Yesterday evening, MSNBC’s 8 p.m. host Keith Olbermann publicly weighed in on the departure of his executive producer, Izzy Povich, who is leaving to become senior EP of Lawrence O’Donnell’s upcoming 10 p.m. show.
“BTW let’s nip in the bud the latest conspiracy theory being pushed tonight by Murdoch about my EP leaving for Lawrence’s new show,” Olbermann said in a pair of tweets. “My EP got a PROMOTION to a job that doesn’t exist on Countdown: Senior EP, developing show from scratch. Anybody saying otherwise is lying”
Why weigh in now? Why not when Povich’s new role was announced by MSNBC? The tweets appear to be spurred on by a brief Page Six story in this morning’s New York Post:
We asked in May: “Which producer for a dorky cable anchor has been complaining to colleagues that she’s tired of his notoriously nasty behavior?” The answer came Monday when MSNBC announced that Izzy Povich, executive producer of “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” since 2004, had been named senior executive producer of Lawrence O’Donnell’s program, which debuts this fall at 10 p.m.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. owns the Post, as well as Fox News Channel.