). Hardball: How Politics Is Played, Told By One Who Knows the Game (1st Touchstone ed. ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-84559-8. 
• Matthews, Christopher (1996). Kennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry that Shaped Postwar America. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81030-1. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Chris Matthews

• Hardball with Chris Matthews
• The Chris Matthews Show
• Appearances on C-SPAN
  • Booknotes interview with Matthews on Kennedy and Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America, June 9, 1996.
• Chris Matthews on Charlie Rose
• Chris Matthews at the Internet Movie Database
• Chris Matthews collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Works by or about Chris Matthews in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Chris Matthews at the Notable Names Database

Lupen Crook (born Matthew Pritchard)^[1] is an English musician and songwriter who records either solo or with his backing band The Murderbirds.

Style[link]

Initially making his name as an acoustic singer-songwriter, Lupen Crook has gone on to create an eclectic music style incorporating garage rock, "broken folk",^[2] "skiffle, hip-hop and gypsy punk",^[3] "off-kilter ska" and "gothic folk music".^[4] He has been described, variously, as "a solo singer/songwriter of a particularly unique ilk",^[3] "insidious, vile, an enigma"^[5] "a larger-than-life personality that sometimes wilfully seems to court the reputation of idiot savant and awkward bastard"^[6] and "Kent’s finest neo-gothic psychedelic folk troubadour".^[4]

As influences, Crook has cited Syd Barrett,^[2] Carter USM, early Walt Disney and Bon Scott of AC/DC as well as "the spirit that is punk rock, the smell of sex and the sound of stray sods singing out from the Medway Towns."^[7] He himself has been compared to artists as diverse as Kevin Coyne, The Jam, The Libertines, Ray Davies, The Clash and Jamie T.^[2][3][8][9]

Crook is also a visual artist (working predominantly in illustration and collage) who creates the artwork and packaging for his own releases as well as exhibiting work formally.

History[link]

Early years[link]

Matthew Pritchard grew up in Chatham (in the Medway area of Kent, England) and had a Catholic upbringing. He became interested in music at the age of eight, making early experiments with his father’s guitar and an eight-track recorder as well as forming a pre-teen rock band called Devil’s Disciples. During his later teen years, Pritchard attended art school. He also began exhibiting symptoms of what he later learned was schizoaffective disorder and spent a month sectioned in a Medway psychiatric ward: although he’d been informed by his doctors that his obsessive interest in songwriting was damaging his mental health, Pritchard opted to ignore their advice and continue with music.^[10] He has variously claimed to have spent the subsequent few years "off the radar completely" while signed off as unfit to work, or has listed various low-status jobs taken prior to devoting himself entirely to music and art.

During his early twenties, Pritchard played in the Chatham area bands Pet Burger and Bonzai Reservoir^[11] (the latter under the pseudonym of "Jilted Jack Cann").^[12] He claims to have taken on the pseudonym "Lupen Crook" as "a character idea"^[12] and in order to pursue a change of persona, although he has also recounted a story of having adopted it after an eerie experience in Chatham’s Victoria Gardens during which he was pursued "for a whole day" by a bird (an experience recounted in his song 'Matthew’s Magpie').^[6]

Initial releases[link]

Rechristened, Lupen Crook emerged as a solo "anti-folk"-style acoustic act in the Medway area in the mid-2000s. His first gigs took place in 2004, and his initial demo CD was given a limited release by a Chatham record label, Tap 'n' Tin Records, in early 2005. Tap 'n' Tin also released his first EP 'Petals Fresh from Road Kill' in August 2005, which was followed up by the 'Halloween' single in October 2005. Crook immediately made an impact with New Musical Express and was included on the magazine's Cool List compilation CD in 2005:^[11][12] an experience which he made light of at the time, but would later confess "completely threw me – it made me retreat hugely... I was a far more insecure person back then and I didn’t have my gang and my band around me."^[12]

Crook released two more short-form releases in 2006 - the 'Love 80' single in March^[3] and the EP 'A Silver Boot for Sam' in October.

The Murderbirds[link]

Initially performing solo, Crook then linked up with two brothers - Bob Langridge (drums) and Tom Langridge (bass guitar, keyboards) – who became his backing band The Murderbirds. Future releases would be credited either to Lupen Crook solo or to "Lupen Crook and The Murderbirds", although the Langridges generally contributed regardless of recording credits.

Lupen Crook’s debut album was Accidents Occur While Sleeping (released in July 2007 on Tap 'n' Tin). The album was credited to Crook alone, despite the Langridges contributing to many tracks. The album received a varied critical response (being described as both "schizophrenic" and "cinematic").^[13] Crook himself has referred to the album as being "probably over-ambitious, and as a result (it) was very stop-starty. I personally think it suffers from a sense of suffocation; basically it took too long to record."^[11] In November 2007, Crook released the 'Matthew's Magpie' EP, the first release credited to "Lupen Crook and The Murderbirds".^[14]

Lupen Crook and The Murderbirds embarked on a UK tour in 2007 in advance of the release of Iscariot the Ladder, their first album as a group. Crook has since described the tour as "a complete disgrace, utter fucking chaos. It didn’t do us any favours in the long term, we made a bad reputation for ourselves along the way but for those few weeks we were untouchable punk rockers, who with little in the way of resources, mostly frozen to the bone and filthy right through, built the foundations of a brotherhood that stand stronger than ever today."^[7] At the end of the tour, Crook and the Murderbirds briefly relocated to America, spending two weeks living as illegal immigrants in New York City.^[6] During their time in New York the band met fiddle and mandolin player Craig Harff, who became the fourth Murderbird.

Iscariot the Ladder was released in February 2008 to mixed reviews. Criticised in some quarters for a lack of songwriting discipline and focus,^[1] it was praised in others for its raw recording and outlook, with Subba-Cultcha magazine commenting that "the raw ingrained grime is spread across this sophomore album’s runtime like a public toilet’s handtowel. Its sordid themes and embittered melodies are all ruptured and flowing, creativity stemmed only by finances and narrow vision. The fantastist wanderings of Lupen’s debut opus are less in evidence here; instead, a balance between grim faerytale and dirty reality has been achieved. Tottering between both, the unhinged quality of Lupen’s output is just as plain as ever."^[5]

Beast Reality[link]

Iscariot the Ladder was the last record on Crook’s contract with Tap 'n' Tin. Having been less than impressed by his discussions with other record companies, Crook went on to set up the Beast Reality label, dedicated to releasing his own material. The label has a strong DIY ethic, delivering releases as downloads or as limited-edition CD releases featuring Crook’s own hand-made cover art. Crook has commented that "the whole thing with Beast Reality will be to get material out as much as possible – I’d like to be looking at two to three EPs and an album a year."

The first Beast Reality release was a Lupen Crook solo compilation of archive material called Old Books, Broken Bands And Other Little Treasures which was released in November 2008. This was followed in 2009 by two Lupen Crook and The Murderbirds releases – a second album called The Lost Belongings (in July) and the free 'Great Fears & Curious Predictions' EP in September.^[15] During the summer of 2009 Crook suffered a relapse of his schizoaffective disorder. When recovered, the experience inspired him to release another Murderbirds EP called 'The Curse of the Mirror Wicked' in association with the mental health charity YoungMinds (to whom Crook suggested fans made donations in lieu of paying for the download.^[16]

Crook released his second "solo" album, The Pros and Cons of Eating Out, in 2010. His eclecticism continued to provoke both interest and irritation in reviewers, with Subba Cultcha magazine complaining "The thing with this album is half of the songs are brilliant and the other half are distinctly average, making makes this album more lopsided than a table with only two legs. Fans of Lupen Crook’s earlier work will love this record and everyone else will love half this record."^[17] The album was supported by the subsequent release of the 'Dorothy Deserves' EP, featuring a remix of the title track by Howie B.

Discography: (as Lupen Crook)[link]

Albums[link]

• Accidents Occur While Sleeping (Tap 'n' Tin, 2007)
• Old Books, Broken Bands And Other Little Treasures (Beast Reality, 2008)
• The Pros and Cons of Eating Out (Beast Reality, 2010)

Singles & EPs[link]

• 'Petals Fresh from Road Kill' EP (Tap 'n' Tin, 2005)
• 'Halloween' (Tap 'n' Tin, 2005)
• 'Love 80' (Tap 'n' Tin, 2005)
• 'A Silver Boot for Sam' EP (Tap 'n' Tin, 2006)
• 'The Curse of the Mirror Wicked' EP (Beast Reality, 2009)
• 'Dorothy Deserves' EP (Beast Reality, 2010)

Discography: (as Lupen Crook and the Murderbirds)[link]

Albums[link]

• Iscariot the Ladder (Tap 'n' Tin, 2007)
• The Lost Belongings (Beast Reality, 2009)

Singles & EPs[link]

• 'Matthew's Magpie (Tap 'n' Tin, 2007)
• 'Great Fears & Curious Predictions' (Beast Reality, 2009)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lupen Crook homepage