I remember the NYT and various media bleating incessantly that Carter was 'weak' back before big daddy RayGun beamed into the casa blanca with his back-to-the-50's nonsense.  

is it despicable? yeah.

i'm at a loss for figuring out what to do.  it is great that there is instant exposure of their corporate fat class lies,

and ignoring the lies is stupid (see Dukakis 1988, Kerry 2004, Presidential Election)

but

what to do for us peeeee-ons?

 The Partisan Media (1790-1840)
 The Commercial Media (1840-1920)
 The Objective Media (1920-1970)
 The Interpretative Media (1970-1980)
 The Fragmented Media (1990-?)

and that it appears we're heading into Partisan Media redux. The GOP's forays into paying journalists and giving exclusive scoops to Drudge and Fox are some of the more blatant moves in that direction.

The interesting point is that in the partisan era journalists, says West, had no credibility. No one took anything they said with anything but a grain of salt and recognized everyone was writing as a partisan. Some 80% of newspapers were directly supported by a particular political party, and the few that weren't covered strictly non-political topics (like farming, that at the time I suppose hadn't yet been politicized). If you wanted to know what was actually going on, you had to read multiple sources with different perspectives. Sounding a bit familiar already?

It seems the mischief that's done by articles like this one from AP is that people read them still expecting the professional objectivity of The Objective Media when it's as a general rule long gone. It's much less harmful if it's read simply as partisan promotion and given a slap-back from the opposite partisan point of view.

It seems to me it might be time to give up pushing the media to display objectivity and instead start labeling the media partisanship that's becoming more and more evident.  

AP can join Republican pundit Bill O'Reilly, Republican radio personality Rush Limbaugh, Republican TV network Fox, etc as labeled as what they are.

The article did have some balance to it I think. For example:

Olbermann knows to leave his opinions at home when he anchors events, said Phil Griffin, NBC News senior vice president.

"Keith's an adult," Griffin said. "He can tell when it's appropriate to express himself in a commentary and when to be a journalist. That's one of his strengths. He knows exactly the tone and his role when he's doing anything."

So there is some defense for him by the NBC VP.

And then to put things in perspective and add more balance to the article:

Questions about the objectivity of television news personalities have been around as long as there was a TV set to yell back at. Now we're in an era where anchors blog, they emote, they lift the curtain to expose how their shows operate.

"It's a different world," Griffin said, "and I think Keith has mastered this world better than anybody."

The popularity of Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck on CNN alone illustrates how opinion has become more important on cable news. A general public that laughs at Jon Stewart's take on the news has probably become accustomed to a point of view, said Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

"I wonder, candidly, how many people parse the ethics on this anymore, other than people in the industry," he said.

Clearly there's a taste in America for both a partisan and nonpartisan press. The middle ground is where it gets tricky.

Yeah there is a taste for it and the article does not hide it. In fact the title of the article points no fingers - it asks a question and then lets the NBC VP answer it:
Can Keith Olbermann straddle the line between news and opinion?

Asked and answered.

So it was not a total hatchet job.

And in fact when people do what Olberman does magnificently it is to be expected in todays press that there is mention of it. Some people see that as criticism. Others call it Free Publicity.

Parse a line here and there and you can call it bad. Take the article in it's entirety and it is pretty balanced - mentions commentators from both sides - says this topic is as old as the hills - and has NBC stand up for KO.

If Bill O'Reilly hosted a Democratic debate lefties would fall down weeping.  Of course, how could he with Dems boycotting Fox?  Regardless, the idea that Olbermann can be passed off as just another objective newsman who only loathes Republicans when he is doing his special comment is absurd, as anyone with half a shred of intellectual honesty and consistency could recognize.