Prime-time anchor Keith Olbermann of MSNBC will return to the air on Tuesday night after being suspended for making political contributions to Democratic candidates. He had been penalised for violating NBC policy on contributing to political candidates.
Olbermann had been suspended on Friday last without pay for contributing $2,400 each to three Democratic candidates in the midterm elections without prior approval from the network. Olbermann had contributed to the campaigns of Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway, and Arizona Representatives Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. Conway lost, but Grijalva and Giffords won.
His programme, Countdown, is one of the most popular on the network.
According to Reuters, MSNBC president Phil Griffin said in a statement, "After several days of deliberation and discussion, I have determined that suspending Keith through and including Monday night's program is an appropriate punishment for his violation of our policy. We look forward to having him back on the air Tuesday night."
According to The Los Angeles Times, Olbermann on Monday night criticised NBC for enforcing a donation policy that was "inconsistently applied" and insisted that he wasn’t aware of the network's standards in an open letter to his fans.
He said: You should also know that I did not attempt to keep any of these political contributions secret; I knew they would be known to you and the rest of the public. I did not make them through a relative, friend, corporation, PAC, or any other intermediary, and I did not blame them on some kind of convenient 'mistake' by their recipients. When a website contacted NBC about one of the donations, I immediately volunteered that there were in fact three of them; and contrary to much of the subsequent reporting, I immediately volunteered to explain all this, on-air and off, in the fashion MSNBC desired.
News of the donations was first reported by Politico.
