It looks like Gavin Newsom’s Current TV interview with director Oliver Stone at 11 PM tomorrow about Stone’s new movie Savages is going to be a doozy. Stone, explaining both the movie’s plot and his opposition to the drug war starts out with the genesis of the film: “We have the best weed inthe world—I’m telling you that from my own experience for 40 years,” he tells California’s Lt. Governor. “We started on Vietnamese weed, Thai weed, Jamaican weed, Sudanese weed and it was all great stuff. But now, actually, because Americans are so technically-minded and mad chemists—they have really taken the Afghan seeds from the Afghan war—that’s the hypothesis of our movie—and brought them to California, rededicated themselves and made the finest seeds in the world, the finest grass you could smoke.” Current gave me an exclusive first look at the interview:

It is, of course, an illustration of the disparities of the drug war that a prominent white director can talk so extensively about his drug use without fear of prosecution. But I’m more intrigued by Savages, which apparently is about border violence and the rise of drug cartels as well as Blake Lively living in a threesome with two drug-dealing brothers, than I was before I saw this interview. The more the drug war and the militarized culture it enables loses cultural credibility, the happier I am.

As Current TV heads into what is likely to be protracted litigation with Keith Olbermann, who it hired away from MSNBC to be its star anchor and News Director, the network needs some good news. But I’m not sure that the announcement that Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom will be doing a weekly interview show on Current is exactly the proof the network needs to regain its momentum and to rebuke Olbermann’s charges that Current is a tin pot imitation of a serious news channel.

There’s nothing objectionable about Newsom in theory. But he’s hardly a national political figure, and he has no experience whatsoever as a journalist. Current has tried to sell former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to viewers in part by suggesting that her political experience means she can call out talking points and hypocrisy when she sees them. But Newsom’s job at Current will involve doing interviews rather than delivering opinion pieces, which makes his credentials seem even slimmer.

Beyond that, Newsom is a sitting public official in California. The two tranches of people Current’s release said he’d be interviewing are from Silicon Valley and Hollywood, key constituencies for the administration Newsom is a part of. It’s highly unlikely that Newsom will ask anything close to a tough question of someone who is a potential donor, or who makes a substantial contribution to California’s tax base. Current officials spend a lot of time arguing that their network, unlike MSNBC, will speak truth to power. But hiring Newsom feels a lot more like Current becoming an adjunct of an administration, providing a politician who’d awfully like to have a national profile with a platform where he can burnish his media credentials and make nice with the people whose money could launch him on to greater stardom.

What does Current get out of this? If they’ve tired of the combative model that Olbermann and Cenk Uygur represent, he could be a transition towards something gentler, and more Hollywood oriented. If they’re trying to assemble assets to make the network more attractive to someone in a sale, Newsom seems more like the contents of a junk drawer than a major asset. And it doesn’t precisely make Current look committed to the principles it’s articulated as the network’s main selling point to viewers.

After Current TV fired Keith Olbermann last week, the combative host vowed he’d sue his (most recent) former network. Olbermann and his lawyers filed suit in California yesterday, and their allegations make for quite the read. Olbermann’s complaints with his former employer range from the social to the technical. Here are the ten most serious—and funniest—charges Olbermann makes against Current TV and its executives in the order they appear in the lawsuit:

1. Current co-founder Joel Hyatt was kind of socially awkward: A thread running through Olbermann’s lawsuit is that Current tried to distance him from his representation, sometimes to disadvantage him in negotiations. But in this case, Olbermann makes a more personal allegation, that “Hyatt also attempted to isolate Olbermann from his professional representatives in an awkward attempt to form a close personal friendship with his new star.”

2. Current underinvested in its web presence, to the detriment of its audience base: Sometime, these charges are an opportunity for snark, as when the suit alleges “Stunningly, Al Gore’s network was not interested in establishing a strong internet presence.” But the suit also suggests that the network was slow to build out its web presence and wouldn’t allow Olbermann’s show to stream online, a hook that might have helped viewers who didn’t have Current or weren’t sure where to find the network on their channel lineups, continue to watch the program. “Current even refused Olbermann’s request and contractual right, to stream segments of the Program and additional web-only content over the Program Website. It is both sad and ironic that a channel owned and founded by Al Gore, for the stated purpose of creating an independent perspective, free from the control of large corporate interests, restricted the rights of its most celebrated commentator and Chief News Officer to fully broadcast his opinions over, of all things, the internet.”

3. Current’s facilities were a mess: This has been one of the most commonly reported points of dissension between Current and Olbermann, particularly after an electrical failure while the program was on-air led Olbermann to bring a candle on set. The lawsuit alleges that “Current President David Bohrman admitted ‘the 33rd St. facility is never going to be a professional facility. We need to move to HD, and a better location.’ He further admitted in that same e-mail ‘We are paying for a Porsche and getting a Yugo.’”

4. Hyatt behavior threatened Olbermann’s staff: “Hyatt’s leadership was highly erratic. Just days before the premiere of the Program, Hyatt even threatened to fire Olbermann and the loyal staff members who had followed him from MSNBC to Current. Hyatt behaved as if he had just paid Olbermann to become his puppet instead of the Chief News Officer of the network.”

5. Hyatt and Current were moustache-twirling blackmailers: “Hyatt blackmailed Olbermann into agreeing to put himself in a position that no other major talent in the entertainment or news industries has been forced into in decades: fending for himself without the benefit of hire advisors. Olbermann gave in to Hyatt’s blackmail for the purposes of saving the premiere of the Program and the jobs of those who worked on it. Olbermann left the meeting devastated at having discovered that he was working for a blackmailer.”

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The bridge is yours.

-Are cable companies about to start dropping Current?

-A sci-fi and fantasy guide for the libertarians in the audience.

-The folks behind The Secret Life of Walter Mitty remake seem determined to make me not hate it.

-Electronic Arts calls the letters it’s been getting from anti-gay groups “political harassment.”

-Funny or Die filmed a West Wing reunion.

The New York Times’ Brian Stelter breaks the news that Current TV has let go Keith Olbermann, and will replace him starting tonight with Eliot Spitzer, denying Olbermann to give a send-off or special comment to his viewers. Spitzer, like Olbermann, also had experience at MSNBC, where he appeared as a guest anchor. Olbermann had been suspended by MSNBC for violating its rules on campaign contributions, an event that soured his relationship with the network, before his departure from MSNBC opened the door to his deal with Current. He was at one point a high-profile acquisition for the network, founded by former Vice President Al Gore to provide a more progressive take on the news. But his ratings fell and his relationship with Current quickly foundered.

In an open letter to Current viewers, Gore and co-founder Joel Hyatt wrote “We created Current to give voice to those Americans who refuse to rely on corporate-controlled media and are seeking an authentic progressive outlet. We are more committed to those goals today than ever before. Current was also founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it.” Olbermann had complained about technical issues on his set and squabbled with the network over his role in its coverage of the Republican primary, though he ultimately agreed to anchor those segments.

A source familiar with the decision-making process at Current said the choice to terminate Olbermann was based on what the network felt were violations of three tenets of his contract: a series of unathorized absences, a failure to promote the network, and disparagement both of Current as a network and of its executives individually. The source said that Olbermann missed 19 of his 41 working days in the months of January and February, and that Olbermann was told that if he took a vacation day he had requested for the night of March 5, it would be considered a breach of his contract. Olbermann took the day off, and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm ran a two-hour edition of her show, the War Room, in his place. The charges that he disparaged the network likely stem from the disputes over election coverage, when Olbermann said in a public statement: ““I was not given a legitimate opportunity to host under acceptable conditions. They know it and we know it. Telling half the story is wrong.”

In a series of Tweets after that letter was released, Olbermann sharply criticized Current’s leadership and said that he would sue the network, writing:

I’d like to apologize to my viewers and my staff for the failure of Current TV. Editorially, Countdown had never been better. But for more than a year I have been imploring Al Gore and Joel Hyatt to resolve our issues internally, while I’ve been not publicizing my complaints, and keeping the show alive for the sake of its loyal viewers and even more loyal staff. Nevertheless, Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt, instead of abiding by their promises and obligations and investing in a quality news program, finally thought it was more economical to try to get out of my contract.

It goes almost without saying that the claims against me implied in Current’s statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently. To understand Mr. Hyatt’s “values of respect, openness, collegiality and loyalty,” I encourage you to read of a previous occasion Mr. Hyatt found himself in court for having unjustly fired an employee. That employee’s name was Clarence B. Cain. http://nyti.ms/HueZsa

In due course, the truth of the ethics of Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt will come out. For now, it is important only to again acknowledge that joining them was a sincere and well-intentioned gesture on my part, but in retrospect a foolish one. That lack of judgment is mine and mine alone, and I apologize again for it.

Olbermann’s longtime attorney Patty Glaser has vowed a tough fight with the network after negotiations over a severance payment for Olbermann failed. And Current has hired a team of crisis public relations experts to help guide their response.

Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm hadn’t planned to make cable news her next career move after leaving office. But when former Vice President Al Gore called her up and asked Granholm to help fill out the prime time lineup at Current TV, she couldn’t resist. Before her show, The War Room, launched on January 31, Granholm promised to use her experience delivering talking points to call out politicians who try to sell them to the American public. I spoke with her about what her time in public service lets her bring to the cable news environment, why Fox, MSNBC, and CNN called on men rather than women to discuss President Obama’s contraception rule, and which guests she’d love to land. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Before you started your television show, what holes had you identified in the media that you wanted to fill? What really turned you off or dissatisfied you that you wanted to avoid?

Well, I wasn’t planning on doing a show. So I was called by Al Gore at Current here, and they wanted to build out their primetime lineup. So it’s only after that that I began thinking about what could be done in primetime that wasn’t already being done by others. One benefit I bring is that I have served. I was governor of the state with the toughest economy in the country for the last 10 years. The economy is the most important issue in this debate. And I know most of the candidates, Gov. Mitt Romney, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Gov. Mike Huckabee. I’ve served with them, I know what they’re doing in their states, and I can peel back the curtain. On both politics and policy, I can describe wht it’s like to be in the war room, to be preparing for debates.

One of the things you mentioned at the Television Critics Association is that you’d bring to the table the ability to see when politicians are delivering talking points and calling them out on it.

I’ve delivered so many talking point [that] I recognize when it’s happening. Maybe you’re not going to be able to get them to answer honestly, because they’re on a script, but I can identify for people what’s really going on behind the scenes. Having been there, I know exactly what’s going on. Calling them out if you can’t even get them to answer the question is important.

You seem to be part of a new generation of cable journalists who are bringing non-journalism experience to the networks, like Melissa Harris-Perry at MSNBC. Do you think this is a lasting trend? And what impact does it have on coverage?

I hope it’s not a blip. [It lets viewers understand] why is something just happened, not just that it’s happening. If Current wanted an anchor, I’m the last person they would hire. I think that’s interesting to viewers. They want to know what’s behind the curtain. They want to know the inside scoop. And that’s true whether that’s someone bringing the historical perspective, or someone like Lawrence O’Donnell, who worked [in various capacities] inside the Beltway.

Some of your coworkers have suggested that viewers are looking for a channel that’s bluntly progressive, and maybe even a little angry. Do you agree? And how do you fit into that equation?

We’re obviously a brand-new network, so we hope that it will translate into viewership. What Current brings is no need to have this false moral equivalency that other networks require. It’s interesting to have people on both sides of the issue that you want to get to the bottom of things. But to pretend that the president is just as culpable for not getting something done as people who went to Washington for the purpose of obstructionism, that is a false equivalency. Call them out on it. That is something that we have the freedom to be able to do because we don’t have owners who want a “fair and balanced” approach. You need to be fair, but you don’t need to be balanced.
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One of the biggest assumptions about Huffington Post’s merger with AOL was that the move essentially confirmed something that had been under way for a long time: that Huffington Post was no longer a progressive news and blogging outlet. Now that the company’s announcing a new streaming news channel with a full-time staff of 100 people and a commitment to start with 12 hours of programming a day during the week, it’s worth asking that question again.

In recent years, politics has largely been the way that news channels have defined themselves. Fox News’ brand is built on being a conservative attack machine; MSNBC’s become the home of wonky, enthusiastic liberalism; while Current TV is trying to market itself to a new generation of viewers as an aggressively progressive alternative to MSNBC and CNN worth seeking out affirmatively. If Huffington Post went progressive, it might be smart: it could snag those viewers that Current TV thinks is theirs, but in a model that acknowledges that those same young viewers are also the cord-cutters whose reluctance to pay for cable has an entire industry jittery. Politics could also be a wedge, a way to attract a certain core of viewers who are looking for something specific in their news coverage while HuffPo Streaming Network builds out its strength in other market areas.

But Huffington Post may not actually have to do that, at this point. Now that it’s done consolidating its channels with AOL, Huffington Post has a ton of disparate reader streams in place, reading about everything from the 2012 election cycle, to divorce, to celebrity crotch shots. HPSN can embed relevant programming on the relevant Huffington Post channels, pulling those readers seamlessly over to the programs that their reading habits suggest they’ll like, and hoping those reader/viewers will stick around for the next hour of programming as well. If they didn’t have to explicitly establish a political point of view, that could be a strength in terms of audience development. But it would be too bad from a progressive thinking point of view. If Current TV is going to be tied to the airwaves, it would be great to have progressives working on a new kind of cable news for an audience more dedicated the cords into their routers than the ones into their televisions.