The journalist who broke the story that got Keith Olbermann suspended from MSNBC is a recent college grad who’s been working in D.C. for less than six months..
Simmi Aujla was a member of Brown University’s class of 2009. She joined the staff at Politico in May. On Friday morning, she exposed MSNBC host Keith Olbermann’s campaign contributions to three Democratic candidates in Tuesday’s election.
Less than eight hours after Aujla’s article was published, MSNBC President Phil Griffin announced that Olbermann was suspended “indefinitely without pay” for violating network policy. MSNBC initially tapped The Nation’s D.C. Editor, Chris Hayes, to pinch hit for Olbermann, but the network quickly switched to news anchor Thomas Roberts amid reports that Hayes also donated to Democrats.
Aujla covers Congress for Politico. She is a native of Timonium, Maryland. Aujla was editor-in-chief of her college paper, the Brown Daily Herald. As of this writing, she has not responded to a request for comment from The Observer, but she has been Tweeting furiously about the ongoing fallout from her story all day.