o one in his right mind
would attack a philanthro-
py that had just finished
raising $13 million for the
fight against pediatric cancer, so it
seems safe to assume that Keith Olber-
mann didn't understand what he was
getting himself into when he engaged
in a heated Twitter exchange with
some Penn Staters last month follow-
ing THON.
Responding to a link that a Penn State
grad had tweeted to him in the form of a
"We are…" cheer – a link that led to a
Daily Collegian story about THON's
latest fundraising tally – Olbermann of-
fered a one-word response: "Pitiful." It
was all downhill from there.
A veteran broadcaster with long
stints at MSNBC and ESPN, Olber-
mann obviously didn't mean to call
THON pitiful; that would make him
the Worst Person in the World, to bor-
row a phrase. But you can understand
how people would get the wrong idea.
His gift for hyperbolic derision is such
that the Google search term "Keith Ol-
bermann blasts…" returns 332,000 re-
sults. (A partial list: Roger Goodell, the
Seattle Seahawks, NASCAR, Ne-
shaminy High School, Rick Santorum,
J U D G M E N T C A L L
Keeping it real
Penn Staters push back against oversimplified views
N
Cameron Hart
