I'm sad to notice that a rift has opened between one-time friends and colleagues Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. The two of them were a big reason why I got into news and politics, and their apparent break-up is a reality check about the pressures of show business.
When Olbermann left MSNBC in January 2011, he and Maddow had kind words for each other. He called her "my dear friend" as he signed off, and she spent a brief segment of her show explaining that she would never have found a place on the network without his support.
More than that, she credited him with single-handedly clearing the way for liberals to succeed on prime time television. "If you want to be a pioneer, don't just be the first person like you to do something. Be the first person like you to do it brilliantly. That's how you change the world so other people like you get chances too."
But things became more complicated when Olbermann signed on to Current TV. In the lead-up to his new show that June, he sparked headlines by telling Late Night host Jimmy Fallon he wanted to steal Maddow from MSNBC once her contract ended. I noticed a few grumbles among some of her fans, who felt he was dragging her into his rivalry with the network without considering her own career goals.
Then, when his show premiered, Olbermann pushed his airtime three minutes into Maddow's 9pm timeslot in an attempt to peel off some of her viewers. It angered her fans and seemed to provoke Maddow herself, who made a pointed on-air remark that "at the top of the hour this show ends and the next one begins". He eventually walked it back, insisting she was his friend.
But in August, MSNBC announced that Maddow had renewed her contract with them. "I'm really happy with my job," she said after the press conference. "I want to stay here and keep doing what I'm doing." She also repeated - wearily, I thought - that she had not spoken to Olbermann since he left. "I still consider him a friend. We both have just been really busy."
It was around that time that Olbermann's mentions of her on Twitter dwindled to almost nothing. Acting on a hunch a while later, I discovered he had apparently unfollowed her. He tried to joke with her once or twice after that, but from all appearances they had fallen out of touch.
Since then, Olbermann has been fired from Current TV and sued the network for breach of contract. And this week, on the fourth anniversary of Maddow's show, he went after her as well.
In fact, Maddow gave only a brief mention to the anniversary and did not personally thank anyone. "As my friend Ed noted at the top of the show, happy fourth birthday to The Rachel Maddow Show, to everybody who works on this show," she said. "We have loved every minute of it - we never thought we'd last this long! But it's been great. Thank you, we couldn't do it without you."
The "sell-out" remark is a stretch. Maddow has made errors of judgment over the years and in some ways is less confrontational than Olbermann, but she is consistently tough on foreign policy, military funding, Citizens United, corrupt oil companies, voting restrictions and abortion rights - topics that don't exactly rake in ratings or please corporate overlords.
And if Olbermann can set himself up as her network's competition and try to steal her and her viewers, why should she undermine her own business interests by name-dropping him and giving him publicity?
I'm genuinely sorry their friendship has taken a hit, but this is also an important case study. Olbermann and Maddow inspired me to become a journalist - and now that I'm a journalist, I have to look at them with a critical eye and pay attention to what this says about their careers and the media in general.
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