Keith Olbermann, former MSNBC star / bete noire, did not come up explicitly in the questioning at the MSNBC panel today at the TCA press tour. But his mutually negotiated departure earlier this year was a subtext of many of the questions addressed to news chief Phil Griffin and hosts Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell and Chris Matthews: how the network was branding and building up staff for the future, how it was doing in the ratings, how it would fill holes in its schedule.
But when it came to directly talking about the state of the network, Griffin and company preferred to, well, lean forward. (Speaking to reporters after the session, Maddow said, “Keith and I haven’t talked at all since he left.”)
