Vanity Fair

Following up on the announcement last week that Current TV was up for sale, USA Today ran an article on Nov. 5 highlighting some of the failures of the short-lived cable channel founded by former vice president Al Gore.

Vanity Fair’s Michael Wolff, writing for USA Today, aptly described Current TV as “quite a disaster area.” He pointed out that it has never been able to “clarify its mission, style or business reason for being. With a history of management quarrels, it often wasn’t even clear who was running the place.” As an example of the problems overwhelming the network, Wolff recapped Current TV’s hiring of Keith Olbermann, which “shortly ended in acrimony and recrimination.” The vitriolic Olbermann, had previously anchored a show on MSNBC -- which had ended abruptly in early 2011. Current hired him the same year, but fired him in March 2012, due to an apparent conflict of interest.