ESPN Suspends Keith Olbermann For Penn State Tweets

If you're a follower of ESPN's Keith Olbermann on Twitter, you're already familiar with his eagerness to engage his critics with a flurry of sarcastic tweets and snide insults. It can often be pretty entertaining to read, but more than once I've thought that at some point, one of these exchanges was going to get him into trouble.

That time came on Monday night, when Olbermann got into an exchange with students at Penn State. He's been known to take shots at the University and its students, although it's never been clear exactly what annoyed him about the school.

Monday's twitterstorm began when a PSU student tweeted him a link to a charity event held over the weekend at the university. Olbermann responded by calling the tweet "pitiful" and as you might imagine, things rapidly went downhill. After one student sent this tweet:

So @KeithOlbermann says PSU students raising over $13m for pediatric cancer research is "pitiful." No sir, u r the definition of the word.

Olbermann responded with this tweet:

.@dave_seidel No, Son. I said PSU students were pitiful. Had nothing to do with fundraising #AlsoPSUReadingComprehensionAppearsToBeWeak

The remarkable thing about the exchanges is that Olbermann seemed willing to respond and argue with anyone who tweeted him. And when it all died down, Olbermann wrapped it up with this parting shot:

I'd like to thank the students and alums of Penn State for proving my point about the mediocrity of their education and ethics.


On Tuesday, ESPN released the following statement:

We are aware of the exchange Keith Olbermann had on Twitter last night regarding Penn State. It was completely inappropriate and does not reflect the views of ESPN. We have discussed it with Keith, who recognizes he was wrong. ESPN and Keith have agreed that he will not host his show for the remainder of this week and will return on Monday. The annual tradition of THON and the efforts of the students of Penn State to fight pediatric cancer should be applauded.

Olbermann also tweeted an apology over the incident:

I apologize for the PSU tweets. I was stupid and childish and way less mature than the students there who did such a great fundraising job.

While it was an unfortunate exchange, I hope that it doesn't discourage Olbermann from engaging with critics and fans on Twitter in the future. The world already has enough safe, boring Twitter accounts managed by publicists and network suits.