However, he was recently suspended without pay by MSNBC for violating newsroom protocol by giving donations to several Democratic candidates. However, is this not a moot point? Yes, he did violate the code of conduct by donating to political candidates thus jeopardizing his objectivity, but how does this matter if it is widely known that he is an ideologue for the left? A tacit assumption in the policy is that the objectivity of journalists be held to a high standard, but there is nothing of the sort to be found in Olbermann. He has already provided far more assistance to the Democratic party through his opinionated new show than the measly $7,200 that he gave, and herein lies a problem for the entire concept of political donations.

It is justly undisputed that giving money to a politician or political party is a political donation. When the Supreme Court ruled that that a ban on corporate spending in candidate elections was unconstitutional, Olbermann went berserk about how this would kill free speech. Indeed, he has frequently lambasted the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who along with Bill O’Reilly was a frequent Worst Person in the World, for his large donations to Republican candidates. While decrying the influence that wealthy donors could play in politics, his Countdown has provided a pulpit from which both the agenda and arguments of the political left could be pontificated from.

Though that pulpit may not be a direct donation to Democratic candidates, it cannot be denied that it is a great advantage in their favor – at the very least it is acting as free advertisements in their favor. To accept this, and then act like Olbermann’s campaign contribution constituted anything like a breach of objective journalism, which ought to be the proper end of any code of conduct for journalists, is simply illogical.

For so long MSNBC has profited from having Olbermann as their feature commentator, and his partisan views have helped to provide the network with a niche as being the place for the left-wing news. Indeed, his hostility against Bill O’Reilly who occupies the 8 p.m. spot on Fox News has also helped maneuver it as an ideological alternative to Fox. Despite this, Rachel Maddow has commented that MSNBC suspended Olbermann for campaign donations – though there are no such rules at Fox banning campaign contributions. Adding this proves that the latter is a “news operation” and the former a “political operation.”

However, this statement is at best naïve and at worst deceptive, as the point of banning commentators from giving political donations is to preserve the impartiality of journalists. The content of their shows offers anything but. At least Fox does not try to suggest Sean Hannity’s commentary is compromised by his own political donations.

If there is a scandal to be found here, it is the attitude of MSNBC in allowing its newscast to provide on-air support to politicians and political causes with softball questions, public relations and airtime – while at the same time decrying the influence money has on politics.

They may pretend that they are the protectors of public discourse, while money only serves to warp it by making puppets of politicians, but there is no way one could honestly assert this. Olbermann himself exemplifies this contradictory attitude. When the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections; he was one of those condemning this as preventing any checks on “large agglomerations of power to decide our elections.”

However, Olbermann forgets to attribute the power of the media and their judgment on events, including the power of his own Countdown, to also decide elections. By doing this he tries to play the role of the public watch-dog for Democracy, but this is simply an assault on the reason of his viewers since they should know, as should all, that he is the watch-dog of the public rather than the watch-dog of the left. Even though one may agree with Olbermann, asserting that he is both an objective journalist and that his news program is not to the advantage of politicians on a certain side of the political spectrum is lunacy.

In the end, MSNBC should have never tried to act as if Olbermann’s political donations to Democratic candidates constituted a breach of any true journalistic code of conduct that the slanted content of his Countdown does not. At the same time both MSNBC and Olbermann must stop pretending that big money constitutes any more of a threat to public discourse than the big media they participate in does.