Tonight was excellence in broadcast journalism. Instead of playing the waiting game until the heat got to high, like Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann took the bull by the horns and made an on air apology tonight. The apology wasn’t for something Keith did, but rather for something Lawrence O’Donnell did. Last night on Countdown O’Donnell said that John Edwards was not a factor in the Democratic race. While many might agree with him, O’Donnell didn’t disclose the fact that he wrote a piece last week calling for Edwards to quit and saying how he was the southern white man standing in the way of the black man. I blogged about that piece here.
UPDATE:
Keith posted a blog on DailyKos today also apologizing for what happened. I won’t try to hide the fact that I am a big fan of Keith O’s, but even if I wasn’t i would be highly impressed by this level of professionalism he has exhibited. Instead of pulling strawmen into the argument he realized there was a problem and quickly reacted to it. Major kudos to Keith on this. I hope more people in the mainstream media will take note of how to act in a time of wrong doing, or just simple a simple lack of oversight that leads to a mistake.