Olbermann Links Hearst and the Maine, Iraq and Murdoch

News Hounds
Feb. 08, 2007

Olbermann to tie Rupert Murdoch to William Randolph Hearst and the Spanish American War. With video.

Olbermann began a segment on his MSNBC show "Countdown" Wednesday (February 7, 2007) with the story of Hearst sending illustrator Frederic Remington to Cuba after the explosion of the USS Maine. When Remington could not find any fighting to illustrate, Hearst sent a telegram back telling him just to supply the pictures and Hearst would supply the war.

From that, Olbermann jumped to Murdoch telling the international gathering in Davos, Switzerland, recently that Fox News had tried to influence the nation's agenda toward war in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And he went on to say that since then, Fox News has been critical of the way the war has been executed. (Does he watch the same network that we do, so that he doesn't have to?)

Olbermann interviewed Air America Radio's Rachel Maddow about the meaning of Murdoch's admission. Besides saying that it undermines Fox News' claim to be free of spin and without an agenda, Maddow said it suggests that Murdoch may be feeling ...

But I don't want to spoil it.