Keith Olbermann — Anchor Analyst For MSNBC’s Debate

By SteveK 

As you probably know by now, last month MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews were removed from election anchor duties and replaced by David Gregory. As Brian Stelter wrote at the time, “Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.”

Whether this has truly happened is a matter of, well, debate. Matthews has been providing analysis from the debate sites during Hardball at 7pmET, through Countdown at 8 and immediately following the debates.

As for Olbermann, on debate nights he anchored Countdown at 8pmET. He would then sign off from Countdown, introduce debate coverage at 9pmET and say, “Alongside my colleague, David Gregory, I’m Keith Olbermann.” Last night it went like this: Gregory answers a question from Olbermann; Olbermann teases that he’ll be back at 11pm; Gregory begins anchoring for the 13 seconds before Bob Schieffer began his moderating duties.

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Olbermann even let his readers on the Daily Kos know about his role earlier this week when he wrote, “Watch our debate coverage. I’m on until 20 seconds before they start and again 20 minutes after they end.”

When asked for comment about all this, an MSNBC spokesperson told TVNewser, “David Gregory anchored our debate coverage.”

There’s only one major political night left — election night. We hear there will not be a special edition of Countdown on November 4.

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