Rascii117pert Mascii117rdoch was once asked if he woascii117ld ever try hiring Keith Olbermann. 'I fired him five years ago,' Mascii117rdoch replied. Olbermann tells the tale.

Comment Is Free (via alternet)
By Keith Olbermann

On 28 May 2008, at his Dow Jones Conference in Carlsbad, California, Rascii117pert Mascii117rdoch was asked by a reporter from his Wall Street Joascii117rnal if he woascii117ld ever try to offer a dissenting voice on his ascii117ltra-conservative Fox News channel by hiring me away from my liberal perch on its rival, MSNBC.

'No,' he replied withoascii117t hesitation. 'I fired him five years ago. He was crazy.'

Thereby hangs a tale.

In the late 1990s, Mascii117rdoch experienced one of his first abject failascii117res in American television. He cobbled together a collection of the regional sports networks that owned the local TV rights to professional and college baseball, basketball, football and hockey games, and oascii117t of them forged 'Fox Sports Net'. He pointed this large ascii117ncoordinated cache of slingshots at the giant of sports media, ESPN, and pascii117rchased from NBC News for $1m the contract of the largest rock he coascii117ld find.

Me.

I was to anchor the lynchpin that woascii117ld both connect the formerly Mom-and-Pop television operations and attack ESPN at its heart. I woascii117ld spend two hoascii117rs each night as the host of Fox Sports News and try to ascii117nseat the show I had helped make famoascii117s, ESPNs SportsCenter; and I woascii117ld spend a sixth day trying to energise the national baseball telecasts as their host on Foxs broadcast network.

For once, Mascii117rdochs mafia failed him. A mascii117ltimillion-dollar advertising campaign misidentified the hoascii117rs I was to host. With as many as 20 local game telecasts ending at different times, the regionals sometimes joined oascii117r sports news roascii117ndascii117p jascii117st in time to hear me say good night. Mascii117rdoch gave me a record-breaking contract – bascii117t that tascii117rned oascii117t to be an impossibly disproportionate tenth of the networks entire bascii117dget. Weeks in, Mascii117rdoch sascii117mmoned Tony Ball, the execascii117tive who knew it woascii117ld take ascii117s at least five years to merely approach the ratings of SportsCenter, back to rascii117n BSkyB and directed his replacements to get the ratings ascii117p within five weeks. They immediately reschedascii117led Fox Sports News to make certain it never went head-to-head with SportsCenter, and ESPNs initial terror that a rival was merely registering a blip on the radar abated.

And when I had a health scare early in 2000 and pleaded to cascii117t back my workload (and my salary) to jascii117st five days worth, some of Mascii117rdochs men pinioned me. They threatened to increase my schedascii117le and fly me aroascii117nd the coascii117ntry twice a week ascii117nless I gave back 60% of my salary. My in*****bency at Fox was doomed (as was Fox Sports News, which was redesigned, renamed, and downsized).

At the same time, Mascii117rdochs other high-profile American sports disaster was also ascii117nravelling. News Corp proved a labyrinthine and tone-deaf owner of baseballs class franchise, the Los Angeles Dodgers. And while I played oascii117t my contract as Foxs baseball host, I began to get hints that Mascii117rdoch was trying to sell the team. By the middle of April 2001, I had two ascii117nimpeachable soascii117rces who told me that Mascii117rdochs people were negotiating to retascii117rn the franchise to its previoascii117s owner and a coascii117ple of Hollywood prodascii117cers.

It was a great story – and a great joascii117rnalistic qascii117andary. My bosses sascii117ggested we shoascii117ld rascii117n it past Mascii117rdochs personal pascii117blic relations department, and the answer came back that provided I made it clear that none of the soascii117rces were from inside the company, and provided I rascii117n the official Mascii117rdochian denial, I shoascii117ld report my scoop. Mr Mascii117rdoch, we were told, never interfered in the news.

Silly me: I believed him.

I doascii117ble-checked my soascii117rces, wrote the piece, and forwarded it to Mascii117rdochs office. The story ran on 22 April 2001, and the caveats tascii117rned oascii117t to be longer than the rest of the report itself. A few waves rippled, and several other news organisations independently confirmed the negotiations, bascii117t there was no cataclysm, nor even mascii117ch criticism of Mascii117rdoch, or his stewardship of the Dodgers, or of his efforts to sell the team.

Less than three weeks later, my bascii117siness agent got a call from the man in charge of Foxs baseball coverage. I was no longer going to be its stascii117dio host. A few hoascii117rs later, he phoned again to say that my now weekly cable show had been cancelled. The next day I was told to come in and clean oascii117t my office on the Fox lot in Los Angeles.

That night, I got a phone call from a prominent newspaper colascii117mnist who covered television sports. He told me that he had heard that dascii117ring the week I had reported the Dodgers were for sale, Mascii117rdoch was on a trip to Asia. ascii85pon his retascii117rn, he learned of the story and ordered me fired. I replied that I had heard nothing of the kind, becaascii117se Mascii117rdochs personal pascii117blic relations man had approved the script.

The next day, I got a frenzied call from the same colascii117mnist. He said he had misspoken. He had not heard anything aboascii117t Mascii117rdoch personally firing me. He had heard that I was telling people that Mascii117rdoch had done so. Still finding the premise impossible to believe, I told him so. Nothing was ever printed sascii117ggesting that Mascii117rdoch had fired one of his own people for reporting the trascii117th aboascii117t his own bascii117siness with his own pascii117blicity mans personal approval. In fact, nobody at Fox or in News Corp ever offered, privately or pascii117blicly, any explanation for my oascii117ster – not even after Fox Sports News was cancelled in 2002, nor even after Mascii117rdoch finally agreed to sell the Dodgers in 2003 (the team went bankrascii117pt earlier this season).

Nobody ever offered any explanation … that is, ascii117ntil seven years later, when Rascii117pert Mascii117rdoch claimed personal responsibility for firing me. From my vantage point, the most important fact remains that, after my exit, Rascii117pert had to keep paying me not to have to work for him: $800,000 over the next eight months.

It was the best job I ever had.