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Keith Olbermann Shares Paul Harvey’s ‘Terrible, Dark, Evil Secret’

“Thus, Paul Harvey never took all the vacation time ABC owed him. Not even in year 58 of his tenure at the network.”

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During the Thursday version of his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast, Olbermann described in his “Things I Promised Not To Tell” segment the details of how he nearly became the successor to Paul Harvey at ABC Radio, and how he learned what Harvey viewed as his “terrible, dark, evil secret”.

“No one could mention this,” said Olbermann. “Nor the name of the other person involved. Nor the nature of the terrible thing that had happened on fear of absolute banishment from the world of Paul Harvey. The ABC executive who told me this story would not even tell it to me inside the ABC Radio news headquarters. We went and had coffee at a diner and he kept looking around to make sure nobody else was there from the network.”

Olbermann shared how ABC Radio executives liked the young newcaster so much they helped him move from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Chicago and would use him as a backup host.

“The guy that Paul Harvey backed up in the late 40s and early 50s was named H.R. Baukage. He called himself just Baukage on the air and he was already a star news reporter in this country when they invented radio. He had covered World War I for several newspapers. He had gone to work for ABC Radio’s predecessor, the NBC Blue Network, in 1932.”

In 1951, Baukage was ABC TV’s news anchor, and also did a daily 15-minute news roundup on ABC Radio. But when he went on a vacation in 1951, his role changed.

“They asked that kid from Chicago, Paul Harvey, to fill in for Baukage,” Olbermann shared. “Baukage was 62 and it was sure great that he had covered World War I but that was literally an entire World War before the one everyone was still talking about in 1951. ABC executives liked the young, brash, dramatic Paul Harvey and so when Baukage came back, they fired him. They gave Paul Harvey Baukage’s show. But you weren’t allowed to know that. It’s not on the web, except in a transcript o the obit I did when Paul Harvey died.

Olbermann then stated another secret: He updates Paul Harvey’s Wikipedia page “every couple years” to share that Harvey took over for H.R. Baukage, and waits to see how long it takes someone else to remove it. He then went on to share how Harvey feared the same situation might happen to him someday.

“This was Paul Harvey’s terrible, dark, evil secret. His big break was the guy he was filling in for got fired. I don’t think — having studied this as best I could — that Paul Harvey got H.R. Baukage fired. Nor did my boss at ABC think that. But over 50 years, Paul Harvey began to believe, not only that he got H.R. Baukage fired, but that some day God would avenge poor Baukage, and on that one day, Paul Harvey would get fired and be replaced by some guy who filled in for him while he was on vacation.

“Thus, Paul Harvey never took all the vacation time ABC owed him. Not even in year 58 of his tenure at the network. And he got up at 3:30 every morning to get to the studio or 1:30 when he was broadcasting from his other home in Arizona because he was convinced ABC would someday ‘Baukage’ him.”

Olbermann then detailed how the same ABC executive who told him Harvey’s fear of the Baukage story getting out told him they needed to plan for an eventual replacement for the venerable newsman. It centered around Olbermann beginning a Sunday format similar to Harvey’s, as someone familiar to Harvey’s listeners would be the easiest way to replace the legend…until someone mentioned the plan to Harvey.

“‘This what will now happen,” Olbermann said as he imitated Harvey. “‘You will fly to Chicago tomorrow with a new contract for me, Paul Harvey. This contract will be for the same terms and length as the current one but it will include one paragraph spelling out that Keith Olbermann will never again appear on Paul Harvey News and Comment. And another paragraph stating there will never be a seventh day of Paul Harvey News and Comment with or without Paul Harvey or I resign’.

“Paul knew in his heart the time had come. Paul Harvey’s Paul Harvey was at the door. So, he had to kill him.”

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Tim Conway Jr.: Social Media Quickens the News Cycle for Stories Like the Baltimore Bridge

“A good buddy of mine, he sent me that literally about 40 minutes after it happened. The video and the story. That’s crazy.”

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(Photo: KFI AM-640)

Social media video of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsing in the Baltimore harbor made the rounds Tuesday morning. KFI AM-640 host Tim Conway Jr. believes the way we learned about the tragedy shapes the coverage surrounding it.

While discussing the happenings with KFI reporter Steve Gregory, who has a long history of covering breaking news events, Conway Jr. noted that not only did social media help confirm the validity of the story, but seeing the images spread so quickly shined a spotlight on how fast the news cycle moves now.

“What a great advantage of having Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and then TikTok, all these social media is when something like that happens you know, because it happens so late we would have not ever heard about it or seen anything until the morning news,” said Conway Jr.

“But now with social media you instantly know. A good buddy of mine, he sent me that literally about 40 minutes after it happened. The video and the story. That’s crazy.”

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Michael Riedel: Once You Start Talking About People’s Personal Lives, There’s No Going Back

“If you go down that path, then you’re headed towards National Enquirer territory and as a journalist, you can never really come back from that.”

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(Photo: 710 WOR)

710 WOR morning host Michael Riedel got spent years working as a Broadway reporter and columnist before shifting to the New York news/talker. He has one guiding principle for the radio show that he has kept from his writing days.

Riedel was discussing his previous role at the New York Post with colleague Mark Simone on his midday program and said there are just some things you shouldn’t talk about.

“I got all the backstage stories when I was writing the column about Broadway for the New York Post. You know, celebrities, the leading lady fighting with the producer, lawsuits,” Riedel shared. “But I always drew the line at people’s private lives. Because I thought if you go down that path, then you’re headed towards National Enquirer territory and as a journalist, you can never really come back from that.

“If somebody filed a sexual harassment suit against somebody, I covered those. That’s fine. I mean, as soon as a suit is filed, it’s a matter of public record. I could get into it, but I never got into who’s sleeping with whom and who’s doing this thing. Not to say I didn’t know, and I loved hearing about it, but I drew the line at people’s personal lives when I wrote about them.”

Simone joked that he admired Riedel’s ability to converse with celebrities and know “exactly what that guy would be fascinated by.”

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Howie Carr: MSNBC Hosts Have Too Many Skeletons in Closet to Criticize Ronna McDaniel

“Al Sharpton…is he offended? Brian Williams? Is he still ’emeritus,’ right? How about all the Dateline NBC people who put the bomb in the truck? Mike Barnicle? Is he offended?”

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NBC News, MSNBC, and Ronna McDaniel have been at the forefront of the news media cycle after her hiring and subsequent removal from the network. Howie Carr believes the entire ordeal is an exercise in hypocrisy.

During The Howie Carr Show, the Boston-based host shared his belief that the reaction from MSNBC hosts like Joe Scarborough, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O’Donnell about the hiring of McDaniel reeks of dishonesty.

“Talk about hypocrisy here. NBC is now claiming to be journalists? They’re offended by Rhonda McDaniel, because she makes stuff up,” said Carr.

“Al Sharpton…is he offended? Brian Williams? Is he still ’emeritus,’ right? How about all the Dateline NBC people who put the bomb in the truck? Mike Barnicle? Is he offended? Chuck Todd, former coat-holder for Tom Harkin whose wife made millions working for Bernie Sanders, another very upstanding statesman.

“Joy Reid, who was caught with all the anti-gay, believe anti-Muslim tweets, too? She said she was hacked by a time traveler and asked the FBI to investigate it. And Lawrence O’Donnell, the guy who made up the Deutsche Bank thing that had to apologize? Rachel Maddow, who group came up with Trump’s income taxes return like it was a big scoop and had already put it in a book 20 years earlier? Did Joe Scarborough denounced him from his old congressional office in Fort Walton Beach, Florida where they found a dead girl? They’re appalled by Ronna McDaniel. Appalled.”

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