Keith Olbermann's Twitter Meltdown

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Keith Olbermann quit Twitter because of me

Late Wednesday night, long after I'd promised myself that I would sign off the Internet, I found myself Googling Keith Olbermann's Twitter feed. He had retweeted a link to an article alleging that one of the women accusing Julian Assange of rape had "ties" to the CIA. That article also gave the name of the accuser. This, I understood to be a universally acknowledged no-no, when it came to subjects of an ongoing sexual assault investigation. So Keith Olbermann, one of the biggest names in left-wing journalism, was publishing unsubstantiated claims that smeared the subject of a rape investigation, and he was failing to uphold basic standards. I thought this was worth sharing. I found the link to the tweet, and I clicked through, and that's when I saw it: the big yellow box with the padlock.

"This user has protected their tweets," it read. I sent out a brief, confused tweet about Keith Olbermann locking down his Twitter rather than face online criticism -- which would soon turn out to be eerily psychic -- and Anna Holmes, formerly of Jezebel, corrected me: "He blocked you?" Amaditalks, a user who'd been debating the Assange case with Olbermann, confirmed: "No, he didn't lock it, he blocked you." Soon, I'd confirmed it myself.

First thought: Keith Olbermann blocked me?

Second thought: Keith Olbermann knew who I was?

Wednesday morning, I was a girl who ran a moderately trafficked feminist blog. I had about 1,500 Twitter followers. I was frustrated with the way the Julian Assange rape case had been treated by fellow left-wing media figures, including Keith Olbermann, but especially Michael Moore, who minimized the accusations while pledging bail money to Assange. I didn't know yet that he had also misrepresented the accusations against Assange (they're for rape, not that his "condom broke") on Olbermann's show. I tweeted a joke, about hoping a bunch of rape survivors pulled a "Roger & Me" outside of Michael Moore's office, and directed it at Moore's Twitter. Then it hit me: The dude's on freaking Twitter. He can hear me. More accurately, he can hear us.

I suggested that people frustrated by Moore's actions tweet at him until he responded. Anti-rape activist Jaclyn Friedman suggested we use a hashtag, and came up with one, #MooreandMe. I wrote a blog post. And it was on. Thousands of tweets, links from every corner of the blogosphere, and -- surprisingly -- a response, that evening, from @KeithOlbermann himself.

But not, you know, a response to me. Because he blocked me.

Olbermann was incensed. He went on for two hours, accusing Mediaite reporter Tommy Christopher of being a "hatchet man" with an anti-MSNBC agenda because Christopher asked him whether he knew the charges against Assange, demanding that Amaditalks provide him with "the charges" (a court reporter's account is here), demanding "retractions" from another user, and otherwise lashing out. Me, I wrote a blog post about how he'd blocked me. The next morning, he was at it again, tweeting frantically, attacking and swerving and dodging and blocking more protesters. When I saw someone say he'd blocked them, I retweeted it. (My colleague, Amanda Hess, noted later that he'd responded to her tweet on the matter, then blocked her too.) And then: Well, then the pressure apparently got to him. That's when Keith Olbermann, one of the most well-known figures in left-wing journalism, just up and ran away.

"I will thus unblock all blocks," Keith Olbermann said, "wish you all a Merry Christmas and I'll suspend this account until this frenzy is stopped." Soon, he amended it to "until/if this frenzy is stopped." The word "frenzy," apparently, was consistent.

Except that it wasn't a frenzy. It was a protest. Olbermann had no problem with describing the notoriously unruly Anonymous as "online activists," and yet, when online activists who happened to be feminists took issue with him, well ... they'd gone FRENZIED! They were like sharks in the salty sea water of Twitter, thrashing and chomping at Keith Olbermann's tender, online flesh!

They had reason to protest. One of the chief objections, from fans of Moore and Olbermann, is that Assange isn't being charged with rape. "He was accused ONLY of consense.sex w/o a condom," wrote Twitter user MariahWestwind. "u r all f*****g retarded, really f*****g dumb……….it was consensual sex and his condom broke which is a crime in sweden u f*****g retards," wrote a commenter on my blog, "Ralph," who was sadly deleted. This is demonstrably wrong. It's untrue. But Ralph, Mariah and all the others have reason to believe it. Because they got the information from the news. They got it from Michael Moore. And they got it from Keith Olbermann.

People trust journalists: If a journalist says something, like "the term 'rape' in Sweden includes consensual sex without a condom" (Olbermann's own, demonstrably false, as-yet-unredacted words), most people will believe that what he has said is true, and act as if it is true, without doing further research. Because the job of a journalist is to tell people the truth, to give them all of the information they will reasonably need, and to redact and correct his statements if they are later proven wrong. Statements made by journalists, particularly those as prominent as Olbermann, have measurable impact on how people make decisions: MariahWestwind is basically quoting Keith Olbermann. There's a rape investigation going on, and Mariah doesn't know it. Because Mariah trusted Keith Olbermann to tell her the truth, and Keith Olbermann failed to honor that.

Keith Olbermann failed to honor the trust of people who depend upon journalists to tell them the truth, over an issue (WikiLeaks) that is about the right of people to know the truth. Chew on that one for a while. Because it tastes real, real funky.

I'm working myself up into an Olbermannesque lather -- you, SIR, have been proven WRONG, SIR, and to the extent that you are unwilling to corRECT your STATEments, they are rendered LIES, SIR! -- so maybe I'll point out something else: Even though Olbermann is influential on Twitter, he's running away from it largely because he doesn't know how it actually works. On the Internet, Olbermann's style of old-media authority doesn't hold up. He selectively responded, and thought no one would call him out on it; he was wrong. He blocked protesters to shut out their voices, and apparently thought they wouldn't be able to tell a wide audience about it; he was wrong. He attempted to control the discourse, to sit at the center of it like a news anchor behind his desk, to exercise a centralized, access-dependent control; he was on the Internet, where hierarchy breaks down, where people are able to interact with each other and influence each other without the buffer of celebrity, but he didn't get it. Even his voice -- that booming, stentorian instrument -- was gone; without the immediate gravitas it tends to lend his statements, he sounded like a kid who had gotten in over his head.

Wednesday morning, I was nobody much. Today, I'm apparently responsible for the biggest celebrity Twitter meltdown since Matt Lauer pissed off Kanye West. Because that -- SIR -- is how the Internet works.

Olbermann may be back. He's tweeted a friendly message at fellow media superstar Larry King. One can't imagine that his inglorious retreat rests well with him. But he might have learned a valuable lesson: On the Web, there are no anchormen. There are just a bunch of people giving the news. Status is given to those people, but only to the extent to which they can consistently get it right.

Me, I've got better things to think about than Keith Olbermann. I still haven't heard from Michael Moore.

Update: The original version of this piece stated that Assange has been charged with sexual assault. But as of now, he has only been accused of it -- not formally charged. The piece has been altered to reflect this.

The first complainant, a Miss A, said she was the victim of "unlawful coercion" on the night of 14 August in Stockholm. The court heard Assange was alleged to have "forcefully" held her arms and used his bodyweight to hold her down. The second charge alleged he "sexually molested" her by having sex without using a condom, when it was her "express wish" that one should be used.

A third charge claimed Assange "deliberately molested" Miss A on 18 August.

A fourth charge, relating to a Miss W, alleged that on 17 August, he "improperly exploited" the fact she was asleep to have sex with her without a condom.

Not really that interesting. Most feminists have a confirmation bias problem with rape...afterall, they're feminists; there's a lot of feminist literature that says that all heterosexual intercourse is rape so excuse me if I'm skeptical of what her motives are in this. Her insistence about the rape charges and the complete ignoring that the charges were dropped by the initial prosecutor involved are telling. Her complete lack of thinking about what the charges describe is also indicative of that bias.

Then add to that timeline the fact that the initial prosecutor dropped the charges, it becomes very clear that this isn't a rape case but a political assassination case.

A false rape accusation should be almost as serious of a crime as rape. Women have a horrifying power to accuse any man that they may of had consensual sex with and sometimes people they don't even know of rape and be taken quite seriously. Feminists want the burden of proof to be on the man to prove that that the sex was consensual and it to be to be automatically assumed that all women are innocent victims and all men are guilty rapists. Some sources say that rought 1 in 4 rape accusations are false in the US(some higher and some lower)

Olbermann being mad on the internet is funny but Paul Krugman is funnier.

Say It Ain’t So: Will Rape Allegation Furor Be Keith Olbermann’s ‘Shoeless Joe’ Moment?

On Tuesday’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann and guest Michael Moore sparked widespread outrage over their dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. An online protest ensued, and as Michael Moore ignored pleas for a correction, Olbermann tried to fend off criticism on Twitter. When he was unwilling to respond to legitimate questions regarding his handling of the allegations, Olbermann announced that he was quitting Twitter until the “frenzy” died down. If Sady Doyle, the woman who started the protest that forced him off Twitter, is any indication, he could be waiting a long time, and taking serious damage in the process.

The primary reason that people like Glenn Beck are somewhat immune to protests like this is that they’re generally carried out by people who already aren’t watching. Beck may say things that enrage people, but he’s not enraging the people in his audience. Fox News Channel can assess the effect of advertiser boycotts through the prism of his enormous audience, and make the calculation that the benefit outweighs the cost.

In Olbermann’s case, though, he has picked a fight with people who would normally be watching him declare spreaders of misinformation “Worst Person in the World.” Sady Doyle, the woman who started the #MooreAndMe hashtag, describes her sense of betrayal at being blocked by Olbermann thusly:

Number of Beloved Progressive Journalists Who Had Blocked Me On Twitter Yesterday: None, as far as I know!

Number of Beloved Progressive Journalists Who Have Blocked Me On Twitter Now: One. And it’s Keith Olbermann.

There’s no way to put a number on it, but it stands to reason that a substantial number of the #MooreAndMe protesters are also Countdown viewers, or potential viewers. Just as handling this properly could have been a big win for Olbermann, botching it so badly could hurt in ways he never imagined.

In her piece for Salon today (which bears reading in full), Doyle brings another key difference between Olbermann and Beck into sharp relief. Speaking about some of the misguided reactions she has gotten on Twitter, Doyle says:

One of the chief objections, from fans of Moore and Olbermann, is that Assange isn’t being charged with rape. “He was accused ONLY of consense.sex w/o a condom,” wrote Twitter user MariahWestwind. “u r all f*****g retarded, really f*****g dumb……….it was consensual sex and his condom broke which is a crime in sweden u f*****g retards,” wrote a commenter on my blog, “Ralph,” who was sadly deleted. This is demonstrably wrong. It’s untrue. But Ralph, Mariah, and all the others have reason to believe it. Because they got the information from the news. They got it from Michael Moore. And they got it from Keith Olbermann.

People trust journalists: If a journalist says something, like “the term ‘rape’ in Sweden includes consensual sex without a condom”(Olbermann’s own, demonstrably false, as-yet-unredacted words), most people will believe that what he has said is true, and act as if it is true, without doing further research. Because the job of a journalist is to tell people the truth, to give them all of the information they will reasonably need, and to redact and correct his statements if they are later proven wrong. Statements made by journalists, particularly those as prominent as Olbermann, have measurable impact on how people make decisions: MariahWestwind is basically quoting Keith Olbermann. There’s a rape investigation going on, and Mariah doesn’t know it. Because Mariah trusted Keith Olbermann to tell her the truth, and Keith Olbermann failed to honor that.

Glenn Beck has no journalistic pretensions, and therefore has no journalistic reputation to ruin. Olbermann’s journalistic bona fides have been questioned in some quarters, but not by his audience of progressives, of which mainstream feminists are a core subset. This is where Olbermann stands to lose the most. One of the key distinctions Olbermann makes between himself and his Fox News counterparts is his willingness to admit when he is wrong. Had he done so in this case, all might have been quickly forgiven.

By digging his heels in, and painting his critics as “frenzied,” a loaded, stereotypical phrase, he has defied the expectations of his own audience, and not in a good way.

While there has been a disappointing dearth of prominent liberals willing to stand up to Olbermann and Moore in this case, those same prominent liberals have been deafeningly silent in Olbermann’s defense. This is a bad sign for Olbermann’s continuation as prominent liberal figurehead.

Keith Olbermann is a huge baseball fan, as was I until Pete Rose and steroids ruined it, so perhaps he will heed the example of the titular barefooted ballplayer. “Shoeless” Joe Jackson was a baseball hero who was disgraced during the 1919 “Black Sox” scandal, and this anecdote has become synonymous with crushing disappointment in a once-beloved figure:

When Jackson left criminal court building in custody of a sheriff after telling his story to the grand jury, he found several hundred youngsters, aged from 6 to 16, awaiting for a glimpse of their idol. One urchin stepped up to the outfielder, and, grabbing his coat sleeve, said:

“It ain’t true, is it, Joe?”

“Yes, kid, I’m afraid it is,” Jackson replied. The boys opened a path for the ball player and stood in silence until he passed out of sight.

“Well, I’d never have thought it,” sighed the lad.

“Shoeless” Joe never recovered from that scandal, and it haunts his legacy to this day.

Keith Olbermann didn’t throw the World Series, but in the eyes of many who used to trust him, he has violated an even deeper trust. Even the best journalists make mistakes, but only the worst refuse to correct them.

Luckily for Olbermann, he still has a chance to say it ain’t so. Having Sady Doyle appear on Countdown to accept his apology is a good place to start.

And how many rapes go completely unreported because of fears of attitudes such as this? How many times is a woman who was truly raped faced with the reaction of doubt. Yes it is completely possible for a woman to make up a story for various reasons. It is an evil and manipulative act. There should indeed be consequences for falsifying a report of rape, and there are. But let's not pretend that women somehow have the upper hand on the subject. Men have a horrifying power as well.

As far as the Assange thing goes, it certainly does sound suspicious. If I had to bet, I'd put my money towards his favor. But the fact remains that we don't know what happened. It still is possible that there may be validity to the rape claim - unlikely, but possible.

And how many rapes go completely unreported because of fears of attitudes such as this? How many times is a woman who was truly raped faced with the reaction of doubt. Yes it is completely possible for a woman to make up a story for various reasons. It is an evil and manipulative act. There should indeed be consequences for falsifying a report of rape, and there are. But let's not pretend that women somehow have the upper hand on the subject. Men have a horrifying power as well.

As far as the Assange thing goes, it certainly does sound suspicious. If I had to bet, I'd put my money towards his favor. But the fact remains that we don't know what happened. It still is possible that there may be validity to the rape claim - unlikely, but possible.

I agree with Lemmiwinks. (Can I call you Lemmiwinks?)

Gotta love state-run media:


"Leaked Swedish police report details case against Assange
It bolsters his accusers' assertions that they weren't colluding with his enemies."



That's a bit of a prep to bias the reader in a certain way.

Look, I'll be the first in line to state that the accusations against Assange seem "questionable" at best, and that the timing is seriously suspect. Be that as it may, I don't agree with the way some people have gone after the accuser(s) with all sorts of wild accusations,

but a journalist like Olbermann really ought to know better.

What ever gave you the impression that Olbermann was a journalist? He's just a left-wing version of O'Reilly. Both are partisan pundits, not journalists.

Shhh, don't tell that to the lefties, they get mad when people compare Fox to MSNBC!