Posted on 08/10/2005 3:24:43 AM PDT by jimbo123
It might be a good idea for Keith Olbermann and Rick Kaplan to give each other a wide berth until things cool down.
I hear that MSNBC staffers in the Secaucus newsroom-studio watched in horror Monday night as the volatile Kaplan, the president of the cable outlet, publicly laced into the eccentric Olbermann, anchor of the 8 p.m. show "Countdown," after the latter eulogized lung-cancer victim Peter Jennings with a graphic rant about his own cancer scare.
Olbermann - a former pipe and cigar smoker - is said to have looked stunned as Kaplan raced onto the set and shouted at him after he signed off.
Olbermann had urged viewers to quit smoking and repeatedly mentioned "spitting blood" and "spitting globs of myself into a garbage can" while discussing his bout with a benign tumor in in his mouth.
I'm told that Kaplan erupted angrily and at length, calling Olbermann "out of control" and "not to be trusted," and accusing him of driving away viewers from the 9 p.m. debut of Kaplan hire Rita Cosby's show, "Live and Direct."
Kaplan - a friend and former ABC News colleague of Jennings, and a frequent cigar smoker - apparently got even angrier when Olbermann suggested that the reason he was upset was that "this is about you."
I'm told that the anchor quietly asked the news exec to move the discussion to a private location, but the enraged Kaplan wouldn't hear of it.
"I don't care if you don't come to work tomorrow," Kaplan told Olbermann, according to my spies.
Olbermann - who yesterday defended his much-criticized remarks on Jim Romenesko's media gossip Web site at www.poynter.org - did come to work, but he didn't return my phone call.
Kaplan told me: "I'm not going to discuss it. It's between me and Keith."
What fight? ROFLMAO!!!
Luckily for MSNBC, the fracas happened on air so nobody saw it.
Yes it's a good thing. Can you imagine if there were a computer network where people could share such information with the entire world?
Wait -- ;-)
Who's Keith Olbermann ?
Great touch with the cigar.
Don't you just love it when uber elite liberal mediots start to prey on each other like rabid/starving jackals!
The Jennings eulogies have been so over-top weird, I scarcely recognize the libidiot he really was. I keep in mind his extraordinary sadness when the election returns showed that his hero Kerry was not elected. Then came his incessant blasts at Pre. Bush. Once a liberal, always a liberal, and a Canuck lib at that.
Cusano Carojo Vintage 97, and sex! uuuummmmmmmmmm!
Life's too short to sit around waiting for one to pop up...
"accusing him of driving away viewers from the 9 p.m. debut of Kaplan hire Rita Cosby's show"
I didn't realize Cosby wasn't still on FOX. She won't deliver the big impact PMSNBC is looking for.
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
What's a "MSNBC"?
Keith Olbermann is an idiot...
Agreed. You'd think the guy was a national hero. He was a socialist that read news as a propaganda tool for his cause. Period.
Just like everywhere he's been...KCBS in Los Angeles, ESPN, KFWB radio...
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