The media has been dead for a long time. There has been no standard of excellence for 50 or 60 years. Olbermann was just one of many 2nd and 3rd rate media people.
I can't go back beyond about 1960, but I've read sample pieces by Walter Lippmann from 100 years ago, tossed out in an English class to show us larvae what journalism in Standard English (no, not the Times Stoolbook) looks like.
Other than that, we've had damn few. Howard K. Smith, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Edwin Neumann come to mind as first raters, and maybe Sander Vanocur. And Carole Simpson, one of the very early women to break into TV news. I didn't care for her as she seemed to me then hard and bitter, but I process that differently now and recognize a first-rate newswoman.
(By contrast, I liked Jessica Savitch very much, but had to process the fact that she destroyed herself by living in the fast lane.)