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Edited on Sat Jun-17-06 01:57 PM by BerryBush
I feel safer saying it here, where people would at least have to donate to read it. (In other words, true KO political enemies would have to drop a dime for the Dems. Could they bear it? I don't think so.)
Anyway. After much reflection, here is why I don't believe the story put up on Kos...as pleasant and relieving as that might be.
I thought to myself, let's put aside all emotion and think like a person at MSNBC's HR department. If you worked in HR for MSNBC, and this stuff came out, what would YOU do?
I'll tell you what I'd do. And the first step would NOT involve calling Keith into my office.
First step: Determine if e-mails are real and came from an MSNBC account. Do what you have to. Go to the technical department and ask them for a copy of every e-mail ever sent from Keith's account. It's legal; the account belongs to MSNBC, not him. If you find stuff similar to what Grove published, step two is calling Keith in. (The other search alternative is to determine the legitimacy of the e-mails first as coming from MSNBC at all, but that would involve getting the actual headers of the replies--presumably from Grove.)
If they are from MSNBC but not Keith, the next step is to try to find out where they came from. And, fom which computer? You need to trace the e-mails down to the computer(s) used to send them and the login used to access the system.
Let's say they came from a computer or computers used by interns to sort KO's e-mail (and perhaps that of others). Note, I said "sort." Not "answer." Think about it. Would YOU trust some low-level intern to *answer* the e-mail of your on-air talent? Not if you're MSNBC. You may hire interns to SORT the mail, send him certain messages and withhold others--either to trash them, reply to them with form e-mails, or have them dealt with appropriately (threats).
So, let's say these messages were sent from a machine used by several interns to sort mail. Of course, they all have to log on and off the system. Your tech department keeps records of who logged on them, off them, etc. From there, it should be a snap to figure out who was logged into the machine(s) that sent the mails and, if that person is still working for MSNBC, call 'em in and deal with it from there. Tell them "You were hired to SORT e-mail here--not to ANSWER it. Especially not like this!"
If the situation calls for termination of that employee, there is no need to involve Keith at all. You fire the employee, have the PR department issue an announcement of what happened and that the situation has been dealt with, and that's it. Unless Keith wants to say something about it on the air--in which case maybe you make sure what he says is vetted by a lot of people, including your legal department.
The Keith haters will still come away believing that Keith did it and that MSNBC covered his butt and forced an innocent intern to take the fall for him, and will think even less of him for it. But there's not a whole lot anyone can do about that. As an HR person, you did the right thing. You found out it wasn't him and you appropriately punished the right person for doing something foolish that ended up hurting the reputation of an on-air talent.
Keith? He'd find out about it only after the fact. And why would he choose to take the rap? Chances are the offender is young and will get another job. Career not ruined. It's unfortunate, but it happens. This would not be the first intern to be fired for doing something foolish.
I'm sorry, but this to me is a "too good to be true" story that paints Keith as a heroic figure and ignores the reality of any major modern corporation...which is that they KNOW the ID numbers of their computers and they KNOW who is logged in and not logged in and when, and they have records of every e-mail ever sent. I just can't see them not being able to ID an intern that used Keith's name to do this.
on edit: One more thing: if Keith himself issues an apology, I will take it at face value. I will have to. It's just not like him to apologize for what he didn't do.
Oh, and I will admit: one of the great mysteries of ALL of this is exactly how silent MSNBC has been thus far. Of course, they could believe that nobody reads Grove, Olbermannwatch, NewsMax, etc. Or cares! But then again, Bill-O and all of Fox has been quiet, too...TOO quiet.
Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
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