While we don’t usually cover purely media figures, there are the occasional people that are pop-culture phenoms all on their own. Such is the case of Keith Olbermann – not only a media fixture and a pop culture figure, but now it seems Keith just found himself in one of the bigger public breakups of the past few years. Last night, Olbermann announced that effective immediately, he was leaving MSNBC. Olbermann’s Countdown is the highest-rated show on MSNBC, and KO gets credit (and has taken credit) for reshaping the news network. KO still had two years left on a four-year contract, and most say that he’s still going to get paid $7 million a year for the next two years. $14 million for nothing! For sitting on his ass in his pajamas for two years. So it wasn’t about money, it wasn’t about ratings… what was it about? Because it’s looking more and more like Olbermann didn’t jump, but was pushed.

Gawker theorizes that Olbermann and his corporate overlords at NBC Universal were bitching at each other for months, and Comcast’s soon-to-be buyout of NBC was a factor… according to business gossip (often juicier than celebrity gossip), Comcast isn’t a fan. Comcast’s lackey sent out this missive this morning, though: “Comcast has not closed the transaction for NBC Universal and has no operational control at any of its properties, including MSNBC. We pledged from the day the deal was announced that we would not interfere with NBC Universal’s news operations. We have not & we will not.”

So with Concast denying their involvement, the question keeps coming back to why KO was fired? Was it because he’s such a dick? Seriously, I agree with many of KO’s political views, but not his methods and not his personal attacks and unyielding arrogance. That’s why I stopped watching his show – KO is an exhausting bastard. Could it be that KO just shot himself in the foot by being such a jag?

Also up in the air – what happens to the 8 pm timeslot. According to HuffPo’s sources, Rachel Maddow is still in everybody’s good graces, and she will most likely stay on at 9 pm. Laurence O’Donnell is going to be taking over at 8 pm for now – he’s nicer than Keith, but still rather “meh”. I’d like to see the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, or The Nation’s Christopher Hayes. Both are great interviewers, both have strong “likability” factors and both are smart as whips.

Here’s Olbermann’s final statement:

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Photos courtesy of WENN.

My goodness! Jennifer Aniston sure started a f-cked up firestorm when she made some relatively innocuous comments about her new film, The Switch. The plotline of The Switch (a woman impregnates self with a turkey baster, only she doesn’t know the sperm came from her best friend, Jason Bateman) ensured that Aniston got about a million questions about single motherhood and turkey basters and pregnancy and BABIES during her press day. Jennifer comments were pretty general, and she basically stated that single mothers are fine and that women don’t have to “settle” with a dude just because they want to have a baby.

Then, two nights ago, Bill O’Reilly attacked Jennifer for leaving fathers feeling underappreciated and undervalued in society, and that she was too rich to know about the real struggles, etc. He said she was “destructive to society.” While I found a couple of his points to be on-target, the gist of his discussion basically boiled down to a promotion of the nuclear family, which is bullsh-t, in my opinion. Anyway…

So you know that O’Reilly’s self-appointed nemesis Keith Olbermann couldn’t let Bill-O attack Aniston’s honor that way. Except that Keith doesn’t really give a hoot about Aniston, he just wanted to attack O’Reilly. And attack he did, and it was kind of below the belt. Keith named O’Reilly one of “the worst people in the world” and said: “There’s been a lot of amateur psychoanalysis about what O’Reilly is doing this time. If you read Marvin Kitman’s biography of O’Reilly, it’s pretty simple. Virtually every reference O’Reilly makes to his own father describes how the man hit, slapped, punched him. As Ktman put it simply, ‘O’Reilly has a history of physical abuse from his father.’ It is actually very sad.” Here’s the video (the O’Reilly part starts around the 37 second mark:

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Ouch. This is one of the reasons I don’t watch Keith so much anymore. He really goes after people on a personal level. And, if O’Reilly’s father did hit him, I don’t get how that is directly affecting O’Reilly’s comments about Aniston, I really don’t.

Aniston in London on July 21, 2010. Credit: WENN.

The epic battle royale between NBC/MSNBC and all of the Rupert Murdoch-owned media outlets will just not die. Usually, the members of the Murdoch press stick to making fun of Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews. But Richard Johnson of Page Six (of the Murdoch-owned New York Post) crossed a line yesterday when he seemed to attack Luke Russert, son of the late Tim Russert. Page Six had this report, basically saying that Luke Russert had some huge NBC contract that he wasn’t fulfilling, and accusing NBC of nepotism:

Some hardworking folks at NBC and MSNBC — who work long hours for little pay — are wondering, “Where in the world is Luke Russert?”

One insider sniped, “He was hired last year to be the youth correspondent — he got a great contract and was supposed to cover youth issues, blog and bring in young viewers, but he’s been MIA for a while. It’s like, ‘Well, that’s what you get for nepotism.’ ”

Russert, 23, was hired at the network on July 31 as a correspondent-at-large, after his beloved father, Washington bureau chief and moderator of “Meet the Press” Tim Russert, died last summer.

Luke was highly visible during the presidential campaign, but disappeared after the inauguration. He was raked over the coals when news of an “Inaugural Party Hosted by Luke Russert” at preppy DC nightclub the Rookery was announced. The party had a $95 cover and a “cheesy” invite with Russert posing as Uncle Sam in the “I Want You” pose.

It also violated NBC’s ethics policies and forced the network to issue a statement noting it was not an NBC event. Russert quickly had his image deleted from the fliers.

The insider sniped, “He hasn’t even updated his blog which he’s paid a lot to do and just got on Twitter. Some youth correspondent!”

Russert’s last blog, “The Courage To Go Online” was posted Dec. 4, 2008 — and he started his Twitter account on Feb. 18, which was the date, incidentally, that Luke was last on air, interviewing Bill Clinton for President’s Day. His last tweet, “Been on the Road,” was on March 31.

Last October, Russert told MediaBistro, he was aware of the nepotism surrounding his hiring and said, “Did my name get my foot in the door? Absolutely, I’ll be the first to admit that. But has my performance and ability got my butt through the door? Yes.” Too bad he seems to have looked a gift horse in the mouth.

A rep for NBC said, “I think he’s been on since then,” but didn’t provide details.

[From Page Six]

An NBC spokesperson defended Luke Russert, and Keith Olbermann attacked Page Six last night on Countdown. Keith pointed out that the “youth correspondent” blogging that Luke was doing (without pay) was for the campaign. Olbermann and the NBC spokesperson identified the multiple times Luke has appeared on MSNBC, just in the past few weeks:

NBC News spokesperson Allison Gollust responds, telling TVNewser, “Luke Russert is, and will continue to be, a valued member of the NBC News correspondent team. Just last week, he appeared all day on MSNBC with hourly updates for a story he was covering. Meanwhile, he is working on long-lead pieces for Dateline and the Today show, was on Nightly News a couple weeks ago, and has recently been added to our talented team covering Capitol Hill.”

NBC’s Gollust says, “He has never been asked to blog or Twitter,” adding, “It’s unfortunate that a gossip column would choose to attack a hard working, talented young man who is getting a great start as a broadcast journalist.”

[From Media Bistro/Newser]

So, Page Six just attacked a 23-year-old guy, son of one of the most revered newsmen of the past two decades, and all based on some shoddy quotes about “nepotism”. I’m sure people will think Luke Russert is fair game, but I find it gross to attack a kid just starting out, especially considering he lost his father almost exactly one year ago. Olbermann correctly surmised that this wasn’t really about Luke Russert, but about the bloodsport between the two media giants. Olbermann also said last night, almost as if he was psychic, that because he and NBC News had taken such pains to correct the record, Page Six would run something nasty about him (Olbermann) before the week was out. It only took Page Six a matter of hours to come up with this one, about Olbermann’s girlfriend:

KEITH Olbermann gets paid by NBC — and now so does his young, blond girlfriend.

Katy Tur, who at 25 is half the age of the MSNBC uber-dork, has landed an on-air reporting job at the Weather Channel.

Conveniently, both cable networks are owned by NBC Universal. Do we sense a little preferential treatment? Olbermann huffed to TV Newser: “Anybody who suggests so is misinformed, and/or sadly unaware that in this time when the industry is collapsing around us, nobody gets a job based on ‘influence,’ only talent.”

[From Page Six]

Seriously, you’re going to attack a man through his girlfriend? And is there really some sort of journalistic setback if Keith Olbermann’s girlfriend works at the Weather Channel? If he did get her a job (at the Weather Channel, for God’s sake), who cares? That being said, I doubt he got her the job. Because it’s the Weather Channel! Do people really think Olbermann is going to call up his “Weather Channel sources” and try to intimidate them into giving his girlfriend a job?