Keith Olbermann Files a No-Holds-Barred Lawsuit Over Firing by Current TV
The fired host unloads on Current TV, accusing Al Gore of being a dilettante and co-owner Joel Hyatt of blackmail. Howard Kurtz on the war over Keith’s firing.
Keith Olbermann filed suit Thursday against Current TV, charging that owners
Al Gore and Joel Hyatt and their deputies “are no more than dilettantes
portraying entertainment industry executives.”
In the lawsuit, promised as a response to his firing last week, Olbermann
calls his dismissal “the latest in a series of increasingly erratic and
unprofessional actions undertaken by Current’s senior management.” The former
host, who lasted 10 months there after a bitter breakup with MSNBC, is seeking
$50 million to $70 million in lost compensation and equity.
The suit is nothing if not personal, and at one point suggests a failed
bromance. Hyatt “attempted to isolate Olbermann from his professional
representatives in an awkward attempt to form a close personal relationship with
his new star,” it says. “When Olbermann did not reciprocate Hyatt’s advances,
Hyatt reacted by withholding necessary production resources, disparaging
Olbermann in the press, denying him contractually guaranteed editorial control
over Current’s election coverage and the program website” and “cutting out
Olbermann of internal discussions of other programs on Current, and directing
Current’s attorneys to harass Olbermann with vague and spurious claims of
breach.”
It gets worse: Hyatt “threatened to derail Olbermann’s career” before the
show debuted last June unless he banned his manager, lawyers and agents from all
interactions with Current. Hyatt, a wealthy attorney, “blackmailed Olbermann
into agreeing” to put himself “in the position of “fending for himself without
benefit of hired advisors. Olbermann gave into Hyatt’s blackmail for the purpose
of saving the premiere of the program and the jobs of those who worked on it.
Olbermann left the meeting devastated at having discovered that he was working
for a blackmailer.”
Current spokesman Christopher Lehane, a onetime aide to Gore’s 2000
presidential campaign, said in a statement that Olbermann was let go for such
breaches of contract as “the failure to show up at work, sabotaging the network
and attacking Current and its executives.
“As the old adage says: ‘When the law is on your side, you argue the law.
When the facts are on your side, you argue the facts. When neither the law nor
the facts are on your side, you pound the table.’…It is well established that
over his professional career Mr. Olbermann has specialized in pounding the
table.”
In the suit filed in Los Angeles, Olbermann says that Gore and Hyatt promised
him “an unprecedented level of control and resources to build a new progressive
network.”
But after former CNN executive David Bohrman was hired as Current’s
president, “the ratings declined and the program’s production value deteriorated
even further ... Current still couldn’t manage, literally, to keep the lights
on.”
While many millions are at stake, the litigation also amounts to a public
relations campaign in which each side is trying to discredit the other. An
e-mail obtained by The Daily Beast describes how Olbermann threw a glass mug on
the set and shattered it after getting angry over a satellite problem. Others
say he simply knocked it off the desk, and a source close to Olbermann calls the
e-mail’s characterization “a gross overstatement.”
“Olbermann left the meeting devastated at having discovered that he was working for a blackmailer.”
In Olbermann’s view, Current’s incompetence damaged the brand of his program
Countdown, which he had launched at MSNBC. Numerous technical failings
“and the inability to find the program or follow it on the Web caused a
precipitous decline in ratings as Olbermann’s loyal audience was shut out and
other viewers simply gave up,” the suit says.
Alleging that Current broadcast ads featuring Olbermann without his
permission, brought in guest hosts without his approval, and blocked efforts to
stream content online, the filing says: “It is both sad and ironic that a
channel founded by Al Gore, for the stated purpose of creating an independent
perspective free from the control of large corporate interests, restricted the
rights of its most celebrated commentator and Chief News Officer to fully
broadcast his opinions over, of all things, the Internet.”
Current ignored Olbermann’s advice as chief news officer when he objected to
hiring former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm to host the program following
his (and which, according to the suit, was originally proposed to be co-hosted
by Van Jones, an Obama White House aide who resigned amid
controversy).
And the suit alleges that Hyatt, the CEO, disparaged his star in comments to
The Daily Beast and The Wrap. The Beast reported in January that Hyatt had said
“that while he’d like to have Olbermann with the network in the future,
‘everybody is replaceable.’”
Olbermann disputes that his absences from work, such as the night before the
Super Tuesday primaries, were unauthorized. But in a parting shot, network
spokesman Lehane said: “We hope Mr. Olbermann understands that when it comes to
the legal process, he is actually required to show up.”
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