Note to Keith Olbermann: Make sure your key still fits the locks at the office

After 10 years at MSNBC.com, Eric Alterman and Altercation, one of the longest-lived of all blogs, were told not to let the door smack them on the ass on their way out.

Diplomatic to the end, Alterman writes:

Whether my termination is, in fact, a product of a political decision at GE/NBC, which according to reports I read and gossip I hear, has lately taken a much firmer hand in guiding the content of both MSNBC and MSNBC.com, I have no way of knowing. I have never even spoken with the Web site’s current editor-in-chief, nor has anyone communicated with me beyond my immediate circle of editors. Outspoken liberals in the MSM have long been an endangered species. (From the beginning, a Wall Street Journal editorial page writer attacked the site for "conferring mainstream legitimacy on Eric Alterman.”) Even less common, I suppose, are Web sites that feel free to criticize their corporate parents, the pollution they cause, the lying, incompetent, ideologically extremist and corrupt presidents they coddle, and perhaps most especially, the all-but incomprehensible choices they make when doling out cable TV news programs. It would surprise no one if this site caused some discomfort at 30 Rock, if and when they happen to notice it. But speculation is not the same thing as evidence, and the good folks at MSNBC.com and GE/NBC can, I’m sure, give you good reasons why dumping Altercation is the right thing to do from a business standpoint —though the natural speculation that arises is a damn good argument against the kind of media concentration that allows a company like GE to own NBC in the first place.

Look for Altercation at Media Matters for America.