Looks like ex-MSNBC personality, bowtie fan, and current head of The Daily Caller Tucker Carlson wasn’t content to sit on the sidelines as civil war broke out at his former workplace. Instead, he has placed himself and the always-keen-for-a-controversy Caller right in the middle of the fray, posing as Olbermann via e-mail (or someone else from the site doing so) and engaging in an online fight with the Philadelphia Daily News’s Stu Bykofsky. Website Phawker had the story before it imploded, posting the following e-mail back-and-forth.
It goes on until the supposed Mr. O writes:
But I do want to correct one of the numerous errors of fact in your email: Phil Griffin did not suspend me. He doesn’t have the power or frankly the courage to do so. Once I had been (very) temporarily relieved of my duties by NBC management, Phil got on the phone to some of your fellow idiot TV columnists and tried to claim credit.
As if.
Needless to say, with the hoax still yet to be unraveled, the exchange caused a stir—but cracks began to appear when Keith Olbermann sent out the followng Tweet this afternoon.
Now Michael Calderone has the story behind the story, which may ring familiar to anyone who has seen the recent film “Catfish.”
Joel Meares is a former CJR assistant editor.Tucker Carlson boasted last July that his site, The Daily Caller, bought the domain name for liberal MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. Carlson, a conservative journalist and pundit, even said he would start using the email address keith@keitholbermann.com as a gag.
So it was interesting to see that Olbermann allegedly sent some angry emails to the Philadelphia Daily News’ Stu Bykofsky using the email address keith@keitholbermann.com.
Bykofsky claimed the exchange was “guaranteed 100% for real.”And he later confirmed to Jim Romenesko that he was writing to keith@keitholbermann.com.
Although emails were indeed sent back and forth, it wasn’t Olbermann on the other end.
An MSNBC spokesman confirmed the emails are fake, and Olbermann responded in a statement to The Upshot: “Mr. Bykofsky has been, I would suggest, hoist on his own petard.”
