Something something something journalism ethics

It won't take more than a day to happen but thousands of professional reporters will defend ESPN's prerogative to tell its staff to shut up about Goodell already. There will be reasons. It's Olbermann so some of those reasons will be based in reality.  They will also be irrelevant.

The bottom line is this.  If the network exists to promote the multi-billion dollar professional athletics industry rather than.. you know.. report on it, then the people who work for that network aren't doing journalism. They are doing PR.

I go back and forth on Olbermann

Sometimes I think he does righteous outrage pretty well. Other times I think he's a pompous douche. Still other times I think him clearly insane. (Seriously, the whole "Fridays With Thurber" thing was a fireable offense in my estimation.) But for all of that, the best thing I can say about Keith Olbermann is that he is a world class shit-stirrer in an environment heavily resistant to stirring of the shit. And maybe that's the best thing I could say about anybody, really.