One of my jobs in real life is as a plaintiff's-side employment attorney in California. (Taking such cases is speculative work; I also do other things for a more stable income, but I did this work exclusively for a year.) I see some misconceptions in comments to the front-page story and the one other diary I've looked at on the issue. As I've dealt with various such cases (though none so large), I just want to explain a bit of what's going on.
Keith Olbermann was not "axed." (You can say that of Countdown, though.) His departure from MSNBC was apparently negotiated this week. His attorneys and NBC's attorneys negotiated a settlement agreement, probably a buyout of his contract. That doesn't mean that Keith wanted it; it does mean that he reconciled himself to it. If NBC wanted to breach his contract and fire him without cause, they would owe him a bundle. Instead, they negotiated an end to it -- and probably they paid dearly for aspects of it. We should respect that. I strongly suspect that, unless they have pictures of him committing horrifying acts with a goat, Keith considers the deal to have been worth it.
Note: This is not intended and should not be taken as legal advice -- nor is it a solicitation of an attorney-client relationship. It addresses solely general issues in the field. If you have an employment law situation, do not rely on a single word here. Rely on your own legal counsel, whether paid or volunteer.
Here's what happens: a company has a contract with someone and they no longer want that person. They can't fire him for cause. So, instead, they negotiate a payoff -- one for which his attorneys will presumably get a cut, so it may be that much higher. They also make it dependent on certain agreements. Those agreements may make it hard for us to get the truth -- and may make it impossible for Keith to tell us the truth, so there's no point in pressuring him to do so.
These agreements will often have clauses involving "trade secrets," "non-disparagement," "waivers," and "confidentiality," among many others. (In California, a non-compete agreement would be unenforceable as against public policy, although I'm not an entertainment industry lawyer and I don't doubt that they might have figured out some workaround. I am barred in New York a member of the New York bar, but didn't practice employment law there, so I don't know what the relevant law would be.) [Update: but fladem apparently does know.]
"Trade secrets" means that if Keith knows things that are confidential to NBC employees, he can't tell people (except his counsel and to some degree maybe his spouse, who would be similarly bound.) Keith is probably getting a lot of money from this and he's not going to jeopardize it by giving away NBC's secrets, some of which may involve Comcast. If he wants to keep these secrets, that should be respected. After all, he did promise.
"Non-disparagement" will usually, in a case this lawyered up, be mutual. That means that both sides agree not to say nasty things about the other or to cause or recklessly allow such things to be said by their associates base on their insider knowledge. So, Keith's brother (if he has one) can say that NBC and Comcast are rotten thugs; that's his opinion. He can't use what Keith knows to bolster this opinion. Now, things will often leak, but they're deniable and both sides will put up with a certain amount of gossip rather than spike the deal.
"Waivers" apply to future claims. Keith will probably have to agree that he is abandoning all other claims against NBC (and hordes of other people who will be included in this), which does not cover, for example, a claim for libel based on a post-agreement event. Keith will not want to do this voluntarily. NBC will have had to up the ante for it.
Now, "confidentiality" is the most interesting one here. It's the one that will disappoint us most, and the one that -- due to that temptation -- we should strive hardest to respect. (There are circumstances where I hate confidentiality provisions because they may allow wrongdoers to keep on doing wrong without adverse publicity. This doesn't seem like one of those cases. The reasons to dislike what NBC -- with or without Comcast -- did here are pretty plainly perceivable.) What this means is that Keith probably cannot discuss either the terms of his separation agreement (beyond a limited amount of information that both sides agree will be made public) or the circumstances leading up to his termination. Yes, the bad part is that NBC is buying his silence. The good part is that NBC is buying his silence -- this is usually the only way a deal like this gets done -- and that all it will keep from us is his confirmation of what we already know or suspect.
Case in point: remember Bill O'Reilly's settlement of his case with the woman who he supposedly called while in a sexual frenzy, spilling out his scenario to her about what he wanted to do with her in a shower with a falafel -- he meant "loofah," presumably, assuming that this did happen -- until it was time to, um, throw in the towel (or the Kleenex or the sock, whatever)? She has never spoken about what happened publicly. Her allegations made it into the press because she brought forth a complaint -- dumb of O'Reilly's people not to head it off before then, but whatever -- but their truth has never been tested and she has never confirmed them. That's the deal. If it wasn't worth it to NBC, they wouldn't have paid for Keith's silence. Again, and I'm not being coy here, it's fine for Keith to do this. It's how he got his buyout. He'll do something nice with his money that will probably aid progressive causes. Rejoice with him!
(UPDATE: NOTE CORRECTION By the way, younger readers may not know that Michael Moore made his own name with just such a buyout -- from Mother Jones! He was hired as their editor way back in the early 80s, I think it was, and they didn't like him so they paid him a nice settlement. Michael Moore, who was briefly editor of Mother Jones in the late 1980s, did not receive a buyout -- but he did sue his former employer and reached a settlement. He used that to make Roger and Me, and the rest is history.)
At some point, if you like Keith (as I do), you have to trust him a little. Unless this came about as a result of scandal, he was negotiating from a position of strength. He is probably entirely able to continue criticizing the lack of progressive voices in the media -- and to become one of them in a way that doesn't compete with NBC. He will be fine.
Does this mean that there is no call to arms here? No. Of course there is one -- it's just not a call to avenge Keith Olbermann.
What Olbermann's departure highlights is the larger problem of the silencing of progressive voices in the mass media. We don't need to defend Keith here; my guess is that he and his attorneys did that just fine this week. We need to push for -- here we go again! -- "more and better progressive journalists."
My guess is that when we do so, Keith Olbermann will be standing right with us -- and probably smirking. And then, when his time on the sidelines is up, he'll be back in the game. As Mother Jones said [update -- though Joe Hill said it first, h/t to HiddenHistories]: don't mourn, organize!