flameout

The TV Watch: Keith Olbermann’s Show Has Its Debut on ESPN2

August 27, 2013 by NewsMaker

It turns out that he also isn’t going to talk all that much about sports.

Mostly, he is going to talk about Keith Olbermann.

That’s at least what the premiere — and the title — of “Olbermann,” a live hourlong show on ESPN2, suggests. Mr. Olbermann ranted with characteristic sarcasm and brio about all kinds of things, but the subjects he chose seemed also to serve as allegories for his own experiences as a cable star turned celebrity flameout. As he put it in a diatribe about newspapers feeding on sensationalism, “Every reporter should spend one day as the only story in the world.”

Mr. Olbermann’s dramatic entrances and volatile exits from ESPN, MSNBC, Fox and, finally, a short, messy stint on Current TV, won this notoriously thin-skinned anchor a lot of unwanted negative publicity. Now he seems to be paying it backward.

One segment, “This Week in Keith History,” showcases clips of Mr. Olbermann when he was on ESPN’s “SportsCenter.” On Monday, it featured a moment in 1994 when Mr. Olbermann, then with a mustache and oversize glasses, referred to a man as having been “on the grassy knoll of the World Series of Golf.”

Sports is probably a better fit for his style of needling humor and high-flying hyperbole. As a political commentator, Mr. Olbermann was clever and sardonic, but also intensely self-righteous, and his combativeness spilled over into public spats with network executives and producers.

Detractors may wince at so much self-absorption, but it is actually a large part of Mr. Olbermann’s appeal.

All television anchors are egomaniacs: it’s a requirement in an impossibly difficult job in which any live remark can be a career-shattering land mine. But success is often determined by peripheral, subjective factors like looks, on-camera likability and the dreaded Q ratings. Live television is an adrenaline boost as scary and exhilarating as sky diving or cocaine, and just as addictive. The only difference is that some television stars can keep their narcissism off camera, and others let it seep through.

Mr. Olbermann bathes in it.

He opened on Monday with an inside joke about his 16-year sabbatical from ESPN: “As I was saying.” Then he ripped into an excoriation of a Daily News reporter’s tweets about a Jets game, insisting that the reporter made up a controversy over the future of the Jets coach Rex Ryan to boost his own profile. Mr. Olbermann said he agreed in this instance with Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who called the reporter a “dope” on a local radio show. Mr. Olbermann then noted slyly that he was already talking about a politician 48 seconds into his new, supposedly politics-free show.

And for many minutes, Mr. Olbermann assailed the reporter, Manish Mehta, for, among other things, asserting, without sources, that Mr. Ryan’s job could be in jeopardy after a quarterback was injured in the fourth quarter of a preseason game. That claim snowballed into a sports page kerfuffle that Mr. Olbermann, at least, considers ridiculous. As is his wont, he did not hold back.

“Reporting is dead,” he declared. “Long live making something out of nothing — if you can instigate controversy, if you can sell a few more newspapers to a world that no longer wants them, all your sins will be forgiven.”

Mr. Olbermann, who said his motto is “It’s your story, but it’s their life,” doesn’t appear to have quite as much empathy for civilians as he does for celebrities. A feature called “Keith Lights” is supposed to be a highlights reel, but it is also a low-blow montage of embarrassing moments, mostly focused on spectators looking foolish, like a fan at a Kansas City game picking his nose or another who caught a slammed tennis ball at the United States Open and playfully held it on the top of his head. “That’s not a good look, sir,” Mr. Olbermann sneered.

Mr. Olbermann may have left politics behind, but he has repurposed his signature segment on MSNBC, “The Worst Person in the World.” Now he is meting out the “The Worst Person in the Sports World” award. On Monday, it was Jim Crane, owner of the Houston Astros. Mr. Olbermann cited a Forbes magazine article that reported that even though the Astros were the worst team in the majors, television deals and low salaries have made them the most profitable baseball franchise, with an estimated $99 million in operating income this season.

For the final segment, Mr. Olbermann came back wearing a black leather Fonz-style jacket and told viewers, “Yes, it’s the jacket.” Mr. Olbermann said that it was the same one he wore 20 years ago when he inaugurated his first show on the newly formed ESPN2, and explained that he donned it not to look cool, but for warmth. Because of a problem with the air-conditioning, the studio was cold or, more exactly, 50 degrees.

On “Olbermann,” no detail about the host is too small or too old to leave out. It may not be the most creative sports show on television, but it is any anchor’s dream format.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/28/arts/television/keith-olbermanns-show-has-its-debut-on-espn2.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

China to Wall Street: The Side-Door Shuffle

IT was the hot new thing on Wall Street — one of those exotic investments that seem to promise untold riches for the lucky few.

And, like so many hot new things, it went cold fast.

Such was the fabulous stock-market flameout of a company called Rino International, an untested enterprise that, until recently, would have raised nary an eyebrow in the United States.

But over the last few years, Rino International and scores of other young Chinese companies slipped into the United States stock market through the back door. Rino’s American stockholders later lost hundreds of millions of dollars when accusations surfaced that the company had fudged its books. All told, investors’ losses on these Chinese ventures have stretched into the billions.

How companies like Rino wormed their way into the temples of American capitalism is a story for these financial times. Even amid the wreckage of the 2007-8 financial collapse, an ecosystem of Wall Street enablers — bankers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, auditors — spirited Chinese companies to the United States. With some deft financial maneuvers, these businesses essentially went public while sidestepping the usual rules. Before long, many were trading on the Nasdaq stock market, alongside the likes of Google.

It was all perfectly legal. With bankers’ help, the Chinese companies executed what are known as reverse mergers. They bought American companies that were merely shells and assumed those companies’ stock tickers — sort of the Wall Street equivalent of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” The strategy let them avoid reviews with state and federal regulators that are normally required for initial public stock offerings.

At issue now is who should bear responsibility for the bursting of yet another Wall Street bubble. Should it be the Chinese executives and their bankers, who engineered the deals and celebrated these companies? Or should it be the investors, who bought these stocks when, in hindsight, the risks seemed clear enough? The lawsuits are flying.

Next to Bernard L. Madoff and the sins of the subprime era, the supposed shenanigans of a few Chinese companies might seem like small beer. But the developments underscore fundamental questions that came to the fore in the financial crisis: What do the people who create and sell investments owe to those who buy the investments? And where, if anywhere, are the regulators?

Dozens of Chinese companies that, like Rino, entered the United States market via reverse mergers have since been accused of fraud or shoddy accounting. The shares of at least 19 of them have been suspended or delisted by Nasdaq, wiping out billions of dollars in stock market value. Shares of Rino, which were flying high at $35 in 2009, have been removed from the exchange.

Laurence M. Rosen, whose law firm has filed a class-action suit against Rino International, says Rino’s bankers failed investors. Wall Street didn’t do its homework, he says.

“This is egregious,” Mr. Rosen says. “They said they did due diligence but were fooled — but they weren’t doing any solid due diligence.”

Rino has been accused of creating phony business contracts and wildly inflating its sales, among other things. Executives at Rino International, which is based here in Dalian and makes industrial pollution control systems, declined to comment, beyond saying that it is conducting business as usual.

THERE is not much to see outside the headquarters of Rino International here. The company resides in a bland corporate park that is home to a number of other Chinese businesses. A guard stands watch at the gated entrance. Inside, workers load steel beams onto trucks. The bang and hum of factory work rises from workshops.

Dalian, a seaport city in northeastern China with a population of about six million, in recent years has developed into a fast-growing hub of machine manufacturing, petrochemicals, oil refining and electronics. Driving this growth have been companies like Rino, whose name means “green promise” in Chinese.

David Barboza reported from Dalian, China, and Azam Ahmed from New York. Xu Yan contributed research in Shanghai.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/business/global/reverse-mergers-give-chinese-firms-a-side-door-to-wall-st.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

The TV Watch: Keith Olbermann’s Show Has Its Debut on ESPN2

China to Wall Street: The Side-Door Shuffle

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