Out and a Bout

Olbermann, O'Reilly Are Still Fighting

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 7, 2009

It was never intended to be a cease-fire.

The best that the men who run two of the nation's media giants were hoping to achieve was a ratcheting down of the rhetoric between their warring commentators.

But Keith Olbermann refused to play along this week, Bill O'Reilly returned fire, and the New York Times got wounded in the crossfire.

The peace talks with Fox sparked a fierce battle within MSNBC, where a faction led by Olbermann argued that the network's journalistic integrity was at stake -- and that any leak of a nonaggression pact with Fox could damage NBC's reputation for independence.

Things had looked very different in April. When Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes left the private dining room of Jeffrey Immelt, the General Electric chief executive whose company includes NBC, at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, they thought they had a firm deal. But as in any high school grudge match, neither brawler wanted to back down.

(More here.)